One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

PULLING TOGETHER

251

TWELVE

I. OFFICER CADET TRAINING WITHOUT FRILLS

II. ONE HOMOGENEOUS BODY

The structure of most officer cadet schools allows for seniors to be mentors of junior

cohorts by several months, as in the case of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Or,

they could be mentors of cohorts several years junior to them, if the course incorporates

a college degree, as in West Point. In ideal circumstances, this mentor-junior relationship

encourages good leadership traits, peer learning, a higher threshold of tolerance and good

grounding for the hierarchical life in the military.

Fortunately or unfortunately, for the first intake in SAFTI, they were the first and therefore

deprived of the experience of being subordinated to any seniors in circumstances ideal

or otherwise; nor did the officer cadet training structure allow for a mixing of senior and

junior cadets. The first cohort of officer cadets in ‘A’ Company, SAFTI, Pasir Laba, was

a homogeneous body from enlistment to commission and seems to have remained largely

so in spirit, despite a spread of ranks from Captain to Lieutenant-General by the time the

last member of those commissioned from this cohort retired from active service, some 30

years later.

The demographic profile of the first intake as a whole stretched across a wide spectrum,

but that too did not create polarisation into disparate groups of trainees. As applicants were

required to only have passed the Senior Cambridge School Certificate, the equivalent of the

GCE “O” level, at the median age of 18, the enlistees ranged from 17½ year old William

Law to 28 year old Gurcharan Singh, while educational qualifications ranged from Grade 3

School Certificate to a Colombo Plan honours degree in engineering (Yeow Yew Tong). The

actual profile included those who had passed the Cambridge Higher School Certificate and

graduates from the Teachers’ Training College, Singapore Polytechnic, Nanyang University,

University of Singapore, an Australian university, and the University of Malaya (Gurcharan

again). If the rest looked up to those with higher educational qualifications, there was

little outward evidence of it, while those with such qualifications had little reason to feel

privileged. The training was manifestly physical and the more youthful one was, the easier

to stay the course, especially the obstacle course, not to mention that the Figure 11 target at

300 metres is partial to 20/20 vision.

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