SAF insensitive towards deceased NSF's family

http://therealsingapore.com/content/saf-...sfs-family

**This is a Facebook message forwarded to us by Charlyn Yap a friend of the late Dominique Lee.**

Hi TRS,

Back in April 2012, my friend, Dominique Lee passed away while serving in SAF. I'm sure you have heard or wrote a story about his death. However, since his death, his family has taken on a wild goose chase by the government and they have decided to take things into their own hands.

I am contacting you on behalf of my friend's mother hoping that you will do a story so that we can gain some awareness and support from the Singapore community as this will affect every son, brother, nephew or boyfriend.

We do not want more deaths to occur especially with MINDEF's level of ignorance. In August, my friend's mum received a letter from them instructing her already dead son to collect his SAF CARD! This clearly tells us that every NS death is just a number to them and how insensitive the government is to his family by rubbing salt in their wounds!

Also, when he died, Defence Minister Ng Eng Han 'wrote' a condolence letter to his mother and guess what, THEY SPELT HIS NAME WRONG. I hope that you will take the time to read what my friend's mum has to say so we can garner support from the singapore online community and tell the government that we demand action and not just words.

Once again, I'd like to thank TRS for taking the time to read this. His mother has drafted up a note to be shared. You can find a note written by his mother here:

From Felicia Seah (Dominique Lee's Mum):

I am a mother of 2 Singaporean sons. My sons are my world. My elder son was enlisted into the SAF November last year. On 17 April 2012, I received a call from the hospital that my son had been admitted to the A&E. When I arrived at the hospital, I was told that my son had died from respiratory failure. In that instance, my world collapsed.It is clear to my family and me that my son’s death was preventable. He was asthmatic. The incident that cost him his life was an urban training exercise involving smoke bombs in a confined area.

However, it is not his death I wish to discuss here. The issue I wish to present to you is that of safety regulations in the SAF. I am urging all parents of Singaporean sons to stand with me, to advocate for greater accountability on the part of the SAF for the safety of our sons. We cannot be mere bystanders when our sons are conscripted into NS. We cannot allow for our sons to be at the mercy of the training officers, be it the platoon sergeants or commanders, who are very often, little older and none the wiser than the boys they are tasked to oversee, boys whose lives often depend on the decisions that they make.

I do not wish my tragedy on anyone and I do not want my son’s untimely death to go into the books of MINDEF as just another accident. Parents, I urge you to join me, so that MINDEF may hear our collective voice, and be moved to do more than pay lip service to ensure that our sons come back home alive and well.
Together, let’s call for:
1. More thorough screening of the medical history of NSF pre-enlistment, to ensure accurate fitness classification.
2. More stringent risk assessment of every training exercise.
3. Better equipped medical centres with better trained medical staff at/near every training location.
4. More stringent monitoring of staff who oversee NSF, to weed out abuse of power at all levels.
5. Greater accountability by MINDEF and SAF to all parents.

Parents, let us stand together to protect our sons and keep our families intact.

Let us bring our sons home safe!

>Asthmatic national serviceman
>Probably a good idea to put him in a confined area with smoke bombs

Singaporeans.

From a common-sense point of view, yes it sounds really . From a 3rd-party point of view, it's on the slightly unusual side because no one has died due to direct participation in the exercise as far as we know till now... but it seems to demonstrate to me that there was insufficient care taken during trainings (given what I know now, it could also be that guy ghey kiang i.e. the soldier himself pushed himself too hard/overconfident).

1. Kinda agree, though it's not exactly bad now; but any more thorough and... well... it's already taking a pretty large amount of manpower now ya know.
2. Fair. Every NSF's death in combat training always results in re-evaluation of every exercise.
3. Medical centre part... not exactly necessary... they're not all that bad. Medical staff... no for equipment because there's a limit to how much the combat medics can carry! But yes for training - I've had my own blood injected into myself when I was having my blood drawn for a final medical evaluation at the end of my army training =.= But then again, there's a limit to how much real experience one can get in training - mock-up situations don't do real situations enough justice at all... (let's not argue till the sun sets/rises)
4. While it is a valid concern, it's not relevant in this situation. Nonetheless, having more stringent monitoring of staff and trainees would have helped prevent those mistakes in these situations.
5. Erm... que?

Emotionally perfectly understandable. Are what they have said really going to be helpful... I reserve judgement. Was there insensitivity demonstrated - yes... could be human error though...

Hadriel