http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/S...ory_531019.html
May 25, 2010
SAF commando shot
By Jermyn Chow & Lester Kok

A COMMANDO on a night training exercise in Thailand was accidentally shot by a local villager out hunting.

First-Sergeant Woo Teng Hai, a regular from the 1st Commando Battalion, suffered head injuries in the incident on March 13.

The 25-year-old serviceman was hit by pellets from a shotgun, the Defence Ministry told The Straits Times yesterday. He is now on medical leave.

Read the full exclusive story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.

I thought the chaos in BKK would have C130-ed out all Cresendo personnel and halted training in Thailand.

Maybe its time for them to have a clearly marked out training area where civilians are not allowed or at least for certain periods of time.

Heard about this a while ago. Did not expect it to hit the news.

Wocelot, as far as I know during times of unrest in Thailand in recent years, Crescendo personnel continued to remain there. Training frames may be canceled or postponed, but the personnel remained on-station. At most, they were confined to camp, or banned from heading to BKK for their off days. And it happened in March. ;)

In most cases, I believe training went on anyway, as the location of the camp is reasonably far from Bangkok, plus we try to maintain as positive a relationship as possible with the locals through outreach programs, including infrastructure building, distribution of food, toys, clothing and other events.


@ Tankee it doesn't work particularly well. Thai villagers have been known to enter live firing areas while firing was being conducted to pick up scrap metal fragments for sale. Note that they have been warned to stay clear of these areas and times, but warnings only give them a better idea as to where to go to collect such resources.

On top of that, we would probably have to utilise the RTA for keeping such areas clear unless we were willing to send troops over for patrol duties. On top of that, we would be denying the villagers land for their use, i.e. for hunting or other purposes.

Kanchanaburi is a few hundred kilometres away from Bangkok.

Training will go on.

Got purple heart?

there is no such concept as a "dedicated training area", even in Crescendo II where we routinely uses high explosives (when I say "use", I mean we detonate 20kg TNT charges at least) in our training and there is never an attempt, or even a practical way of ensuring no civilians and their cows are in absolutely no danger. so all we do is to visually look around so that there are no obvious civilians around, and off we go setting of charges as large as 280kg and run like the madhatter.

why this announcement three months later ? the timing is strange.

i heard an 2nd hand eyewitness account that the one side of the guy's face was peppered with shotgun pellets.

There are 2 casualties, not just one. My unit encountered before when we were in Crescedo in 1998, never expect it happen more than 10 years later. Our scout platoon kenna engaged by villagers firing M16.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/the%2BStraits...526-218445.html

Another SAF soldier shot by Thai farmer too

Jermyn Chow & Lester Kok
Wed, May 26, 2010
The Straits Times

NOT one but two Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers were hurt while out on a night military exercise in Thailand in March.

A local farmer out hunting accidentally shot Private J. Pritheery Raj, a full-time national serviceman (NSF). Two shotgun pellets are still lodged in his cheekbones and his right shoulder.

The 19-year-old is now on medical leave.

Hi. More details here. The second guy was a regular, apparently. Jeez, getting hit by a shotgun is no joke. I just hope the farmer was using birdshot!

Today Online Article

Hopefully the regular can return to active duty as understood from the media he is blinded in one eye....

We need to ensure that training areas are properly advised to the locals to ensure that such accidents are kept to a minimum. Its understandable that such events could happen because the locals are allowed firearms and hunting is one of their livelihood.

Perhaps during such trainings, the locals could be encouraged to stay out of the areas by providing them with provisions so that it would lessen their need to seek food? With provisions provided at least the tendecies for hunting can be reduced or eliminated.

Maybe the reason for the news delay is to ensure the recovery of the soldiers first, thus donwplaying the event. But why??

To get shot is rare and very unlucky indeed.

I do not think it is possible for locals to stay clear of training areas. Anyone who has trained in Thailand knows that the training areas includes a number of villages. It is the troops (both Thai and SAF) that are moving around on their land.

Anyone who has been Thailand knows that the people are friendly and respectful of troops (this is my personal experience). Again, its an accident and bad luck.

Manage the information or someone will manage it for you in the internet age.

Things just got interesting.

Second soldier shot: Why didn't MINDEF give full disclosure ?


STOMPer Integrity wonders why MINDEF did not disclose that a second soldier, a full-time national serviceman, was also shot in the same incident. The news of the second shooting only surfaced when a relative of Private J. Pritheery Raj contacted The Straits Times.

In the first report on May 24, a Thai farmer had fired his shotgun at 1st Sgt Woo Teng Hai while the latter was out on a night exercise in Thailand. The regular commando is said to have been blinded in his right eye.

The Defence Ministry only admitted yesterday (May 25) that Private Raj had also been hurt in the same incident. The NSF still has two shotgun pellets lodged in his cheekbones and right shoulder. He has been on medical leave for the last two months.

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sg...osure%253F.html

I remember posting landscape pix of Crescendo II some time back. You will see that the training area is very large (Crescendo II is about 1/3 the size of Singapore) and even though people actually live there, most of the place is "peopleless" as far as the eyes can see, from a hilltop. So it is the same for villagers who would go out hunting since they would also assume there are no people around.

These are border areas with Myanmar and sometimes you even get guerillas crossing into Thailand. Ratchaburi town was attacked in the 90s.

I was with the SCEs in Crescedo in 2003, we are belief not to go into the local farm/house. There are SAF sent some people to belief the local too before any exerises are conducted days ahead. Hope 1st Sgt Woo Teng Hai recover fully.

i wonder if SAF will pay for his "plastic surgery" as his face may need it if even if it is a birdshot round.

NSF, harder to stomach and explain to the public i guess

the most interesting Crescendo II (engineers) exercises we had was building an MGB bridge across a canal, and just nearby our bridging site we have the farmers daughters bathing with their buffaloes :lol:

strange Mindef - PAFF in the Internet age is suppressing info abt NSF injury is next to impossible as family will be definitely buay song about this. If they Mindef/PAFF din't disclose this case abt the regular injured case I believe this would not even made public domain and would be kept to the Cdo formation close knitted family.

let see how the damaged control on this by MINDEF.

we didn't have such good luck. we only managed to catch a cooling bath in the river we had bridged.

I think most of you know my impression of PAFF.

Alarm bells started ringing after seeing how a certain someone reacted to my Forum Page letter on the Land Rover death. That plus inputs from ex-PAFF SOs and feedback from other sources.

Please look out for my post on this issue, due out by Friday.

As with the Land Rover death, there are lots of questions about this one running through my head.

Not going to hold my breath expecting them to be answered.

were you guys also in Ratchaburi camp? still with 52nd Battalion Royal Thai Engineers?

Mr Wang has a point - and i agree with him totally:

"But I Didn't Tell A Lie ... I Just Didn't Tell The Whole Truth" - The SAF
http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2010/05/b...didnt-tell.html

the only explanation is stupidity.

I am not sure of the PR protocol...are they supposed to report all incidents? I encountered several training injuries in my time during the late nineties and only 1 incident made into the news. The rest are all not reported.

Two SAF soldiers, one regular and the other normal(NSF).

Regular gets reported in the news while the normal needs a relative to call ST to make it in the news.

There are SAF troops in harms way in Afghanistan, you just lost support of the Singapore public if you do this type of nonsense.

The main force of the SAF is the normal soldiers. I don't want my sons to do national service if you're treated like second class Singaporean.

NSF & NS man are always treated like "lower priority". The need to "cover"/delay" such news does not aheard to the 7 core values totally. The local media is also to be blame to be so abiding to the "protocol" to a same piece of news......!

Maybe this time round, it will change.

We're putting our sons in harm's way and there is no support when things go south.

1 commando & 1 OPFOR together at one location. Maybe 1 of them was "caught" as a POW? Exercise-play, I mean.

I do not believe its because of special treatment of regulars and NSF etc....I believe it could be more towards that the very fact that regulars are expected to take risks as its part and parcel of their job whereas the sensitivity of NSFs and non-regulars getting hurt while training could invoke unnecessary uproar against the SAF as to why if the victim who is non-regular must be subjected to such risks...we have to consider a point from both angles ( a coin always has two sides).
I have read CJ's postings and agree in general the information must be transparent, however there are always instances where unfortunate events are really blown out of proportion (in the sense that why such trainings are needed etc plus the fact that there some quarters out there that are out to take a swipe at the SAF eg opposition parties) For example when a regular died from drowning during training at Changi - queries were raised as to why does he need to be so heavily equipped etc...they know absolutely nothing of specialised trainings and such information cannot be released due to secrecy issues and this in turn was interpreted as incomplete infor provision....I experienced this first hand as I was involved in a heated exchange with a friend's uncle on this point. I am not siding with SAF but there must be certain limits as to how much infor should be released to prevent further post incident issues from happening. Also, to whom the information be released to is also another point. In CJ's case, I believe the culprit simply overstepped his / her boundaries and carried out his/her duties without due consideration....the saying in mandarin - rules are dead, but the human mind is alive - in the course of work, there must be flexible interpretation of duties, not simply following a stupid checklist blindly and always assuming the max. in order to protect oneself's rear-end.... if I may stray off course abit - but out of CJ's postings the most memorable one (most upsetting one too) is the one where the MP spoke with the victim's father in the most unbelieveable manner..... it is exactly such people that cause and bring the office of MPs to disrepute....

Anyways, I hope the SAF would take a good look into how its gonna handle such PR issues going forward but of course our society must be matured and measured in their reposnse to such news too....its really a common thing if you were to raise this issue of SAF injuries and death from trainings in any conversations and instantly you would have anti SAF bashing going on.... so let's give our SAF a fair trial on a case by case basis...

+1 on this. Good and balanced post. Mindef needs to do a better job communicating so as to build a reservoir of trust with our own citizens.

I don't believe that the Mindef needs to give out highly sensitive information in order quell unhappiness over the various incidents or training accidents. However, I believe that it is the job of the public relations office of ANY organization to be able to engage the public over these issues without divulging sensitive information.

The deal is about looking responsible and caring. Sure its not appropriate to discuss military secrets such as doctrines and practices, but its perfectly fine to acknowledge incidents and tell people that the organization is doing its best to investigate, and compensate the victims.

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/...ory_532360.html.

Damage control in gears

The response skirted the question why the public continued to be kept in the dark about the second casualty. It took a relative of the poor bloke to break the news.

Granted that "the Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF) immediate priority following any incident is to attend to the needs of the affected servicemen and to keep their families informed", the event took place on 13 March. It's now in late May. Hello, that's a loooooooong time in today's age.

Poor show indeed.

like I said they still think they can keep everything in quiet. Bad PR disaster for PAFF but question is do they give a damm? I wonder if they have KPI on compaints..

sigh… COL Darius LIM Mo Ron.

does TCH has a facebook page? so that I can go that and post "MINDEF PAFF is run by a nincompoop!"

Yes he has..

I won't be so nice as to call it skirted, more like throwing us a red herring and hoping we'll all walk away feeling good about it.