National Service - The Beginning

2017 marks the 50th year of national service in Singapore. To commemorate this journey of service, Channel NewsAsia presents a two-part special to tell the story of how a fledgling nation built a citizen’s army from scratch, and its evolution into a modern-day institution powered by cutting-edge technology. Through personal stories of the pioneers and dramatic reconstructions, NATIONAL SERVICE: THE BEGINNING shows the first batch from the day they received their enlistment letters, to the notorious training methods and food, and the historic National Day parade in 1968 - where they stood before a grateful nation. In NATIONAL SERVICE: THE TRANSFORMATION, we fast-forward to 2017 Singapore. We delve into the evolution of national service and understand how we are making the switch from jungle to urban warfare.   Through it all, we come to see national service as a shared experience that has bound hundreds of thousands of Singaporean men over five decades.