Who is the best General in Singapore?

last SG · 2004-07-31T20:32:12+00:00

Reminds me of a Brunei jungle-training exercise with 6SIR when I saw the CO got chewed out by a (lower-ranked) trainer for being heartless. Can still recall...

LRRP SG

Who is the best general in Singapore ? Past and Present? Why?

SibeiSuayKia SG

BG Lee Hsien Long
BG Lee Hsien Yang?

only these generals are those widely known

Joshua1975 SG

Very 1st Lt Gen Winston Choo.

Anyone that has hold War Front Comd. in Mindef/SAF.

Saw 2, one a TEWT/out field and one in War Game/SIM lad. Well must give it to them.

LRRP SG

My vote is Winston Choo. You have it to give it to the old horse… The rest? seems to be too soft now.

Joshua1975 SG

because you not yet serve. gin na

Obersturmfuhrer SG

Yamashita? Mr. Green

No general worth mentioning since I tend to avoid them like the plague. If you're talking about COLs and LTCs I can name a handful.

Temujin SG

Singapore General Hospital.

It takes the sick and hopefully make you better.

Paladin SG

Mr. Green that's a good one

Temujin SG

Mr. Green

HALI SG

All those that are not Scholar… Most of them ROD liao…

baer SG

Interesting thread for a show stopper. Unlike most normal people, I eat, shit etc military things (no not signed on). However I for one cannot identify more than one general in Singapore army. Ask me about Napleon's marshals, US or UK generals from the year dot to now I may be able to spout a fact or two.

Ask me who is the clown in charge of my present brigade, DUH! buay sie.

Why? Don't care, don't think they will be around to make decisions that will make me a better hokkien peng. Worst still have innate fear that this joker or some other joker will do another Boo boo that will make me cring to talk about being the best, general or otherwise.

How then do we measure the best? Not without a war is the unfortunate answer. unfortunately my glum view of the SAF is that we can fight the fight when the chips are down, but not before a lot of mistakes are made and a lot more blood is spilled.

I have seen, taught and trained 'the best of the best' (SAF scholars batch Dec 1986, President Scout winners 2000) and it frightens me to think that among those clowns are potential BG's, Ministers, future leaders etc. They are basically good chaps but tend to walk ten cm above the ground (not connect with Mother earth) most of the time.

the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and for generals its how many battles they manage not to lose.

Napleon once asked his aide if a certain Marshal was lucky. His aide was suprized, why lucky. "Brave generals are a dime a dozen", it is the lucky ones that win the wars.

flash9933 SG

BG(Retired) Patrick Choy, former Chief of Armour in the 80s.

Why the best?? Becos he only got "O" levels education and attained the BG rank.

Next it might be COL Loo Yong Boo(Comd BMTC), doesn't even complete his secondary education. He is still in the force and who knows he might get his star

LazerLordz SG

COL Loo Yong Poo.Navy Seal, Ranger, Commando, Airborne.Now that's a fine man I would rather have leading our Armed Forces instead of the scholars, who might be smart in their heads but lack the leadership quotient that has been carefully nurtured of the senior officers who are trained specfically for war.E.g, I would respect a graduate from West Point or the US Naval Academy rather than a scholar who was sent to Harvard or Princeton, then has a ROA that leads him to the CDF post.Let the scholars be analysts and policy hawks, let the fighters and warriors be in command.That should be the way.But then again, no one would blame a NSF when I say, that's the business for all you regulars.We pay you so much money, please do not lead us into war.

flash9933 SG

Ya, in times of war, can these scholars general lead us into the battle ground?? NO .. is the answer ....

These scholars should watch "Brotherhood" and realise that the art of battle is not just sitting in the full-blast air con room shifting little tank models and fire the tank from their mouse and keyboards.

LazerLordz SG

Correct.Scholars should be tasked to do policy papers and intelligence analysis.Not be the BDE Comd, standing in the CP giving out orders when he hasn’t spent at least 20 years on the ground.Correct me if I’m wrong.

flash9933 SG

These generals are all paper-battle soldiers. As long as the govt's policy never change, you can never see a soldier such as COL Loo heading the army. In the past 10 years, all the chief of respective forces are good in academic background. We no longer call ourselves fighting soldiers but thinking or some say citizen army. We no longer sleep on foam bed, but 6" dunlopilo bed with latex pillow. The management of the forces are approaching MNC style.

Who knows due to the lack of land space for training and male to do NS, our country might outsource the defence to other countries.

LazerLordz SG

The best option would be to place physical proficiency alongside academic criteria as a basis of scholarship selection.Some of the President Scholars are PES C in the Army.Where does that lead us?The Service Chiefs should have both brains and brawn.Such a simple yet tough equation to uncover.Geez.

flash9933 SG

If you are a polictical observer, you might know that more and more of the senior officers in the SAF are on board of the statutory boards or govt-link companies. Eventually, when they ROD from the force, they will be heading in one of those profitable organisation. This is the path that the govt already plan for themas part of the career plan.

I'm expecting more of these career soldiers venturing into the govt's link organisation when our new PM takes over.

SibeiSuayKia SG

Wonder if the scholar generals know what is the true meaning of war

wonder if they know what to do when thier M-16 gun reaches IA..

wonder if they know basic military stuff

my bet is ...to earn thier monthly pay...they get to play red alert 2 and create own game with singapore and malaysia...scenario

anyway its possible to create a war game..scenario..

can design those super pumas into a software
and the A4-SU..
F-5 oso ..F-16 also..
AwaCs oso possible

the gunboats no problem..the stealth boats oso..

den shiok..we pair them off against FA-18 and Mig-29..

most important in a war..the morale must be important!

our military+politics are interrelated

pple from NOL,GLC going into Govt or...military going into Govt is normal
pple from GOVT into NOL, GLC oso quite a number

Moxie SG

No need to be so cynical.

While I do think that we might perhaps be too top-heavy with staff officers, it's more of a recognition that the (lower-ranked) combat officers don't get enough publicity from the pro-establishment media.

It's also fair to say that the SAF hasn't been battle-tested for 2 generations since independence; the pioneering deployments from 1SIR (Borneo) & 2SIR (Johore) occuring before '65 during Konfrantasi. But within those parameters, if we set the standard bar at the maximum-possible level of operational readiness, I'll say our officer corps have historically done an excellent job of troop preparation.

& the latter achievement cannot be underrated, cuz without it there's no way we could've otherwise mobilized local aid for local emergencies since the British left (memorably the big-time floods the blighted the entire island), right though to the last decade when we started to send overseas detachments as assistance (Cambodia, East Timor, Gulf War I, Philippines, now Iraq).

Along the way, there's serious peacetime calamities/crises (Syoros disaster, Cable-car tragedy, Hotel New World collapse, SARS) as well as security breaches (Laju incident, SQ117 hijack) that was largely resolved by Singaporeans ourselves - no easy feat given our small resource pool. Sure, it's different from true military warfare but, if you believe in the Total Defence concept, it's a testamount to the leadership & common-man aptitude that the relevant people didn't fail the test when called upon.

For one, I'm thankful that the SAF doesn't suffer from internal rivalries & warlordism traits that sometimes taints other military forces. Mind you, the respective field commanders of the afore-mentioned deployments also had to do a lot of tri-service coordination between the Army, Navy, RSAF, SCDF, et al. - & this is where I like to think all the staff-officer training stints didn't go to waste.

For example, Lee Hsien Loong (then a Colonel & just before leaving for politics) directed the multifacted Cable-car rescue mission, just like the current SCDF Commisioner (forgot his name) did the same for Hotel New World. It's now largely forgotten, but President S.R. Nathan (then with ISD) also led the Laju negotiation team & offered himself as hostage to the Jap Red Army kidnappers.

That said, I'll vote for Goh Keng Swee as Singapore's greatest General - well, he was an "Honorary Colonel" with the Singapore Arty. Our own version of US Union General George McCllelan, to draw a comparison. GKS was the de-facto CIC that rebuilt a conscript army for the new republic & then galvanized its evolution in to a more-professional outfit; Winston Choo, LHL, et al. blossomed under his watch. To quote from today's, 31/7/04 Straits Times article by KC Vijayan, "A review in the 1980s of a collection of [GKS's] essays on economics paid tribute by saying defence ministers elsewhere would egarly await his essays on how to start a defence force from scratch."

NB. I'll also say that multi-country training exercises like the FPDA arrangement or equivalent keep a fair number of SAF scholar-officers on their toes, when it comes to executing the classroom & Wargame-Center stuff. It's a real opportunity & the next-best thing to actual conflict.