One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET

SIX

high-handed tactics used by MID to enlist graduates in 1966 before the actual promulgation

of the national service legislation.

Also shunted to MID after reporting to Beach Road Camp on 1

June, 1966, were Chen

Yew Ping and Hee Kam Yong. The latter became the Best Cadet of Platoon 3. The former,

having got a ‘so-so’ HSC grade, was facing the glum prospect of teacher-training. When he

came across the invitation to join the SAF, life took on a new shine. His mother was horrified

but he stuck to his choice. He became well known to the officers and NCOs as a trainee

because he kept birds for a hobby, which seemed to have been a craze among the instructors

then. But shortly after being promoted Captain, Yew Ping decided to leave what he saw as

the strait jacket of military authoritarianism and went on to a very successful career in the

business world.

Mukhtiar Singh had long made up his mind to join one of the uniformed services and had

actually completed basic training in the Singapore Police Force. He had joined the SPF after

being denied an opportunity to attend the FMC when Singapore was in Malaysia. He applied

for the SAF course when it came along. As the Police was also under MID, he suddenly

found himself having to report to SAFTI for another recruit training programme. After

commissioning, he was immediately sent for further training as an Artillery Officer, where he

remained until he retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel. He had the longest period of continuous

basic training among the First Batch.

Don Seow Hock Ann was also another aspirant to the FMC who had been rejected for less

than convincing reasons. But the Singapore Volunteer Corps also rejected him, inexplicably.

The SAF officer’s training course was a godsend for the 19 year old and he went through the

training as coolly as James Coburn—whom he resembled—in

The Magnificent Seven

Harry Wee Bak Wah literally ran away from home to join the army so that he could fight

for the country (don’t laugh, Harry would say). He was a qualified teacher earning $312 in

1966, a big sum. As a trainee in the SAF, he would only draw $270 including his educational

allowance. He enjoyed his training days although he was ‘shagged and blur’ most of the time,

and was commissioned with the First Batch. Harry was handpicked for some tough ‘kick-ass’

assignments, the most memorable being Officer Commanding, Boat Company, which before

his arrival on the scene, was a disaster at sea waiting to happen. Harry was also almost single-

handedly responsible for relocating MINDEF from Police Headquarters at Upper Barracks,

Pearl’s Hill to Tanglin Camp in 1972 as a staff officer in Planning Department. Thereafter,

the call of the wild, the race course and probably the absence of any sign that there would be

some fighting for the country to be done in the near future, tempted him to seek his fortune

outside the SAF.