I refer to National Service Training Council Chairperson Lee Lam Thye’s letter .

There seems to be a tinge of frustration in his letter as he clearly states that he spends almost 90% of his time on NS duties, yet has no executive powers. Meaning he was appointed because of his past record, credibility and reputation - but just to whitewash the image of a harebrained scheme.

I therefore respectfully ask Lee to resign and disassociate himslef from the NS nonsense, not because of any failure on his part, but rather to protect and maintain his national image as my hero since his days as the Bukit Bintang MP, carrying a trusty old typewriter to improve the lives of his people in the Bukit Bintang constituency.

I further justify my request based on the facts he stated in his letter.

1. You visited 60 NS camps to give motivational talks and to remind camp commandants and deputies to ensure proper management. Now, if these commandants are not HP6 (half past six) officers, you do not have to do all that.

2. You only provide feedback, complaints and suggestion to the NS department. If they have listened to your advice, I doubt very much that 16 deaths would have occurred. As it is, the parents can only see you as their target when something goes wrong but nothing so far has been directed to the NS department which has all the ‘executive powers’. Do you want to continue as a scapegoat, Tan Sri?

3. The NS camp commandants take directives from NS director-general and not from your council meaning you and your council are redundant, just serving a PR function.

4. Your recommendation for compulsory health checks has been ignored and I believe the health ministry said no money. Yet they have already spent millions on this NS nonsense. Plenty of money on contracts for NS uniforms, camps, food etc but no money for medical checks?

5. Waiting 24 hours before a sick trainee needs to be sent to a hospital is idiotically ridiculous when you don't have a qualified medic to make that decision in an NS camp. People can die within an hour if not given prompt treatment.

6. Your call for each death to be thoroughly investigated with transparency has yet to be followed in spite of a total 16 deaths. It seems that so far, there have been 16 cover-ups.

7. You may have introduced a lot of improvements to the NS since 2004, but all that has no meaning to the dead or their grieving families.

8. You maintained the NS is still good for discipline and character-building, but being compulsory makes it smell too fishy for comfort. This country is already overloaded with uniformed units and the preoccupation of the present government with uniforms is almost like the communist addiction to totalitarian power.

There is already the compulsory askar wataniah (volunteer corps) at the universities and colleges and at other institutions such as UiTM. We already have Rela, reserve army and police cadets in addition to the serving uniformed forces.

All these uniforms have failed to stamp out corruption, the number one disease in this country.

However, the most notorious uniform in this country is NS one which is stained with the highest number of deaths per year. Others have argued that there are weaklings amongst the NS thousands of trainees and deaths are bound to happen even if there were no NS. Yes, I am a weakling myself and would have probably died at an NS camp if the NS was introduced earlier.

That does not justify spending my taxes to weed out the weaklings. Let them do it on their own. On the other hand, I have yet to see the benefits of NS considering that all the ministers and YBs from the government have yet to send their children to these camps.

Therefore, please Lee Lam Thye, as my hero since my schoolboy days, I simply beg of you to disassociate yourself from this NS scheme.