Dunno how true...
A former colleague, where i used to work, related this tale.
He was a young chap working in the shipyard in Singapore in the early 70's. The "vietnam war" was raging. One day they were asking for volunteers to do a task. Nobody in their right mind would "volunteer" for such a task upon knowing what they were being asked to do, it was a stomach churning job not for the faint of heart. After overcoming the initial sense of revulsion and not least attracted by the substantial monetary compensation and perhaps also the fact that they were young men with gall, being egged on by fellow friends/colleagues/drinking buddies.
This former colleague of mine was a Singaporean of Indian decent, whose forebear must have converted to Christianity (Catholic/Anglican ?) , thus acquiring an angmoh name within his already quite lengthy Indian name. Not uncommon in this part of south east Asia.
To steel themselves, they downed quantities of beer at the canteen, getting half drunk, saturating the olfactory with beer breath, they went to work.
The body bags were straight from the field, from the front line. The dead soldiers were still in their combat fatigue as they were in their final moments. Bloody, torn, dried sweat and mud cake no beer breathed saturated olfactory can ever masked. They were no mortician, no need, not yet. Their job was to make quickly tidy up the mess. A fresh clean combat fatigue, tucked in the intestines, put back the forearm as best as humanly presentable...
If i ever meet this former colleague of mine, i will definitely ask him for more details about this tall tale if he ever remember telling us back in 1999 !
If i ever meet this former colleague of mine, i will definitely ask him for more details about this tall tale if he ever remember telling us back in 1999 !
In the early 70's i was a toddler and by the end of 1975 with the Americans defeated in South Vietnam and the fighting stopped, i don't even know there was a war. The only "war" i knew was shown on TV in my home living room, starring Vic Morrow. It was in black and white, depicting the fighting of a by gone era where the good guys were victorious. Regale and re-runs.
Who would guess that one day communist Vietnam will become a part of ASEAN today. Without 20/20 hindsight, the former was an existential threat to the young nations of south east Asia then! As real as it can get. But not for me, i don't understand the fear and impending danger growing up post 1975.
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| I don't understand the fear and impending danger. I grew up in an era of peace and prosperity in Singapore. |
Entering the 90's, we witness the high tech war fighting machines and maneuvers of the US armed forces in Iraq. A revitalized US fighting force. As a young and quite well to do nation, we have build up quite an arsenal of hardware. By the time i served, the SAF has been building itself up to close to a quarter of a century. By then we had about 700 APCs and 300 light tanks for a small country of less than 4 million population.
During my National Service days, our unit was dispatch to Thailand for battalion exercises. We were still riding on the M113s hand me down from "Vietnam". We bought used car. A lot ! Seven-hundred of used M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers to form Armoured-Infantry units. We got hand me down from some "Mexicans", of AMX-13 Light Tanks, also a lot ! Three-hundred of them. Some say we even got Main Battle Tanks. But i have never seen one in the country and officially we don't have. That was when i was in Thailand, i thought i caught a glimpse of a certain Mr T, parked at the open vehicle park. A lone MBT doing in some non-describe part of Thailand a quarter of a century after the start of the Vietnam war?
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| I saw Mr T at river Kwai ... or maybe i 眼花 |
A 105mm gunned Main Battle Tank designed and built at the closing of the second world war by the British but used extensively by some other people right up to the 1980's !
Anyways, it seemed that no one take noticed of this "foreign" looking armored vehicle, definitely not my platoon mates. We were more enamored of the canteen auntie's daughter.
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| Canteen auntie's daughter. I found out they were Hakka, Thai of Chinese descent. |
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| Posing with local young men with our second-hand ride in the background, otherwise was still in good condition. |
I took one more glance of Mr T and that was that. It was gone when we came back from field exercise. Now thinking back, i should have went up front and take a detailed look and double confirm for myself haha. It may or may not have been Mr T. We may have got those, also second hand, hand me down from the "Mexicans" ? Allowing for some fertile imaginings, remember the existential threat from the communist rowing down south was very real. People of mine and later generations do not sense the danger for we had the good fortune of growing up in peace and prosperity...
By 09 August 1965, i imagine our pioneers hit the ground running with their plates full (of problems that is), and the geopolitical situation in the neighborhood was not helping either. Further north in Indo-China, American military advisers had been in-country since 1963 ... the simmering broth boiled over. Hope against all hope. It was with this backdrop that ASEAN was born on the 08 August 1967.
Now you ever wonder why you can't find a single Mr T on home ground? They were there, deployed forward, so far north even beyond Malaysia (but also because our relationship with M'sia is another story lah). If ever communist Vietnam army were to do a blitzkrieg down south, our one lone company or at most a battalion of Mr T augmented by units of M113 APCs and AMX-13 light tanks were going to be mere speed bumps.
If what i imagined was true, then the reason is that we do what we can, as a small sovereign state, helping a fellow ASEAN state, defending against a very real onslaught that can wipe out a country just like what happened during the second world war, with the memories and experiences still vivid in our pioneer folks.
The domino theory. We cannot afford to even let Thailand fall. A sovereign state of ASEAN must hold, until the US 7th fleet arrived... or else the situation will turn very horrible, once they reached Malaysia, it is as good as fighting Singapore too. And so we hold the line and delay, fighting retrograde from Thailand?
The danger felt by our pioneer generations were so real, that even twenty odd years later we were still "exercising" those manoeuvres over there by sending cohorts upon cohorts of NSmen for unit exercises but also deployment manning ? Talk about PTSD but on a national scale.
The Americans had kept the north Vietnamese busy for a decade or more. They expanded treasure and blood, precious young sons and daughters, on both sides, that bought us time to build up our economy and defence. Ten precious years. Depending on which camp you are, you can debate the rights and wrongs till the cows come home... some people keep criticizing the US and in general the liberal democratic west and praising the rise of the middle kingdom, and then this very same people send their sons and daughters to be educated in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc...
Not long after i ORD in the early 90's ( at the time it was called ROD) from full time two-and-a-half years of national service, the ST engineers retrofitted and upgraded the engines and transmissions and other assortment of systems on our hand me down AMX-13 light tanks, they were renamed as SM1s. Soon upgraded versions of our second hand M113 APCs followed.
In 1997 the Bionix Armoured Fighting vehicle was commissioned. It was the first indigenous designed and built AFV. From the first formation of my parent armour unit in 1968 to the first indigenous produced combat armoured fighting vehicle , a journey of 30 years.
And they din stop there. In 2010 the Terrex Infantry Carrier was rolling out into the motorised infantry and guards unit...
Wait, hold on your horses, the good folks at ST kinetics has recently delivered a tracked armoured fighting vehicle which is slated to be commissioned by 2019!
And... now that we have so many combat assets, some people are eyeing to steal/detained/confiscate! From buying bullet ridden second hand tin cans of the M113s to building our very own AFVs in 30 years time... and we are not done yet .... we are still designing, and we are still building...
While some people focus on the x09 Terrex that were "robbed" in broad day light from us, i would prefer to take that as a compliment that a small, sovereign, little red dot of an island republic can produce a product that is worthy of being desired by a BIG country.
Our pioneer generation not only do they dare to imagine but most importantly they dare to act on their nightmare scenarios 😱 !
In the years leading from 1965, realistically we were no match for the communist Vietnam then. Today we are still no match to a certain big bully, of course, we are not deluded, siow ! How to fight ? Sure die ! But still got to fight, no choice, bo pian. Our pioneers threw themselves into building up a semblance of armed defence in triple quick time, they threw in money, people and the kitchen sink - buy second hand, a lot of second hand arms and train and strategically deploy and the whole organ of the state - defence, diplomacy, $$$, etc. Diplomacy, it was quiet diplomacy at work away from the media limelight decade after decade that finally brought a foe into the fold of ASEAN and become a friend - Socialist Republic of Vietnam ! The same quiet diplomacy was also at work with the junta in Myanmar (though Myanmar is no enemy lah). Its really a work of brilliance to turn an enemy into a friend, without even resorting to comparing whose gun is bigger. Some people like to talk about win-win, now, this is true win-win.
“History is clear: nations with strong allies thrive and those without them wither.” - General James Mattis (retired, USMC)
"I concede that were God to take over the direction of human history things may be different. But until then it is safer to work on the assumption that the meek are meant to be trampled under." - S RAJARATNAM (1981) [Link]
12 January 2017
If what i imagined was true, then the reason is that we do what we can, as a small sovereign state, helping a fellow ASEAN state, defending against a very real onslaught that can wipe out a country just like what happened during the second world war, with the memories and experiences still vivid in our pioneer folks.
The domino theory. We cannot afford to even let Thailand fall. A sovereign state of ASEAN must hold, until the US 7th fleet arrived... or else the situation will turn very horrible, once they reached Malaysia, it is as good as fighting Singapore too. And so we hold the line and delay, fighting retrograde from Thailand?
The danger felt by our pioneer generations were so real, that even twenty odd years later we were still "exercising" those manoeuvres over there by sending cohorts upon cohorts of NSmen for unit exercises but also deployment manning ? Talk about PTSD but on a national scale.
The Americans had kept the north Vietnamese busy for a decade or more. They expanded treasure and blood, precious young sons and daughters, on both sides, that bought us time to build up our economy and defence. Ten precious years. Depending on which camp you are, you can debate the rights and wrongs till the cows come home... some people keep criticizing the US and in general the liberal democratic west and praising the rise of the middle kingdom, and then this very same people send their sons and daughters to be educated in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc...
Not long after i ORD in the early 90's ( at the time it was called ROD) from full time two-and-a-half years of national service, the ST engineers retrofitted and upgraded the engines and transmissions and other assortment of systems on our hand me down AMX-13 light tanks, they were renamed as SM1s. Soon upgraded versions of our second hand M113 APCs followed.
In 1997 the Bionix Armoured Fighting vehicle was commissioned. It was the first indigenous designed and built AFV. From the first formation of my parent armour unit in 1968 to the first indigenous produced combat armoured fighting vehicle , a journey of 30 years.
 |
| Bionix Armoured Fighting Vehicle (Mk 1) |
And they din stop there. In 2010 the Terrex Infantry Carrier was rolling out into the motorised infantry and guards unit...
 |
| Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicle |
Wait, hold on your horses, the good folks at ST kinetics has recently delivered a tracked armoured fighting vehicle which is slated to be commissioned by 2019!
 |
| On the Right is the akan datang Next Gen Armoured Fighting Vehicle .... On the left is the second hand M113 hand me down from the "vietnam" era which ST has upgraded to the Ultra M113 model. |
And... now that we have so many combat assets, some people are eyeing to steal/detained/confiscate! From buying bullet ridden second hand tin cans of the M113s to building our very own AFVs in 30 years time... and we are not done yet .... we are still designing, and we are still building...
While some people focus on the x09 Terrex that were "robbed" in broad day light from us, i would prefer to take that as a compliment that a small, sovereign, little red dot of an island republic can produce a product that is worthy of being desired by a BIG country.
Our pioneer generation not only do they dare to imagine but most importantly they dare to act on their nightmare scenarios 😱 !
In the years leading from 1965, realistically we were no match for the communist Vietnam then. Today we are still no match to a certain big bully, of course, we are not deluded, siow ! How to fight ? Sure die ! But still got to fight, no choice, bo pian. Our pioneers threw themselves into building up a semblance of armed defence in triple quick time, they threw in money, people and the kitchen sink - buy second hand, a lot of second hand arms and train and strategically deploy and the whole organ of the state - defence, diplomacy, $$$, etc. Diplomacy, it was quiet diplomacy at work away from the media limelight decade after decade that finally brought a foe into the fold of ASEAN and become a friend - Socialist Republic of Vietnam ! The same quiet diplomacy was also at work with the junta in Myanmar (though Myanmar is no enemy lah). Its really a work of brilliance to turn an enemy into a friend, without even resorting to comparing whose gun is bigger. Some people like to talk about win-win, now, this is true win-win.
 |
| Aesop fables |
“History is clear: nations with strong allies thrive and those without them wither.” - General James Mattis (retired, USMC)
"I concede that were God to take over the direction of human history things may be different. But until then it is safer to work on the assumption that the meek are meant to be trampled under." - S RAJARATNAM (1981) [Link]
12 January 2017
