One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

PREFACE

officer cadets debussed from military 3-ton trucks in a forlorn, half-completed low-rise military

camp to find themselves up close and personal with snappy, staccato, non-commissioned

sergeant majors who seemed totally lacking in human empathy. They showed their human side

eventually, but for the first two weeks, the demands of these sergeant majors and those with

ranks on their shoulders seemed so daunting that some 50% of the recruits wanted to pack up

and go home immediately. As these recruits were essentially volunteer career soldiers for the

newly minted Singapore Armed Forces, they did not have an obligation to serve. But, most

were persuaded to stay and many took quite readily to the life of the infantry soldier. Out of

the 140 who started training as officer cadets, 117 were commissioned on 16

July, 1967.

The first edition of

One Of A Kind

was published in 2007 by SAFTI MI and launched by

then-Minister for Defence, Mr. Teo Chee Hean. It was recognised as an opportunity to record

the collective diary of the first cohort of SAFTI at Pasir Laba, probably the only eye-witness

account by an inaugural class of a military officer training institute at the time.

As the fiftieth anniversary of the commissioning of the first cohort loomed (2017), some of

them proposed issuing a new edition of

One Of A Kind

. One of us, Lieutenant General (RET)

Ng Jui Ping, who retired as the Chief of Defence Force, spoke to Dr. Ng Eng Hen, Minister

for Defence. The rest, as they say, is history, as RADM Giam Hock Koon, Commandant SAFTI

The Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Goh Keng Swee at the Opening Ceremony of SAFTI on

June, 1966.