Leadership? Man, I get cynical when I hear that. See, in the Singapore Armed Forces, promotions and rank are partially linked to educational status. To clarify, in the Singapore Army...as someone who graduated secondary school (high school) and junior college, I was guaranteed a promotion to Corporal. Even the worst screw-up is going to get the rank after X number of months from their enlistment date, if they have a diploma.
Trouble is, it works the other way. A guy in my platoon...he dropped out of school because of gangs. But he'd since cleaned up his act, and was a really great guy. Smart and witty. And also with zero promotion prospects, because he didn't have enough formal education.
Singapore has a national service system where male citizens, and some non-citizen male residents, are required to do around two or three years of full-time service in the armed forces, police, or civil defence - firefighters and EMTs. After that, you're a reservist, akin to the US National Guard. I was a with a security platoon (regimental police, though technically I wasn't an RP myself), and then wrote propaganda for Public Affairs.
As a result, I have genuine and deep respect for people who've served in serious professional militaries, for countries where there's an actual danger of being deployed somewhere and being shot at. This means you guys. You guys are awesome. So. I have a massive amount of respect for you folks. You're professionals. I wasn't. =)
-- Acyl
Trouble is, it works the other way. A guy in my platoon...he dropped out of school because of gangs. But he'd since cleaned up his act, and was a really great guy. Smart and witty. And also with zero promotion prospects, because he didn't have enough formal education.
Singapore has a national service system where male citizens, and some non-citizen male residents, are required to do around two or three years of full-time service in the armed forces, police, or civil defence - firefighters and EMTs. After that, you're a reservist, akin to the US National Guard. I was a with a security platoon (regimental police, though technically I wasn't an RP myself), and then wrote propaganda for Public Affairs.
As a result, I have genuine and deep respect for people who've served in serious professional militaries, for countries where there's an actual danger of being deployed somewhere and being shot at. This means you guys. You guys are awesome. So. I have a massive amount of respect for you folks. You're professionals. I wasn't. =)
-- Acyl