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[SniperD]

Although to some of us, the sentencing may be "light" and "not justifiable" for the atonement of 4 deaths... but I would like all to think for just one moment that you are in the shoes of the 2 officers: do you think a fine, jail term or even death can ease that guilt that they will carry along all their lifetime?

the younger of the 2 officers was oso a young commisioned officer (about 1 yr plus) and yet this got to happen her... you got to wonder how is this affecting her future career and life... :think:

 

[kelster]

Although to some of us, the sentencing may be "light" and "not justifiable" for the atonement of 4 deaths... but I would like all to think for just one moment that you are in the shoes of the 2 officers: do you think a fine, jail term or even death can ease that guilt that they will carry along all their lifetime?

the younger of the 2 officers was oso a young commisioned officer (about 1 yr plus) and yet this got to happen her... you got to wonder how is this affecting her future career and life... :think:

sigh...hvta agree with this point lor...its a burden they'll hvta carry for the rest of their lives...no matter what "punishments" they might get from the civil/military courts...they'll hvta carry this weight for a long time to come...they hvta be responsible for their own actions lor...mistakes are made all the time thruout our careers...some are minor...some have serious reprecussions...well...this one happens to be serious lor...very serious indeed...

 

[chngpe01]

Why so vindictive? even one of the parents of the victim wrote a plead to the judge to appeal for a lighter sentence, in view of the pain they(the 2 officers) have to carry thru their lives. It is especially so painful, when they are close friends with the victims.

See today's Straits Times.

 

[Jazer]

SO essentially , they have shown remorse.. and they "got away" with it. I still wonder how fair this is. They screwed up, they might have lost their career , they will have emotional scars for a good time to come, they were fined 18 k .

These 3 women lost their LIVES... Imagine for a sec , they will never ever grow up to be the person the were meant to be, to give love to people they were meant to meet, to grow old with their family and loved ones and maybe even children they were meant to have. If i were to put myself in one of the father's shoes, i would be sadden by the fact that they put such a "price" on my daughter's life. Almost like saying " So u learnt your lesson, u both look very remorseful .. okay pay $18k at the counter and u may leave" ..

I dunno, i still don't think its fair... for me to feel like this .. and for them to "get away" with such a "light" sentence.

Its feels almost like when u lose something by accident in the army then got 12-06 Only pay like 5-10% of the equipment .. then u got extras to sign or SOL .. i feel they only pay 1% and didn't get any extra or SOL or anything like that..

 

[jeff chen]

I was formerly in the Navy and have this to say.

When you serve in the Armed Forces, there is always risk involved, that is why you are paid a premium salary over all other government jobs. Moreover, as active duty, sea going navy personnel, one must be prepared for everything, coming back as casualty or even death.

The fact that it was an accident though owing to negligence on the 2 officers of the watch, we have lost 4 precious life. While the lost of life may not commensurate with the fine which what some of you feel. Lets be clear on one thing, the 2 officers are not the only ones at fault. Moreover, it was not their intent to deliberately be negiligent causing the loss of lives.

One has to remember, will a jail sentence bring back the loss of 4 precious life? These are young officers, they have made a mistake in their early life, let them learn and move on with life. If the parents of these dead service personnel are willing to forgive, who are we to further judge them?

Let me be clear, everyone make mistakes now and then, as we progress, wehave have to learn that mistakes will be made, some with severe consequences while others may not, we as a society have to learn to be more forgiving.

 

[jeff chen]

To the families who lost their loved one, I am truly sorry to hear and my heart goes out to those who bravely carry out their national duties.

 

[eric69]

IS THERE JUSTICE ?????(

What is justice? Let those with no sin cast the first stone.

The two officers will suffer more than just a jail term. They have to live with the fate that they directly caused the death of 4 of their colleagues! And to that, it's the worst judgement one can get.. To live with guilt.. and worst, it's a life sentence in disguise. My hearts go out to the officers involved (alive or dead) and their families.

 

[Aton]

I was formerly in the Navy and have this to say.

When you serve in the Armed Forces, there is always risk involved, that is why you are paid a premium salary over all other government jobs. Moreover, as active duty, sea going navy personnel, one must be prepared for everything, coming back as casualty or even death.

The fact that it was an accident though owing to negligence on the 2 officers of the watch, we have lost 4 precious life. While the lost of life may not commensurate with the fine which what some of you feel. Lets be clear on one thing, the 2 officers are not the only ones at fault. Moreover, it was not their intent to deliberately be negiligent causing the loss of lives.

One has to remember, will a jail sentence bring back the loss of 4 precious life? These are young officers, they have made a mistake in their early life, let them learn and move on with life. If the parents of these dead service personnel are willing to forgive, who are we to further judge them?

Let me be clear, everyone make mistakes now and then, as we progress, wehave have to learn that mistakes will be made, some with severe consequences while others may not, we as a society have to learn to be more forgiving.

I couldn't agree more with what Jeff said, we all need to be more forgiving. Its not for us to judge, and it is always too easy to say,"oh, that's not enough"

But if we put ourselves in their shoes, we certainly will not say that.

Yes, They made a wrong judgement call that resulted to an accident with fatalities. But who can say out loud that we've never made any wrong judgement call?

They certainly will feel relieved not being sent to jail, but happy? I doubt so.

If an inexperience driver together with friends got on a road trip, because of his inexperience, he made a wrong judgement call that resulted to an accident with a truck, one his friend died, he survived. How would he feel?

The two officers were negligent, but not reckless.

Here is one analogy,
If an M16 misfire and shot someone, which part of the rifle should we charge? The Trigger? Firing pin or the Bolt Carrier group? Or the Person handling the rifle? Shouldn't we charge the Person? But the defect lies in the trigger. Then if we want to probe further, who should ensure the rifle was put to safe? Who cork the weapon?

They just happen to be the trigger and firing pin.

 

[espn]

Well, what's in the first place so sure is that it's the two officer's fault? You should know S*F by now, whenever something goes right, the higher rank gets the credit, whenever something goes wrong, who gets the sh*t?

Whatever has happened was not through anybody's expectations nor wants, they've bore a great deal of the responsibility already. Live have been lost, what does jail do for the guilty? Other than just loss of freedom, what else does it do?

 

[hoppinghippo]

3 points:

1) I agree a jail term is useless. who are we to decide whats a befitting punishment? one person says fine enuff, another says no jail term then enuff, another says no no cut their hands off for steering the ship, another say put them to death. jazer, when you demand they get heavier punishment, its cuz you want to defuse your own idignation and anger and sadness thru seeing the guilty pple suffer, its not for their good, its not for the bereaved families involved. its ONLY for your own good, so you feel happier. I think that's selfish. if anything its the bereaved families who should decide on the punishment. they are the ones who lost loved ones, NOT you. they have decided, so leave it as that.

2) it was an accident, it was not premeditated, it was not done with ill intent. I don't see the crime that needs to be punished anywhere. they did their jobs entrusted to them, emergency situation, they did their best, unfortunately wrong call, accident happened. sad but **** happens. its not like them being suicidal and ramming the ship deliberately. and its not like they did nothing, they did do their jobs, just that the made a series of wrong calls. (not like they were slacking or sleeping)

3) hwchoy: I disagree with you. I'm not saying the system is the only one at fault, I"m saying it has some fault and not just the pple involved, BUT no one says anything about the system. so what if trainer good, training prog good, etc etc, this accident shows that it isn't perfect, maybe assessment of trainees wasn't stringent, etc. point is the system does have a part to play in this case, but everyone's attention is on the 2 poor fellas, every action scrutinised, etc etc. no offence but your view is exactly what I'm trying to point out. everyone always assumes the system, being in place for so long, can never be the problem. its always the individuals within that are the problem, whether its the men who **** up or their officers in charge overseeing them, the finger is always pointed at them. no one says hey who put them there in the first place? who set the standards that certified them fit for their vocations? who set the protocol that led to the situation?

 

[vader]

You drive a car and knock down and kill people...you got a fine and suspension....You cheat people a few billions......you go to jail straight......

 

[hwchoy]

Darren (did I get your name right? long time no see liaoz

actually my view is the exact opposite. accidents occur because people make mistakes. Systems and procedures are there for guidance but can never cover every situation, otherwise we'd only need robots. Only in very intricate operations, e.g. carrier flight deck ops, should procedures be so tightly tuned because many things happen very fast and people do not have time to think.

It's probably obvious that I'm a firm believer that any system can be broken by people. On the other hand, knowing the SAF, I'm sure the procedures have been reviewed and perhaps something has been done, but don't expect to have that shared in the media.

In this particular case, there appear to be clear rules governing proper behaviours. Without being there to assess the human aspect, and depending on the demeanour of the two officers, it can be either: “they deserve it because they were arrogant and insist on their own actions” or “they took the best reasonable actions and suay-suay things turn out wrong”.

As for the trainer, it is always a call when to intervene in a trainee's actions. Again without knowing the people themselves it is hard to make that judgement. Was it a dereliction of duty, or simply a bad call while trying to do his duty giving the trainee her necessary exposure?

 

[Jazer]

"Let those with no sin cast the first stone"

The fact is that they got was a Fine, i'm not asking them to go to jail to make myself happier .. but i'm just b**ching. Cos i feel frustrated at the "system".

Thanks to those that shared their views , made me see clearer. Perhaps, a harsher sentence would have little or no effect otherwise, so what's the point right?. Negligence wasn't their choice .. but still it happened because they were careless... A "system" has already judged them, and i am sure they weighed the pros and cons very carefully ( however way they did )

My sympathy goes out to the families, i have just lost a loved one myself and it must feel so painful to see how others can cope with such a tragic pointless loss of life. :bheart: God bless u all. I hope that we all can find some closesure to this tragedy.

 

[ccplim]

Many things are more than meet the eyes. If you have "encounter" with such kind of things before, you might know what I mean.

 

[wheek]

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Like someone mentioned before, its the system's fault.

If you look at the SAF now, everything is so rush rush. Back in my days BMT was 3 months. Now I heard its 2.5 months. Back in my days, an auto tech would need 6 months on course plus 1 month OJT to become a 3SG. Now its 5 months with no OJT.

Seems like SAF's present view is that servicemen are getting smarter, so can afford to speed things up. But at what expense? Remember the incident where 4 ppl were hurt when clearing the 0.5 calibre gun? Sounds like a classic case of not enough training/experience to me.

I would say the RSS Courageous incident is a perfect e.g. of sending servicemen out on duty with insufficient training & experience. The trainee officer was obviously not knowledgable enough, and the fact that the 2 vessels collided, shows that even her supervising officer didn't really have things under control.

And the scary part was that her supervising officer was the XO. He's the second in command of the ship. One would except someone in such a high position to be very experienced. But here we are, a young LTA being an XO.

Was the XO really on duty that night? Seems like the RSS Courageous kept changing directions. If he was really standing next to the trainee officer, then why didn't he question or over-rule her decision? Or was he somewhere else & they just covered up for him?

I did my NS too & to be frank, we all know that many times SAF servicemen are supposed to do things but they don't. Could this be a classic case of the XO not supervising his trainee? And as reported before, there are supposed to be ppl on watch at all times. 4 of them, if I recall the report correctly.

How is it possible for a sophisticated vessel, with 2 officers & 4 men on watch not to know that its gonna ram into a huge vessel? Or perhaps none of the men were on watch that nite? Even if that's the case, of course no one will admit it lest they get charged for negligence & failure to discharge their duties.

I'm not making wild accusations here, but like I said. I've done NS before & admit it or not, we don't always do what we are supposed to do. COS supposed to check armskote before handing over. Seriously speaking, who ever does that? They just copy the number over. Got rifle missing from the crates also no one knows. Orderly supposed to go prowling on Sunday but he doesn't do so 'cos there's no one around to check on him.

RP supposed to check every vehicle entering but he waves all & sundry in. When RSM appear, RP suddenly starts checking every vehicle. After RSM leaves, he waves everyone in again. Those who have done NS will know what I mean.

So could this be a case whereby the ppl who were supposed to be on watch were actually skivving & the XO who was supposed to be there, was also skivving & the trainee officer was alone that night & thus made the fatal error?

 

[hwchoy]

wheek, I find your post kind of incoherent. You started with an assertion: "its the systems fault." and you went on with allegation that people were skivving, and so on, which are people failures. No system can guard against people not doing their duty.

let me clarify that I'm not saying nothing is wrong with the system, I am just against the idea that blame it on the system, the SAF is "you know lah", etc etc. This is like don't blame the rapist, he had a bad childhood, it's the society's fault.

 

[wheek]

wheek, I find your post kind of incoherent. You started with an assertion: "its the systems fault." and you went on with allegation that people were skivving, and so on, which are people failures. No system can guard against people not doing their duty.

let me clarify that I'm not saying nothing is wrong with the system, I am just against the idea that blame it on the system, the SAF is "you know lah", etc etc. This is like don't blame the rapist, he had a bad childhood, it's the society's fault.

I would think that comparing how the SAF works with how a rapist works is even more incoherent. I'm saying there are 2 possibilities here. Firstly, that the SAF is not ensuring servicemen have enough training & experience. Secondly, that perhaps some ppl weren't doing their job that night.

 

[Mich]

how they are dealt with in the civil court is not a reflection of what is going to happen in the military courts.

So what's this big hooha about a fine to 'pay' for 4 lives? Why the need to judge them or their 'punishment' or the system?

When u make statements like 4 lives are only worth 18k (not in exact words) do u spare a thought of how the families of the victims feel if they happen to browse in this forum?

The pain has hurt and might have since healed a bit. The families only want to move on so why can't we help them out rather than debate over the worth of 4 good lives?

We only see things as briefly put forth to us in a newspaper. Whatever happens later in a military court is not for us to know. And whatever they suffer is also not for us to feel or know. so please don't make such immature statement as to put a worth to human lives lost. Our civil court is not here to put a pricetag to life or material losts...

Give the families a break and leave this debate done. thanks.

 

[hoppinghippo]

yo choy! yup long time no see! my name is darrel not darren but close enuff!

Looks like we agree on the same thing lah, that the system AND the pple are at fault, as for how many percent each, I guess that's for those who are in the know to decide!

 

[hwchoy]

yo choy! yup long time no see! my name is darrel not darren but close enuff!

Looks like we agree on the same thing lah, that the system AND the pple are at fault, as for how many percent each, I guess that's for those who are in the know to decide!

long time never see you in AQ liaoz, lurking still? ;p