PATRIOTIC COUPLE ...
Military veterans couple Soon Tet Leong and Carol Loo’s love for each other is equalled only by their passion to serve the country
Lt (Rtd) Soon Tet Leong and wife Lt-Kol (Rtd) Carol Loo with their family portrait and the medals they were awarded during their service in the military.
AS the saying by Mark Twain goes: “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it”.
And the Soon family is the embodiment of being loyal to King and country, as husband and wife joined the military and served the country for many decades.
Lt (Rtd) Soon Tet Leong’s influence stems from his family’s legacy, where his father Soon Boon Sooi and his uncle Soon Boon Leong enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and also his cousins, who had joined the British army and Navy in the 1950s.
They were joined by another medic named Hoo Eng Chong, who married Soon Boon Fong, the sister of Boon Leong and Boon Sooi. They called themselves “The Band of Brothers”.
“They would recall tales of how Singapore fell in one swoop, how they would see blood that flowed like a river and also how Singapore and Malaya were up in smoke during World War II,” Tet Leong said.
After he completed his Form 5 in 1968, his interest in the military grew and he applied to join the navy, but he was considered too young and underweight.
“I decided to bide my time and joined Form 6. However, taking Form 6 was also considered expensive as we had to pay RM180 for the examination fee, which is something my father could not afford at the time. So I discussed it with him and we decided that I should join the Navy to start a career,” he said.
This time, he got accepted, and was sent to the Singapore naval base for training, before being sent to the Royal Australian Navy for a three-anda-half year Naval Artificer Apprenticeship Course.
“I was commissioned in 1979 after nine years of service and continued to train until I became a naval engineering officer,” he said.
As a naval engineering officer, Tet Leong looked after the ships under the care of the navy at the time.
“We have to be involved in shipbuilding, like boat design, knowing how to build and repair boats, understanding and repairing the piping system and also to read up on naval architecture and technical drawings.”
He has seen some action, including participating in some anti-piracy operations.
“I remember Ops Cabut in the 1970s, where we had to keep a lookout for Vietnamese refugees, and we had to go out on the KD Hang Tuah every other day,” he said.
Although he chose optional retirement at the age of 40 in 1992, Tet Leong remains active with army veteran groups, specifically with the Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans Association.
Tet Leong’s wife, Lt Kol (Rtd) Carol Loo, has gone against traditional belief that a woman should not join the military. She applied to join the armed forces after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper.
“I did not tell my parents about joining the military, and when I received the letter asking me to report for duty, I did not know what to do.”
She said she was unsure as she was staying in Baling, Kedah, at the time, which was famous for being a hotbed for communists, with soldiers patrolling about.
“However, I decided to just go through with it. What did I have to lose?”
She went through a special army selection board at the Penang Local Defence Corps prior to joining the army, and after months of intensive training, she was commissioned in 1978 and decided to join the Royal Intelligence Corps.
“I started by being a staff officer of the Military Intelligence Special Branch at the police headquarters in Bukit Aman. I was tasked with (knowing everything about) the Communist Party of Malaysia, so I had to memorise their tactics, understand their movements and (their use of) weapons,“she said.
Loo was also the first female officer and intelligence officer to serve in the Defence Operations Room of the Armed Forces, overseeing the mobilisation of peacekeeping troops to Bosnia and Herzegovina and furnishing ground intelligence to Malaysian battalion operations there, as well as local operations.
After retiring in 2008, she became actively involved with the welfare of veterans, and joined the association
when it was established in 2016.
I decided to just go through with it. What did I have to lose?