Are our children dying for freedom, nation and countrymen?

Prema was eighteen. She died yesterday during National Service training, miles away from her parents and home.

She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't even part of a reservist army. She might not even have been there of her own will.

Her cause of death is unknown and in the most optimistic case (how do you make a death optimistic?) there may have been nothing anyone could do to prevent it.

But you know, and I know, that Prema did not deserve to die after collapsing in a public toilet on an unnecessary government programme that has not proven its worth and is becoming more of a national embarrassment than a racial integration tool.

8 trainees deaths since the inception of the program 3 years ago. What are our children dying for? For pretensive national harmony and integration?