Mom, I’m FAMOUS!- I mean, RED CROSS YOUTH IS!!

(Top: Red Cross Youth contingent during TD40 transformation. / Photo: NDP photographers)

If you asked me 5 years ago, 2 years ago or even 1 year ago what I thought I’d be doing every Saturday in 2024, I would most certainly not have answered, “Marching in the NDP.”

Yet, there I was every Saturday, training tirelessly to march proudly for Red Cross Youth, for my family, friends, trainers and school, for all of Singapore to see.

In the last segment of the show,  as I was marching out, I was on the verge of shedding tears of joy. I shouted timings, with my relief and fulfilment sharing centre stage with my inability to let go of my contingent – the friends I had made along the way.

It was the grandest culmination of an unforgettably long journey that I did not, do not and will not ever regret joining.

A Rare Opportunity

It all began when my senior from my core CCA, Raffles Institution Red Cross (RIRC), sent a message in the CCA group chat, asking us to register for the Red Cross Youth NDP marching contingent (RCYNDP).

With one look at the tentative training schedule, everyone made sure to stay far, far away.

There were 16 training sessions altogether, all of which fell on Saturdays, most of which were  7.30am-10pm full-day training sessions.

The commitment needed just to get onto the Padang tugged at me. Who was crazy enough to take up such a rigorous training schedule, even with the bragging rights it entailed?

Yet, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When would I ever get to march in the biggest and most-watched parade in Singapore again, to be a part of something so much bigger?

That pushed me to join the NDP.

Afternoon Training Sessions

In the 5.30pm-8.30pm show, 6.25pm is my showtime. It is when I, along with over 2,100 other contingent members spread across 35 marching contingents, will march onto the Padang as a show of our collective strength and unity.

But an immaculate show does not come spontaneously.

Every Saturday, accompanied by the very peculiar eating schedule of lunch at 9.30am and dinner at 3pm, all the marching contingents turn up at the Padang for afternoon training between 11am and 1pm, the hottest hours of the day.

Armed with sunblock and an airy Red Cross Youth NDP-themed T-shirt, we grab our umbrellas, get into position on Esplanade Drive (our grandfather’s road every Saturday) and start marching to the Padang, not forgetting a few rhythmic cheers along the way.

Guided by our trainers from Red Cross Youth and the SAF, our afternoon training is relentless under the burning sun. We continued to practise, sharpening each and every part of our drills and aiming for nothing but excellence.

Amidst the rigour of the training sessions, I take comfort in the knowledge that my contingent is safe under my trainers’ care.

Our afternoon drills are always similar – sharpening our umbrella opening, improving our contingent wheeling, correcting the wrong leg movements, and of course, standing completely still in sedia position as a fill-in president inspects the guard-of-honour contingents.

My contingent’s drills may not have been up to the mark yet, but there’s always something so satisfying about a coordinated march, a synchronised stomp and a united turning command.

Training ends at 1pm. We then drag our exhausted selves back to Suntec (or Raffles) City Convention Centre, our holding area. We change into our full-dress uniforms and enjoy dinner as we recharge.

The Competition of Shiny Boots

With their polish having melted under the scorching sun in the afternoon, our boots did not shine anymore. But Red Cross Youth NDP contingent members will not march anywhere in full dress without shiny boots.

Going the extra mile to bring our boots to a mirror shine is not only therapeutic to some extent, but it also reflects our discipline and skill as a contingent.

Evening Show

At about 5.15pm, the contingents set off for the Padang yet again, in full dress this time.

Undeniable nervousness sets in when we notice that the Padang’s seats are fully occupied. Whether with the Primary 5/Secondary 3 students coming to watch the NE shows, or the lucky balloters who won tickets to the later shows, 27,000 audience members are still 54,000 watchful eyes.

Thankfully, strong motivation from our trainers always comes into play here.

We take our classic 0.5x wefie…

before we finally march in.

Let’s be honest, you definitely got bored more than once while watching our parade and ceremony. To make the commands a bit more comprehensible though, I shall translate the important ones.

“JULANG SENJATA”

Literally meaning “high port arms”, we march after this command, which moves us into a position where our umbrellas are tilted at a 45-degree angle and close to our chests.

“DARI KIRI DAN KANAN, CEPAT JALAN”

This command, which means “(dressing) from left and right, quick march”, is the command we take to march into the Padang.

“SEDIA”

The most repeated command in the parade, “sedia” means “attention”. Our umbrellas are held straight and tightly to our sides while our feet form a V-shape.

“KEKANAN LURUS”

In order to align ourselves, we turn our heads to the right to take dressing from the right.

“SENANG DIRI”

Meaning “at ease”, we stand with our feet shoulder-width apart and our umbrellas leaning to the right.

There are 3 “hormat senjata”s, and they are as follows:

“HORMAT PANJI-PANJI, HORMAT SENJATA”

This means “salute pennants, present arms”. This command is for us to salute the 36 regimental colours and 4 state colours escorted by the guard-of-honour contingents. However, only our contingent commander salutes.

“HORMAT PERDANA MENTERI, HORMAT SENJATA”

This command, “salute Prime Minister, present arms” is for us to salute Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as he arrives. Similarly, only our contingent commander salutes.

“HORMAT PRESIDEN, HORMAT SENJATA”

My second favourite command to receive, which means “salute president, present arms”, is accompanied by the national anthem and the arrival of President Tharman. This is when our umbrella drills get to shine.

On the ground, it looks like this:

But from above, that is when the power all contingents hold when united as one is accentuated, with our umbrellas forming “NDP 2024”.

“AKAN BERJALAN KELUAR, DALAM MASA CEPAT. KAWALAN KEHORMATAN DAHULU, KAWALAN KEHORMATAN KE KANAN. YANG LAIN, KE KIRI DAN KE KANAN PUSING”

This is my favourite command to receive, not just because it’s super long and we finally get to march off after 45 painstakingly long minutes of staying completely still, but also because my contingent, along with Row A’s contingents, transforms ourselves into the words “TD40”. This symbolises Total Defence’s 40th anniversary, a reminder of our history.

It means “[Parade] will march off, in quick time. Guard-of-Honour (contingents) first, Guards-of-Honour to the right. Everyone else, turn left and right.”

We then march towards the audience.

The Onward March is one of my favourite parts of the parade. During the NE shows, I get to high-five enthusiastic Primary 5 children and during the Previews, I get to wave my flag proudly at the audience members who wave their flags back.

After that, we’re done for the day! We leave the Padang immediately and return to our holding areas as the fighter jets and choppers fly over us. Sadly, the rest of the exciting show is not for us to watch.

We bring our evening show to a heartwarming end as we high-five our contingent commanders at the escalators.

The NDP has changed me.

I’m going to be honest. I registered for the NDP not knowing what I was getting myself into. I wasn’t the best at footdrill, nor was I able to see the point of footdrill.

My peers always thought of UGs as “wannabe armies”, and our identity as a uniformed group was further asserted by our footdrills and, well, our uniforms.

When internal training first started at RI’s Raja Block, as well as during the 4 sessions at Seletar Camp, I felt a mix of satisfaction and dread, mostly the latter. Each training session felt never-ending – the training of footdrills (especially hentak kaki) did not ever seem to end.

Sure, training with almost 50 strangers would not be considered the most exciting thing ever – and the proactivity and enthusiasm asked of us in such mundane training conditions did not seem…justified.

But, it was only a matter of time.

Yes, training with strangers is mundane, but who said our whole contingent had to remain strangers?

Inter-Unit Camaraderie

Spending so many 15-hour days with over 40 of your contingent-mates just to remain as distant as in Internal Training session 1 just doesn’t cut it.

I’m the only one from RIRC in my contingent, and I can tell you that if NDP were just a nigh depressing matter of rehearsing to put up a show and nothing more, the only ones who would enter the parade after 6.25pm on 9 August would have been the Prime Minister and President.

Isn’t the point of a uniformed group to be cohesive as one, to break a group of people down just to build them up, united as one and stronger?

Thankfully, humans aren’t wired for isolation.

Despite our coldness in the beginning, I watched my contingent (even the trainers) open up to one another with my own eyes.

We started getting more comfortable with each other. Surely, footdrills are catalysts of cohesion, as we soon came to know each other well enough to talk about everything under the sun.

And then suddenly, training wasn’t so mundane anymore. Knowing that my contingent-mates were on the same boat – the assurance that we were all in this together – just comforted me.

NDP isn’t just about marching and drills – rather, it is an exchange of unit cultures, and about the friends made along the way.

“We aren’t individuals, we are NDP ‘24.” 

~ Parade Regimental Sergeant Major, MWO Mohamed Ayub bin Said Abdul Kader

However, not only did NDP build up united contingents, it also honed my personal skills in the following ways:

1. Footdrill Standards

After hearing this you may be like “Duh”. Of course the training would improve my footdrill standards! However, there’s more to it than that.

At the beginning of my NDP journey, my footdrill standards were not the best. Footdrill often left me exhausted and panting, even when my drills were not executed at the highest standard.

I always worried that I would be unable to set a good example for my juniors in RIRC, and show them how footdrill was supposed to be done.

Furthermore, due to my self-diagnosed excessive sweating, I always tended to fidget during footdrill to wipe my sweat, which was not allowed.

However, what I failed to realise immediately were my improvements with each passing training session.

As time passed, standing still and alert with my sweat became easier. My endurance of hentak kaki with my legs at the full 90 degrees was stronger. Each of my drills was getting better, sharper and perhaps easier.

Some types of pain aren’t beneficial to us, but I can say with absolute certainty that the pain of sharpening footdrill is.

The confidence I gained just from observing the improvement of my drills from videos of my contingent empowered me to strive harder for excellence in footdrill.

However, footdrill is not the only skill I honed in this journey of NDP.

2. Responsibility

In NDP, everyone has a responsibility to master skills that allow us to take care of our uniform parts – seasoning our berets, polishing our shoes, ironing our uniforms and pinning our badges just to name a few examples.

It is not as easy as you would think, though.

Like it or not, polishing our leather shoes takes water, Kiwi (a shoe polish brand), and a lot of time. Despite our crammed schedules, we still have to make time for this.

Similarly, we need to set aside time to shave our berets, fold them properly, and then stuff them under our mattresses to season them.

The immaculate alignment of the 10+ badges on our uniforms is not easy to achieve, either. Unlike some other uniformed groups, Red Cross badges are not sewn onto the uniform – rather, they’re unpinned and repinned with every wash.

Yet, it is the difficulty of uniform maintenance that gives us the immense satisfaction of finally getting it right and passing uniform inspection.

It is, after all, our responsibility to look good on the Padang, for all those whom we are representing.

Gratitude

I woke up on 10 August after recharging from the exhausting previous day, and took a good look at my bare uniform, with my ranks, badges and name tags removed.

Then, realisation hit me like Gatsby body wipes with cold water (my contingent would know). The previous day, 9 August, was the last time I would pin my badges for a very, very long while.

9 August was the culmination of 16 tireless Saturdays of training sessions. It was somewhat joyous and relieving, that the show we had worked so hard for was finally over. Yet, nostalgia for the training came in. I missed those sessions so much, even though it had been less than a day.

The positivity of the NDP environment amidst an increasingly negative society just brought me joy.

This year’s NDP was the first NDP to break a 56-year streak of no rain during NDP. So, we saluted the rain for 5 minutes, and then it stopped.

I will always miss the silly jokes we made in the contingent, the weird things we did and the fun we had.

Every time my contingent marched past the old Arts House outside the Padang, where enthusiastic children waved alongside their parents who were recording the event, my heart filled with pride.

Now, I have a certificate of recognition for my contributions to the grand show, but I earned far more than just that.

I am so, so proud to have represented the Singapore Red Cross Society and Red Cross Youth in the NDP, and I am even more proud of my whole contingent and how far we have come.

Indeed, footdrills are catalysts of cohesion. They do not make us “wannabe armies”, they make us united as one.

RCY LCP Theodore Teh of Raffles Institution signing out – NDP ‘24, TOGETHER!!