See more FAQs. What PES grades mean. Trying to go up instead? See the up-PES guide.
If you're here to keng, this is not the place for you. Genuinely.
But if you rolled an ankle during SOC, your knee is swelling after route march, or you just can't keep going and don't know who to tell, this page is for you. Here's what actually happens, in order, and who handles each step.
First: report it
The biggest mistake is hiding it. Pushing through a real injury will turn weeks of recovery into months, and likely follow you after ORD.
- Tell your buddy or section commander first. Don't self-diagnose and don't self-medicate
- Report sick (RSI) at the medical centre the next morning, or immediately for anything serious
- The MO decides everything after this point. Not your sergeant, not you
- Follow the MO's orders exactly. This protects you and your recovery
One more thing: commanders can tell when something is real. limping badly but laughing at the cookhouse line reads very differently from limping badly and still trying. Credibility is your best protection through this whole process.
Statuses
The MO can give you different things, and they are not the same:
- MC (medical leave): days off from all duty. For illness or after procedures
- HL (hospitalisation leave): given after surgery or hospital treatment, can run for months. Long HL is usually paired with a specialist follow-up
- Excuse status: you still report for duty, but a specific activity is off limits. Excused RMJ (running, jumping), excused upper limb, excused heavy load, excused boots, excused dust, excused stay-in. They can be temporary (7, 14, 28 days) or permanent
- Light duty (LD): administrative or non-physical work while you recover
All of these live in your eHealth record, and permanent excuses typically show up there after the MO enters them. If a status isn't showing, ask your medical centre to check.
Getting placed on sleep out late (SOL) or given duties while excused? Raise it with your superiors against your official status first. Your eHealth record is the reference, not word of mouth.
OOC: out of course
OOC means you are removed from a training course: BMT, SCS, OCS, or vocational training. It usually happens because an injury or condition stops you from completing the training requirements. It is a medical and administrative process, not a punishment.
What actually happens:
- You are taken off your platoon and become a soldier in transit (SIT)
- Expect a holding role while you wait. Company office, admin work, temporary storeman. It's boring and it can feel isolating, but it's temporary
- Your case goes through medical review. If your condition changes your fitness grade, the downpes and medical board process below kicks in
- Then you get a new posting, or you recourse to redo the training
At SCS specifically, most OOC cases come out of the physical demands of Professional Term, and most people end up redeployed to a combat support or service support path. OOC from OCS often works the same way. It's not the end of anything. Plenty of people finish NS in a completely different role than the one they started in.
OOT: out of training
OOT is the lighter version. You're excused from training (long excused boots or light duty, 80+ days is common) but you have not been formally removed from a course.
- You typically stay attached to your school or unit and report daily
- You wait for medical review to decide: return to training, recourse, or repost
Downpes and the medical board
Downpes is a formal change of your PES grade, decided by a medical board, not by any single person.
The flow:
- See the MO for a medical review. Explain your condition and outcome honestly
- Get a specialist memo if needed. Your MO can refer you to a government specialist (2 to 3 weeks), or you can see one privately. Bring the memo back to your MO
- The medical board reviews your case. Boards meet monthly. Ask your MO when the next one is, because timing matters. Miss the cutoff and you wait a month
- Get your new PES. Check with the medical centre the day after the board meets. Your new status also shows up in SAFHealth and eHealth
The same machine runs in reverse if you want to up-PES later. That's covered step by step in the up-PES guide.
Re-BMT and where you end up
If you downpes during BMT, you will usually re-do a modified BMT:
- Modified BMT for PES C and E recruits runs at Kranji (BMTC School V side)
- Timing varies. Some people wait a while for the next intake, which is one of the most common frustrations. Ask your S1 branch for the expected timeline rather than guessing
- OOC'd recruits who stay PES B can recourse to a later BMT batch instead
Postings after downpes skew to combat support and service support: ASA, SA, transport, storeman, signaller. The vocations page maps out what each involves. Note that the vocation you get also depends on where you were when you OOC'd: OOC from BMT, from SCS pro term, and from vocational training each route differently, and your S1 is the person who actually knows your case.
The part nobody warns you about
OOC and downpes mess with your head more than the injury does. You watch your platoon do things without you. You're stuck in an office. Some people will call you a keng warrior behind your back, sometimes to your face, even when your injury is completely legitimate.
A few things worth knowing:
- The waiting is the worst part, and it ends. Postings come through
- Your PES status does not follow you into your civilian life. Nobody will ever ask about it again after ORD
- If the mental weight gets heavy, that is a medical matter too. Tell the MO. Referrals to PCC (the SAF's primary care clinics) and IMH exist for exactly this, and excused stay-in memos can be granted for sleep issues
- The SAF's own line is that soldiers are its most important asset. Sometimes you have to be the one to make them act like it
Who to talk to, at each stage
| Situation | Who |
|---|---|
| Something hurts right now | Buddy or section commander, then report sick |
| Follow-up on an injury | Medical centre, ask for the MO |
| Understanding or changing an excuse status | MO at medical review |
| Downpes application, board timing | MO, then the medical centre |
| Posting, recourse, re-BMT timing | Unit S1 or manpower branch |
| Status not showing in eHealth | Medical centre admin |
| Not coping mentally | MO first, then PCC or IMH referral |
General rule: medical questions go to medical people, posting questions go to S1, and everything goes through your chain of command. Jumping the chain rarely speeds anything up, and the one exception is a long wait with no news, where a polite direct question to the medical centre works better than three weeks of asking your PC to chase.
Sources
SAF does not publish a public manual on this, so the details here come from people who went through the process:
- Sustained shoulder injury in SCS infantry pro term (r/NationalServiceSG)
- C9 OOC, when will I re-BMT and how is it like? (r/NationalServiceSG)
- OOC'ed with permanent excuse dust (r/NationalServiceSG)
- OOC from vocational training, new posting as ASA (r/NationalServiceSG)
- OOC'ed from School 5 vocational training, what happens next (r/NationalServiceSG)
- Where will I be posted after I OOC from OCS? (r/NationalServiceSG)
- OOC from SCS foundation term, excuse flegs and IMH question (r/NationalServiceSG)
- OOC/OOT flow for PTP batch (r/NationalServiceSG)
- Is being OOC really so ass? (r/NationalServiceSG)
- Rank progression for OOC from Tekong (r/NationalServiceSG)