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BARRACK LIFE DURING SECTION TRAINING
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TEN
Jimmy Koh’s ‘A Go-Go Girls’ giving their all on stage.
The great day finally dawned. HQ Company made the parade ground ready with armchairs
for VIPs, steel folding chairs for other guests, buntings and flags on the walls of surrounding
buildings and the tall parade square lamp posts and arrangements for the refreshment of
guests. Several staff members of IHQ were assigned the task of ushers, while others would be
spectators; the Provost Platoon prepared to handle the influx of vehicles, the Photographic
Section of Doctrine and Training Department stood by to record the historic occasion and
somebody from SAFTI Orderly Room to handle the media corps. The trainees were by now
also organised for a major change in deployment. They would all be relocated one way or
another: those who would be posted to ‘A’ Company (the list, with the platoon each trainee
was assigned to was pinned on company notice boards); those who were going for weapons
training and later as Assistant Platoon Commanders in units; those who would be assigned
as Corporals to units; those who did not make it to Corporal but opted to stay in the Army
anyway; and those who would leave (or had already left by that day). Some would be going
home with their parents or other guests to join the dinners later, others would stay back and
go home late at night or the next morning.
The parade was scheduled to commence at 1000 hrs. By about 0915 hrs, guests had begun to
arrive and they included military attaches from various embassies and representatives from
the Far East Land Forces and the Israeli Advisor team. All SAF units were represented.
Prominent members of the Singapore Civil Service and Singapore’s business community
were given VIP treatment. The trainees had assembled in their respective company lines
and were formed up on the parade square by 0945 hrs. From then, the parade went on like
clockwork, with the arrival on the dot of 1000 hrs of Dr. Goh Keng Swee, the Minister
for Interior and Defence as Reviewing Officer. Dr. Goh seemed greatly pleased at what he
saw before him: the largest contingent of trained Corporals Singapore had ever gathered