There was therefore great urgency to build up the SAF to defend ourselves in a dangerous world. Our founding leaders moved quickly. They introduced National Service. We created new SAF formations – artillery, armour, engineers, signals, logistics. Roughly in alphabetical order, but starting with artillery. We created and built up the Air Force and Navy. We procured new (actually often second-hand) equipment, and trained our troops to operate them. We developed the command structures and operational concepts to employ the new units. Progressively, we learnt to operate and fight as a combined armed force, and then as one integrated, tri-service force. Year after year, as Singapore developed and prospered, we allocated a steady budget for defence. Year after year, we modernised our forces, upgraded our capabilities, and strengthened the long-term security of Singapore.
Today, Singapore is a successful, developed nation, and the SAF is a professional, credible, and respected force. The 3G SAF is a reality. We have created a fourth Service – the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) – our guardians in the digital domain. But the work of building Singapore and upgrading the SAF never ceases. Singapore is moving ahead with the Forward SG agenda, and the SAF is transforming itself again into the Next Generation SAF, operationally ready to handle all sorts of new threats.
Achieving mission success
For almost 60 years, Singapore has enjoyed peace and security. And one major contributing factor has been the existence and readiness of the SAF. As a result, the SAF has never had to fight a war to defend our homeland. It is a great blessing and long may this continue.
But the price of peace is eternal vigilance. Our servicemen are on guard 24/7 – in the air, on land, at sea, and in the digital domain. During these decades, whenever we have needed the SAF, it has always been there, and it has always delivered.
The SAF has conducted deterrence patrols, counter-terrorism operations, and security deployments for extraordinary events, like the Trump-Kim Summit a few years ago. Regularly, we conduct recall and mobilisation exercises, for men as well as equipment. Occasionally, we have had to raise our alert status, sometimes overtly, sometimes quietly, perhaps in response to some exigency or to quietly signal our resolve.
The SAF has also proved its mettle in overseas operations. It has participated in UN peacekeeping operations, including in Timor Leste. It has joined international missions to counter terrorism and piracy. For example, on anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, and the multinational stabilisation and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Besides carrying out operations, the SAF also participates in combined exercises with regional and international partners. Our units go through their paces, flying our flag high, and quietly showing our partners that we know our stuff, and deserve to be taken seriously.
The SAF has also mounted swift and effective responses to regional and international humanitarian crises and disasters. When the Boxing Day tsunami struck in 2004, the SAF launched our first transports just 48 hours later, delivering much needed relief supplies to Banda Aceh, Meulaboh, and other affected areas. When an earthquake hit Christchurch in 2011, a Guards contingent that happened to be there on exercise, including full-time National Servicemen, quickly joined the quake relief efforts. And in March this year, the SAF conducted airdrop operations over Gaza, to provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to the civilian population there.
In national emergencies too, such as SARS in 2003, and more recently COVID-19, the SAF stepped up to and contributed greatly to the fight against the novel pathogens.
Each time, whatever the mission, the SAF was ready, our units and servicemen have shown what they could do, and they did the SAF and Singapore proud. Very few other organisations in Singapore have the capability, readiness, and resourcefulness to respond to any situation at short notice, and to make things happen, like the SAF. And so it gives great reassurance and confidence to the government and to Singaporeans that we have the SAF at the nation’s disposal, ready to respond whenever the need arises.
The SAF experience
It has been my privilege to have served for many years in uniform, before entering politics. Like many other Singaporeans, I started out as a full-time National Serviceman, I was a recruit in 2 SIR, then at Holland Road Camp. Later, I took up an SAF Scholarship, and signed on as a Regular. In those days, we were permanent regulars, that means you served until retirement. Later, I had the great privilege of commanding troops – platoons, batteries, and later a battalion. I served in the General Staff, and helped to set up the first Joint Staff elements, which set the SAF on the path to becoming a tri-service force. It was an immensely fulfilling experience. To train and motivate my men, and make the units operationally ready. To help work out the SAF’s capabilities, concepts, and force structures. To help plan and shape the development and future of the SAF. I left the SAF a long time ago, but others took over the baton, and have taken the SAF so much further forward over the past 40 years. Incidentally, SAFTI MI – where we are today – holds special meaning for me. When I was an officer cadet in 1971, OCS and SAFTI were in Pasir Laba Camp, across the road. Only many years later, in 1987, did we decide to build this SAFTI campus. As then Second Minister for Defence, I was involved in that decision, and had the privilege of making the announcement at the SAFTI Commissioning Parade Dinner! I was very happy, and I am very happy that SAFTI MI continues to fulfil its mission, training generations of officers, specialists and military experts from all Services, and at all levels of leadership.
Personally, I have benefitted enormously from my time in the SAF. Getting to know and understand fellow servicemen from all walks of life. Learning how to work as a team, how to lead and take care of men. Taking on command responsibility. These lessons proved invaluable in government, and have lasted me a lifetime.
Also lifelong are the friendships and bonds formed with those who have served alongside me. Including those who spoke so generously and warmly in the video just now – LG Winston Choo, COL Chan Jwee Kay, LTC Mukhtiar Singh, MWO Lim Puay Sia. They and many others have guided me, mentored me, supported me, put me right when necessary, became good friends and lifelong comrades, and I am eternally grateful. It is always heartwarming to run into an old comrade, or to have someone come up to me and say “Sir, I was your soldier in such and such unit and such and such camp, the camp is no more but I am still here”, or to say, “we served in the same camp, in the 1970s, I was not in your unit but we were in the same camp together, I knew you”. It means he is proud of his service in the SAF, he is proud to have known me and served with me, and we share something intangible and powerful that will always bind us together. And I am proud of the SAF and I am proud of our comradeship too. Our minds go back through the years, and conjure up the training exercises we went through, the difficulties and disappointments we overcame, the achievements and successes that we still feel proud of.
Mine is not a singular experience – it is something precious that all of us who have served in uniform have experienced and treasured. This camaraderie and pride is the reason NS is so important to our identity and social cohesion as Singaporeans. It is also why generations of Singaporeans have supported their sons to serve in their turn, and to play their part to defend our nation. It makes the SAF a national institution that Singaporeans identify with wholeheartedly.
The SAF must always retain the trust and support of Singaporeans. It is a heavy commitment, to fulfil your National Service duty – two years full-time, and for many years after that as Operationally Ready NSmen. For their part, the Government will always ensure that our personnel are well-equipped, well-trained, and well-led; the SAF will see to it that they are kept safe and have a positive NS experience; and Singaporeans will take pride in our servicemen, and give you full moral and practical support. We are with you all the way!
