For the first ten years of the history of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), one soldier dominated its build-up. Mobilized by Defence Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee after Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, Kirpa Ram Vij, then a captain in the Singapore Volunteer Artillery, established the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute (SAFTI) with Israeli Defence Force advisors. Together with them, he also formulated many SAF operational doctrines that still underlie SAF land forces’ training today. He launched advanced leadership training establishments including the School of Advanced Training for Officers (SATO) and the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College (CSC). He attained the then top uniformed appointment of Director, General Staff, as a Brigadier General. Overtaken by numerous cohorts of younger administrative service officers for senior civil service posts while in the SAF, he quit government service to join Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) where he mastered computer freight services as General Manager, Administration, among other top management jobs. On retirement from NOL, he was initially appointed Consultant and later Chief Executive Officer of Gateway Distriparks Limited (GDL, a Singapore consortium) and installed India’s first foreign-owned computer freight service terminal in Navi Mumbai, later to be listed in both India and New York with great success. Kirpa Ram passed away on 29 October 2022. This account traces his life story and his contributions to the SAF and Singapore. Format: PB Number of Pages: 255 Publication Date: 30/11/2025 Imprint: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
