Jurong Point just put a tank in a mall to thank people like me. You’re welcome.

Quick question: What do you associate Jurong Point with? Good food? Large mall? NTUC FairPrice Xtra?

There’s something even bigger in the mall now: a tank. Yeah, literally, a battle tank.

Taken by Facebook user Daniel Mah and also posted by Hardwarezone Forums user AS1, my colleague (who ironically was in the armour formation during his NS days) saw it as well, and boy did it fascinate us. As someone who has seen a real tank before, this certainly looks pretty unrealistic, and according to the description, it is the “first replica (1-2 scale) ever to appear in a hypermart).

Parked in an HDB-styled “season parking” lot (I can vouch that in camps, tanks don’t park in “season parking” lots) in NTUC FairPrice Xtra, it seems to be sponsored by NTUC FairPrice, Red Bull, Ribena and two other sponsors that couldn’t be seen from the images.

The tank is to commemorate SAF Day that occurs on 1 July 2016. To non-SAF personnel, SAF Day seems pretty alien, but it’s apparently a pretty big day for people like us who served in the SAF, the other day being National Day. First celebrated on 1 July 1969 (then known as Armed Forces Day), the day was set aside for people in the SAF to “rededicate themselves to bear true faith and allegiance to the President and the Republic, support and defend the Constitution, stay loyal to the country, people and Government, and defend the honour and independence of the Republic of Singapore.”

Other than parades in camps (which requires MANY rehearsals!), recent years have commercial companies coming together to provide promotions and discounts for SAF personnel during SAF Day. For example, this year, NSFs and NSmen get to have 1-for-1 promotion in Universal Studios Singapore, Southeast Asia Aquarium and Adventure Cove between 26 June 2016 to 1 July 2016. You can view some of the great ongoing promotions that we have published here.

Of course, if you want to show your support for the people defending Singapore, you can do it with social network as well. An official campaign by cyberpioneer (media arm of SAF) called #HormatSAF and #SAFDay16 is initiated, and all you need to do is to take a picture of yourself in uniform or with people in uniform, and post them in Facebook with the hashtags.

“Hormat” means salute / respect in Malay, and is a command that is commonly used during parades.

Happy SAF Day 2016 to all who have selflessly dedicated their lives to defending Singapore!

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com