The Lone Tree Hill Incident at Lim Chu Kang

This post has nothing to do with economics. It is about 2LT Lee's letter that skipped the chain of command, weaved into a story about my one major regret. This incident happened more than a decade ago, but I have carried the burden of a blemished conscience ever since.

It was a night in March 1996, my battalion was carrying out a routine exercise in Lim Chu Kang in preparation for the battalion proficiency test. My company was two months away from ORD, and that test would be our last exercise. Armed with a scholarship, I was eagerly looking to ORD and going overseas. In my battalion, there was this young scholar captain who was transferred from another unit. His aloofness also made it easy for others to gang up on him. Because of his lack of experience in our formation, he was only given a platoon commander's job rather than the OC appointment which a captain would usually be accorded with. I suspect other captains, OCs themselves, viewed this scholar with a mixture of contempt (since he transferred from a supposedly less tough unit) and career-envy (he was scholar-tracked, so to speak).

That fateful March night, my S3 asked that he became the point platoon to guide the battalion to the objective, which was the the so-called "lone-tree hill" in Lim Chu Kang. It was a very specific instruction that all officers understood. But in the middle of the battalion movement, my company commander - who was always out to impress - broke away from the battalion movement in order to find a shortcut to the target. Platoon commanders, including myself, tried to dissuade him since we would be going against S3's explicit instructions. But my OC was not to be moved. Our company broke off from the rest of the battalion, and went on a needless 3 km full combat order run just to show that we could reach the objective faster.

When the point platoon finally arrived twenty minutes later, that scholar captain was naturally surprised to see an entire company already at the RV point. He hadn't even realised that my company had broken contact from the rear. Understandably, he confronted my OC straightaway and the two, who never really liked each other, almost came to blows. The rest of the company, including the junior officers like myself, stood there not sure quite what to make of it.

Gradually, other companies arrived. What happened then was a blur - lots of shouting and shoving around to separate the two captains who by then were too steeped in the argument to back down. The rest of battalion just watched. S3 arrived and demanded to know that the commotion was about. My OC, in cahoot with other OCs there, turned around and accused the young captain of showing disrespect, and physically threatening a "senior" officer. Having not been a witness to that incident, S3 had to take the OCs words and reported the matter. Within a couple of days, the scholar captain was relieved of command and became a project officer. He did not take part in the battalion proficiency test, and his career became stunted as a result. The last I heard, he gave up on his army career.

At that time, I was very tempted to shoot an email to my formation chief and commanding officer to explain what happened - how my company commander pointedly violated commands to set up the scholar captain. The email was drafted, many versions, but all saved in my PC. I never did muster the courage to send, preferring to save myself from all the hassle. None of the other junior officers spoke up, they all probably made the same calculation like myself to ORD in peace than to end up in all kinds of trouble with the authorities. But I suspect they too carried the burden of not speaking up, for every time we met up, we would inevitably talk about the "lone-tree incident". I often wished I had the wisdom then to do the right thing. If I meet that captain on the streets again, I would apologise to him. This post, if he is reading, is just that - a belated apology from me for not speaking up all those years ago.

Whether 2LT Lee acted in cunning self-interest, in stupidity, naivety, or only because of his privileged background was largely irrelevant. Speaking up was the right thing to do. The rest were just details.

[Endnote: One of my army friends emailed me and mentioned that he met that captain recently, working in the insurance industry. My OC? I have been informed that he has since been promoted to battalion and then bridgade commmander. How would events have turned out if only one junior officer there spoke up? I often look back and wonder.]