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STAFF AND TRAINEE DYNAMICS
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THIRTEEN
IV. A SERIOUS FAUX PAS
merchant family of significant historical influence in Singapore, though diminished at the
time. His demeanour suggested that he did not consider many of the cadets to be suitable
officer material and that he would have difficulty acknowledging them as his superiors if they
were commissioned. He had some quaint notions of military bearing and discipline, coupled
with a high-pitched squeak when issuing the executive component at the end of each drill
command, which trainees never tired of spoofing. The trainees in his platoon were seldom
sure how to accept his guidance on any issue, partly because of his offbeat take on things but
mainly because many had inadvertently witnessed Tiger Hong pulling him up several times in
exasperation. But he was never vicious or overbearing, always unfailingly helpful—a genuine
favourite. He went on to become a WO1 himself, and retired the service early to take up a
successful business career.
There was one issue that rankled the trainees right through from recruit to commissioning
and beyond. Had they really understood the predicament of MID and Singapore as a
whole at the time—that the unsolicited independence had created priorities that called for
improvisations—they might have been more forgiving. But, being the young, hot-blooded
inductees into the warrior class that they were, their reactions were perhaps understandable.
The problem went to the very root of the challenge they had accepted from the Singapore
Government to undergo the arduous training at SAFTI, which had, in quite a number of
cases, included the unilateral rejection of their application to quit for those who thought it
too tough to take—as initially contracted—before the first three to six weeks of training
were over.
Shortly after the course started, several of the trainees noted that an applicant who had
undergone the selection test but had not been among those brought to SAFTI, turned up
as the Duty Officer in the barrack lines. Under the stress of the first weeks at SAFTI, the
trainees drew the inevitable conclusion: he had not qualified but had been commissioned
as a Second Lieutenant in the Volunteer Corps or People’s Defence Force as it was known
by then. Actually, it was also equally possible that he had qualified but he had been on the
verge of getting a Volunteer commission and had chosen to go that route, except that the
trainees would have then concluded that he had wimped out anyway. As a matter of fact,
there were others at SAFTI with Volunteer Corps commissions and some were appointed
section instructors. Director, SAFTI himself had been a Volunteer, but no one doubted his
qualifications to be Director: he was a known high-flyer from the elite Administrative Service
and everybody recognised that what was called for from him as Director went well beyond
professional military expertise, in which case, he was by no means disadvantaged. But, for
one who was believed not to have measured up to the selection criteria to appear with the
coveted commission while those who had qualified were striving mightily for it, was totally
unpalatable. If knowingly done, it was insensitive in the extreme to have the individual