It’s Mission Possible for Singapore SAF overseas

It’s Mission Possible for Singapore SAF overseas
 
By Teh Joo Lin 
BUILDING BONDS: Lt-Col James Tan (left) and Cpt Quek Chee Tiong with an Afghan at a site survey in the province of Bamiyan. The SAF team is supervising the building of a health training centre there.
FOR a team of Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) servicemen on a mission in the Gulf in April, the days were about baking in the 50 deg C desert heat and being buffeted by sandstorms while boarding their KC-135 aerial refuelling tanker.
The 36-man team worked 12-hour days, refuelling the planes of coalition forces while travelling at speeds of more than 500kmh aloft, with an ‘umbilical cord’ of fuel going from their plane to aircraft engaged in UN-sanctioned operations.

Recalling those three months, pilot Ashley Peterson said: ‘I had to get the aircraft to where it was supposed to be, on time, every time… It was as real as it got. We were no longer in a training environment.’

Facing a small but very real risk of being shot at by hostile forces on the ground, the Singapore detachment clocked 350 hours there before coming home two weeks ago.

They joined a growing list of some 2,000 servicemen who have been deployed in missions overseas, including multinational reconstruction efforts in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan and various other peace-support operations sanctioned by the United Nations.

About 35 missions have taken place since the first one in 1989, when the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) sent 14 officers, joined by police and civil servants, to Namibia as election supervisors.

A VOLATILE REGION
‘Taleban fighters roam in small groups across the porous landscape dominated by towering mountain ranges, only to congregate for ‘hit and run’ attacks before dispersing into the…terrain.’ - ASSOCIATE RESEARCH FELLOW SAMUEL CHAN of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, on Oruzgan, a province south-west of the Afghan Kabul, which is where 40 medical and nursing officers of the SAF will be deployed next
 
Over the years, SAF troops have helped monitor elections in South Africa, built bridges in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province to help villagers truck potatoes to the market, as well as run dental checks for the villagers in the mountainous region.

Last year, a navy landing ship tank also sailed to the Northern Arabian Gulf, where it undertook patrol and boarding operations; protected the waters around key oil terminals; and gave logistics support to coalition vessels and helicopters.

Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said in an interview to mark SAF Day a month ago that these deployments enable Singapore to fulfil its role as a responsible member of the global community.

‘The SAF’s contribution to international operations is a key element of that,’ he said, adding that the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were part of ‘the larger effort’ to rebuild and stabilise the two countries.

These missions also give the SAF valuable operational experience, said defence analyst Bernard Loo.

‘It’s a chance for the soldier to test himself and experience something he might otherwise have no opportunity to.’

SAF personnel often find themselves applying what they have learnt in tense situations, though they are not at the front line.

Dr Loo believes that a deployment of combat troops is not likely to happen anytime soon. He said: ‘I seriously doubt we will consciously send anyone into a front-line situation. I suspect this image of body bags coming home…is probably a line that cannot be crossed yet.’

The SAF deployments overseas have not seen casualties so far, but the risks they face are very real.

Said Mr Teo in his SAF Day interview: ‘It’d not be honest for me to say the risks are zero…but we make sure that we train our people well, we prepare them well and we equip them well.’

In an interview from Bamiyan province, Lieutenant-Colonel James Tan, who is leading a team supervising the building of a regional health training centre there, said that the team had prepared for the mission by being schooled in Afghan culture and the operating environment.

The soldiers also trained with the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team, with which they are deployed.

‘Much of the training was focused on honing our force protection skills and physical fitness,’ said Lt-Col Tan, adding that the team had to be mindful of threats from insurgents ‘at all times’.

All ground knowledge gleaned so far will come in handy when the SAF crosses another milestone in its overseas deployments later this year.

In what could be one of its riskiest operations to date, about 40 medical and nursing officers, divided into two three-month rotations, will be sent into Oruzgan, a province south-west of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

They will provide primary health-care and ward facilities in support of a medical facility run by Dutch and Australian forces.

Unlike Bamiyan, Oruzgan has been described as a ‘restive’ and ‘volatile’ region in a commentary by associate research fellow Samuel Chan of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Both the Dutch and the Australians have lost personnel there. Last month, an Australian army signaller was killed in a roadside bomb blast in the area.

Mr Chan wrote of the region: ‘Taleban fighters roam in small groups across the porous landscape dominated by towering mountain ranges, only to congregate for ‘hit and run’ attacks before dispersing into the…terrain.’

He sees the operation there as possibly the SAF’s most dangerous overseas mission since its personnel were sent to Afghanistan in 1997.

What Lieutenant-Colonel Lo Yong Poo had to go through as a UN military adviser in Afghanistan that year is now the stuff of legend in the SAF.

On a number of occasions, fierce exchanges of rocket and artillery fire took place during his meetings with local commanders.

Days after he evacuated several UN staff from a remote village, a faction there announced that it wanted his head.

The commando officer hid in a bunker for more than two weeks - with constant artillery shelling and bombing over his head - until a helicopter got him out.

The much-decorated Lo, who retired from the SAF as a Colonel, was to say later: ‘My appreciation of our nation’s strengths were strengthened through these experiences.’

Source : Straits Times - 01 Aug 2008

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