Nineteen Years and Counting

I suppose, when I arrived at 7.45am on a humid Sunday morning, my two cats rather annoyed at me for their 14-hour flight ordeal, that it never dawned on me I would be here for this long. Nor, that one day, two teenage sons in tow, that I would be experiencing my own form of National Service. 

My tale does not start at the beginning. Mind you, what decent tale ever does? Neither am I certain that it starts in the middle. But then time is relative, and who knows how much we really have?

I begin my recount at one of those momentous turning points. No epiphany, no revelation or sudden inspiration, but rather at a point when you realise that perhaps there is a choice of where you call home.

National Service in Singapore is a right of passage for any male over the age of 18 who is a Singapore citizen or has been born in Singapore as a Permanent Resident. While the mandatory nature of National Service has riled me at times, this journey within a journey, if embraced correctly, is a path to appreciation, and on so many levels. 

As a parent of an NS man - A term I still find hard to digest as my son is still a boy, although in the UK he is technically an adult - the first few posts will be a reflection of the intriguing experience I have been through over the past eight months. With another sixteen to go.

Then it will it start all over again with son number two.