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JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET
79
SIX
III. ALL AND SUNDRY
No one recalls now if there had been an advertisement in the English and vernacular papers,
but the brochure was widely distributed in Government offices, secondary schools, the two
universities and the Singapore Polytechnic. Hwee Man Lok, a poetry-spouting Arts graduate
of 23 and mini-Godfather from Ah Hood Road, duly reported to Inspector Lim Choon
Mong sometime in early March 1966 at the Lower Barracks of the Police Headquarters in
Pearl’s Hill, to which MID had moved by now. He had come to fill up the
ENROLMENT
FORM FOR OFFICERS’ TRAINING
(which, with the characteristic military accountability for
details, had already been given the official number 0431-5,000-3/66 meaning 5,000 had been
printed in March 1966). Mr. Lim, who was a staff officer to the Officer-in-Charge, Procedure
& Selection, Manpower Division, MID, with his trademark unflappable self-confidence,
told Man Lok that, being a graduate, “You no problem, sure make it to officer—sign!”
Unbeknownst, as they say, to either at the time, a lifelong friendship had begun. A a matter
of fact Choon Mong knew Mun Lok’s father who was a senior NCO in the police.
William Law, at age 17 years and six months, probably had no business to be there because
applicants were supposed to have been 18 years old on enlistment. But MID appears to
have been rather easy about specifications, as they were to demonstrate repeatedly through
casual unilateral abrogation of terms and conditions that had been mutually agreed earlier
between enlistees and enlisters. William Law eventually graduated as the youngest officer
ever in the SAF.
For Gurcharan Singh, the call had come through while he was getting ready to start work
on Malaysia’s Subang Airport in Kuala Lumpur after graduating as an Engineer from the
University of Malaya’s Kuala Lumpur campus. Being an avid and talented hockey and rugby
player, he was known to Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr. Tan Teck Khim, another
sports aficionado, who alerted him to the good prospects of a graduate entering the SAF on
the ground floor. Being a member of a martial race and Mr. Tan being designated the first
Director, General Staff, Gurcharan obligingly applied. ‘Guru’ as he came to be called, may
have been the oldest cadet, but he became Chief of Engineers three years after commission
with the lofty rank of Captain.
Ng Jui Ping had been grinding away fitfully with his studies as a private candidate for
the Cambridge Higher School Certificate (HSC) after completing his Cambridge School
Certificate examinations in Raffles Institution. While his father had thrived in business, he
himself had little relish for it at the time. So, he too took the fateful plunge that would
eventually lead to the three stars of a Lieutenant-General—the only one from the First
Batch—with his appointment as Chief of Defence Force in 1993.
Ng Seng Chan was also doing his HSC, but chafing under the regime of studies as a private
candidate. He decided to defer studies when he saw the offer and enlisted. To his credit,
he remained on the part-time ticket for his HSC, which he, together with Jui Ping, took in