Prepare our soldiers ahead of retirement

I REFER to “Remember those who gallantly served the nation” ( The Star, Dec 25) and wish to express my gratitude and sincere thanks to the writer Liew Shan Lee for his view that the nation should not forget those servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives while serving in the Armed Forces to protect the country.

I was an ex-soldier serving in the British Army for 12 years from 1959 to 1971. I vividly remembered as a young soldier, my squadron commander had relentlessly reminded us to work hard and excel to achieve our future aspirations and expectations.

He said, we should be proud of what we do as soldiers and should not tarnish the badge of the British Empire Crown and uniform we wore.

This means that soldiers should always serve the nation with pride and learn to achieve our goals not only with arms and ammunition, but we should further learn to acquire higher academic standards and technical skills to prepare ourselves for future survival after the run out date (ROC).

As soldiers in the British Army, we were only trained to be good warriors to eliminate our enemy in engagements. We had to carry out our duty impartially and fight according to military strategies as ordered by our troop commander.

Soldiers with exemplary conduct, excellent performance and good attitude were awarded with promotions to higher ranks and offered good opportunities to sign up for further studies in any selected courses available in the army training schools or British Military College.

The Government should emulate the British Army by providing career programmes for its soldiers to prepare them to live at least a reasonable life after their retirement.

We don’t expect our soldiers to be awarded the “Pingat Jasa Malaysia” for service rendered to our country and of course we don’t like to live like beggars to make ends meet.

The Government should train and encourage its soldiers to acquire all necessary knowledge and skills that will help them gain employment in the private sector upon retirement.

For example, I was employed by several multinational companies with high pay after leaving the army and I really appreciated that the British Government had provided me with the most required tertiary qualifications and technical skills to live a comfortable and relaxing life after my retirement. KOH BAK SEE Penang