My National Day Parade

I remem­ber National Day Parade 1990 the most because it’s the NDP I was involved in.

It was held at the Padang, and it fea­tured the most impres­sive mobile col­umn dis­play since inde­pen­dence, involv­ing all the mil­i­tary hard­ware and sol­diers (like us) of the day.

At the begin­ning of that year, my bat­tal­ion mates and I were in our sec­ond year of National Ser­vice — and for some rea­son, there was a what was called a “lull period” in our train­ing pro­gram. By May, it became clear why that was so, as plans for the Padang parade were passed down through the com­bat and sup­port com­pa­nies. Our bat­tal­ion was to sup­ply one com­pany sized mobile column/marching con­tin­gent and three com­pa­nies of con­struc­tion labour to build the spec­ta­tor stands for the parade.

I’m not sure how it works these days, but in our time, the method of divvy­ing up the work was this: the worst per­form­ing com­bat com­pany got the march­ing duties. It might seem strange that the worst get rewarded by being in the lime­light. But look fur­ther and you’ll realise that the mobile column/marching con­tin­gent has copped the rawest deal — hours and days of rehearsals, starch­ing of uni­forms, pol­ish­ing of boots and armoured vehicles.

We moved in to the Padang in June, help­ing to unload the metal tubes that made up the grand­stands, and then build­ing the grand­stands. It was like a giant Ikea assem­bly project as our sergeants and offi­cers argued over the engi­neers’ man­u­als and instructed us to build the sev­eral storey tall struc­ture by trial and error.

When night fell, guards were mounted from our ranks and we patrolled the Padang to ensure no one stole or sab­o­taged the grand­stand. It was great fun.

Across the road from the Padang, where the Esplanade now stands was a hawker cen­tre known as the Satay Club. We’d stray from our route and buy food and drink (with the bless­ing of the guard com­man­der ensconced in a com­mand tent on the grounds of the St Andrew’s Cathe­dral) and eat till our hearts’ content.

With the wee hours came some unusual encoun­ters for the patrols. A group of trans­ves­tites used to fre­quent the Satay Club nightly, and it wasn’t because they liked to eat satay a lot. When day broke on one of the first few days we were at the Padang, our Reg­i­men­tal Sergeant Major had inspected the con­struc­tion site and dis­cov­ered con­dom wrap­pers, used con­doms and other asso­ci­ated debris strewn around the grand­stand area — peo­ple had been using the nooks and cran­nies made by our stacks of build­ing mate­r­ial to explore their own nooks and crannies.

The order was put out unequiv­o­cally — we were not to allow any such mon­key busi­ness to hap­pen, and we were to appre­hend (nicely) any civil­ian who were caught doing so, and ask them to leave the area and get a room. If they were to resist, we were to call our guard com­man­der via our walky talkies, who would then call the cops via tele­phone at the cathedral.

So we patrolled a lot more dili­gently, shin­ing torch­lights into dark places and ask­ing cou­ples in var­i­ous degrees of undress to leave the area for their safety. Thank­fully, on my patrols, most did with­out resist­ing. But there was the inci­dent of a patrol who encoun­tered a group of bel­liger­ent trans­ves­tites who threat­ened them with bod­ily harm. By the time the police arrived, the guard com­man­der was cow­er­ing under his table while the lady­boys sat on top and ran­sacked the things that were there.

I also cel­e­brated my 21st birth­day while serv­ing a week­end guard duty at the Padang. That night, my bud­dies left the com­pound to buy a cake, some satay and lots of beer. We passed out drunk some­where on the field and only got woken up when some trans­ves­tites wanted to tres­pass again.

More good times were had after the grand­stand was built and when the other par­tic­i­pants in the parade arrived for dress rehearsals. After being asked to test the grand­stand by jump­ing up and down on them (and not caus­ing a col­lapse and killing our­selves) we hung out near the Sin­ga­pore Air­lines con­tin­gent and asked the Sin­ga­pore Girls how they had been selected to march — whether they had been rated the worst among their peers or some­thing. They mostly ignored us.

On National Day itself, I was tasked to take my recce motor­cy­cle and sta­tion myself at a car park some­where in Raf­fles Place and guide VIP vehi­cles in and out of the area.

So, apart from see­ing the air­craft of the RSAF per­form their fly­past, I missed the entire parade.

Troop­ers from 46SAR cel­e­brat­ing the com­ple­tion of the spec­ta­tor stands, July 1990 (I’m 3rd from left)