It’s been a screwed-up week for the Singapore Artillery.
Around four days back, a gun technician who was tasked to repair a gun howitzer,
ended up getting crushed by the gun howitzer. He was taken to hospital and
after four days, he died. All this happened in Waiaru, New Zealand, the place
where we lost Ronnie and Yin Tit in that tragic accident all those years ago. The
only thing I can say to all of this is “Oh God, not again.”
The emotion is very simple – why? After 22-years, we learnt
to accept that what happened to Ronnie and Yin Tit was a horrible cosmic joke, it
had to happen to someone else.
I guess you could say, I’ve made my peace with the incident
and the emotions that went with it. I’m sad that I lost a friend, who was the
nicest of people. Ronnie, was a sticker for the rules and he was a kind and
gentle soul who gave more than he got. He did everything he was supposed to do
and his reward was to get cut down just when he was about to bloom. The sadness
of his demise has dimmed with the years and because he was such a good person,
I do my part in trying to make sure that nobody else gets cut down the way he did
in the only way that I know how – the pieces I write about the incident. It’s like
throwing stones in a river to save people from drowning – you know your efforts
might be futile but you do so because hopefully someone out there might read
what I write and also do something to ensure people don’t die the way poor
Ronnie and Yin-Tit had to die.
Sadness eventually dims as life moves on. However, the one
emotion that often returns is ‘rage.’ I remember only being able to cry properly
for a friend who deserved better two months after the fact because I was too
angry with the system. As far as I was concern, I didn’t want to give the organization
the “face” it was so desperately trying to save in front of the Kiwis. When the
Committee of Inspection released its findings and I saw the results of the organization
and everyone at large, I got more pissed off. I have a horrible allergy to paper
pushers from this incident – these are always the fuckers who sit behind a desk
and find a way to push responsibility to the poor shits out in the field.
I’m generally pretty cool about things in general. When I
read about these incidents that take place in the SAF, I’m often able to
compose my thoughts pretty well. This one is different. I guess it’s because it
has hit close to home – artillery and New Zealand – it’s déjà vu again.
To be fair to the powers that be, they’re acting faster than
they did 22-years ago. I guess one can be cynical here in as much as they can’t
hide because the late gun technician is a local celebrity. However, one needs
to look at things objectively.
I credit the Chief of Defense Force for calling a press
conference. While none of the speakers were great speakers, they came out and
gave the facts from the findings they had conducted. You have to give credit to
them for also talking about what they were going to do from there. While the
Generals got pilloried online, I have to give them credit for coming out and
facing public scrutiny and inevitable public anger. The SAF has done much
better than the Ministry of Home Affairs when the man with the limp strolled of
prison.
You can see the press conference called by the military at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qqjpL47ttQ
From a logical, rational standpoint, we should wait till
facts have been revealed. A part of me says, let the facts come out before we judge.
I’ve also made the point that we need to accept that being a
soldier is inherently a dangerous job. You are expected to put your life in harm’s
way to get the job done. I take my batch as an example. We can get it if our
friend died in a combat situation. We can get it that accidents happen and “shit
happens.”
I don’t think I would be the only person from my batch to
say that what we cannot accept is being killed by our own side. In the
aftermath of “Swift Lion,” it was found that something close to 1 in 40 fuzes
that we, the guys on the front line were expected to use was faulty. In medical
terminology, this was an unacceptable risk to put us through.
What made it made it worse was a Committee of Inquiry telling
us that this was because the fuze was made somewhere else. As I have said on
social media, the message is received as “We got conned by devious American
capitalist using crappy Chinese manufacturing.” – Erm – what happened to checks
by our defense procurement guys? Can the people making money from weapon sales
actually do the job they’re paid to do so that the guys using the said weapons
don’t end up getting killed by their own weapons? Nope, it never occurred to
anyone did it? As a “soldier on the field,” how do you accept that fact – oppss,
sorry, your guy died but at least the local defence industry gets to make more
money from taxes you pay. I don’t get that.
I put something about this on Facebook and an old school
friend asked me, “Is there anything to suggest that it wasn’t an accident”
Thus far, the answer would seem to be no. However, in some
ways, this incident is worse than the one that took place 22-years ago. While
my knowledge of howitzer operations is rusty and it’s a howitzer that I only
reviewed from a writer’s perspective rather an operator’s perspective, there
are two key things that bother me:
Firstly, this was not an operational exercise but a maintenance
accident. Much has been said online about the “lack of safety culture,” in the
SAF and how safety gets cut because we’re constantly rushing to make timing –
just remember this is not a couple of guys sprinting – its heavy machinery being
plonked in uneven terrain in as little time as possible.
However, this wasn’t an operation out in the field where
there are pressures to get things done quickly. This was a maintenance exercise
where the pressure to “meet timing” wasn’t there. The objective was to diagnose
a technical problem and the people involved had time to think clearly.
The there’s the issue of the gun itself. Primus has been in operation
for 16-years without a hitch. While a friend of mine did point out that the Primus
gunners are in a confined space unlike the towed artillery gunners, it would
technically be impossible for the barrel to have swung at such a pace that he
could get crushed. The hydraulics of the
barrel movement are such that the operator lowering the barrel would have enough
control to prevent anything nasty happening. That is unless there was such a
major fault that there was a total loss of control in the operation or worse.
Something doesn’t feel quite right here and I am just baffled
how this incident could happen if everything was followed correctly or if the machinery
was in reasonable condition. I pray that this is a freak accident and nothing
more than that.
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