Singapore, Jan. 20 -- Third Sergeant Thirunavukkarasu Karthikeyan has described his national service so far as "memorable" and said that his one highlight has been a month-long deployment out at sea last November.
The most junior member of the engineering department on board the landing ship tank RSS Endeavour, the 23-year-old Singaporean took part in two foreign exercises during the deployment.
3SG Karthikeyan was born in India but moved to Singapore with his family when he was 13.
And he has come a long way since being enlisted as a 92kg obese recruit in July 2019 after completing his polytechnic studies in marine and offshore engineering.
"When I first joined a secondary school after coming from India, it was a bit tough in terms...