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They said that this would be the epic finale to the end of our 4 month-long journey. Everyone around me was hyped up about it. But I saw it as something else, something meaningless, and something utterly pointless.

I never understood why we had to go through the 24km route march as a recruit. Carrying a heavy bag of accessories and equipment, we had to march on for 24 kilometres, a journey that would take over 8 hours. I dreaded it.

There I was, dragging my feet across the concrete path that stretched on and on. There didn’t seem to be an end. I would daydream as I marched on, thinking about the things I could have been doing. I looked at the people around me, the people who could not care less about the soldiers marching past them. I wanted to swap places with them. I continued my daydream. Hours passed just like this.

Then it came down to the last 10% of the journey. We had less than 3km before we reached our final destination. Then, we all stopped. I looked ahead. It was a view of the city skyline of Singapore. It was an amazing view that had me mesmerized. Standing in front, our commander pointed into the heart of the city and said, “this is why we serve national service, to protect our home”.

He was right. This is where our families are. This is where we find all our favourite food, local delicacies, and the impeccable memories associated with this place.

And this was why we were doing all of this. However pointless or meaningless things may have seemed, we were doing this to protect the people we love, and the place we call home.

(I wrote this before officially being added by add/drop into the class and missed the first lesson so I did not know that the post had to be linked to the world so I wrote it thinking it could be about anything, but I thought I should just post it anyway since I had already written it.)

Author: Yeo Ying Zhi

I like to develop games.

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