One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET

SIX

I. APPLYING FOR THE COURSE

600740 Lance Corporal Abdul Samad s/o Athambava, Signals Platoon, HQ Coy, 2

Battalion,

Singapore Infantry Regiment proactively wrote through his Commanding Officer, LTC J.P.

Durken to the Ministry of the Interior and Defence on 3

February to be considered as a

candidate in the course. Samad, as he has always been known, had joined the army against

his father’s wishes to begin with. His father had come to Tanah Merah Camp, then home

of 2 SIR, with his hard-earned savings of $150 to buy out Samad. In the meantime, Samad

had approached his company 2 I/C Lieutenant Henry Velge and begged him to persuade his

father that the army was okay, and at worst, turn his father away. Samad may have also been

seriously affected by the picture of handsome Lieutenant Clarence Tan, lately Malaysian

Special Service Unit (psst! commando, paratrooper, stealth fighter, etc.) inside his shiny red

MG Midget (Registration Number SP 7008) in the enlistment promotional brochure

SERVE

WITH PRIDE

widely distributed by the MID.

Swee Boon Chai had also been in the Army before applying for the course. Having enjoyed

his school cadet corps, he had enlisted earlier as a Volunteer with the 14th Malaysian Signal

Squadron. He had been mobilised as a Lance Corporal to work with then MAJ Seah Peng

Yong (later Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret)), Commanding Officer HQ PDF, in Pearl’s Hill where

he was assigned to the office of Director, Manpower to help with the recruitment of the first

intake. MAJ Seah had strongly urged Boon Chai to apply. Boon Chai had by now seriously

begun to think of the army as a career anyway, and so he readily complied.

The plotters behind the misgivings experienced by the hapless trainees who were all but

shanghaied to SAFTI on 1

June, 1966, were Boon Chai’s boss, Inspector of Police, Lim

Choon Mong and

his

boss Herman Hochstadt, then Director, Manpower, MID. They were

tasked with recruiting at least 300 male Singaporeans for regular service for 12 years (10

years Colour Service and 2 years Reserve in the jargon of those by-gone days). Notifications

of acceptance in early May 1966 made reference to Section 86 of the Singapore Army

Act, 1965, which provided that if a recruit was prepared to cough up “not more than

$150” within 3 months after the date of his attestation, he could be discharged “with all

convenient speed” provided that the President of Singapore, then Inche Yusof Ishak, had

not proclaimed a national mobilisation. For those who were already in service and wished

to upgrade themselves to officer status, the reference was to Part VI of the Singapore Army

Act 1965 which highlighted that “if (an enlistee was) already a serving regular member of

the Singapore Armed Forces (he would) continue to serve the remainder of the un-expired

portion of (his) present period of enlistment” (which was presumably the 10 years of Colour

Service plus 2 years of Reserve).

JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET