Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Goodbye to my dear friend, a brother in arms,long time comrade.. a great loss to the Commando Family..

One of the 1st thing I came across this morning when I browsed through my Facebook pages..Somebody posted in our closed group account that a fellow commando have left us. As I was still not fully awake and could not understand the impact of the word "left us"..I just replied by asking him who is Andrew Tan & what happened?
He replied with a FB link and I clicked on it and realised he was referring to my comrade from 81mm, better known to me as Lip Chee! I could not believe it and tried calling Lip Chee on his mobile..His family answered, confirmed that he had passed away. Before I could ask any further,the family member have to attend to something else.
My world came crashing down..I was in shock,disbelieve and only wish to wipe the tears off my eyes. I am not exactly a soft guy, but I really cannot help feeling emotional when someone close to have to "leave" just like that..

We just had our 14th 81mm High Trajectory Platoon Reunion Dinner a few days back(photo above)..I cannot accept that, that was our last good bye..I thought that we still will have reunion dinner year after year after year just like before..
I sent out smses to my 'band of brothers' and a few of them called me back immediately. Our reactions were all similar.

As of this point in time,none of us know exactly what happened to our healthy, young, energetic buddy who expressed happiness at being ready to be a father soon..How could he 'leave' suddenly like this? We are suppossed to meet up again this coming Saturday! So many questions,no answer yet. As a new father myself, I feel very depressed about this. The least I can do now is to spread the word and make sure that the whole group is informed.
I posted 2 photos of the old days below for memory's sake..All brothers who can make it to say the last goodbye(the wake), it is at a pavilion between Blk 27A & 27B Jalan Membina till this Friday.

Above: In an ice cream bar in our camp in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Above: After our last mission as NSF in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

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