Father and son among 105 new SAF senior military experts
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ME4 Roy Tan (far left) and his father, ME4 Tan Gim Cheong. When he decided to sign up in 2017, ME4 Roy Tan's father was quick to offer advice. Said the elder ME4 Tan, a senior Republic of Singapore Navy instructor: "When at home, we'd share with each other what we'd learnt."
PHOTO: MINDEF
Fang Yiyang
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When Military Expert 4 (ME4) Roy Tan, 25, attended his graduation from the Military Domain Experts Course, his father was also present - but not as a spectator.
ME4 Tan Gim Cheong, 53, was by his side as a course mate.
The father and son were among the 105 Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) servicemen from the Army, Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), and Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) appointed as senior MEs yesterday.
Senior Minister of State for Defence Zaqy Mohamad, who addressed the graduating servicemen virtually as the guest of honour, emphasised the importance of adapting to a changing world.
"We must not forget that the SAF must defend against both new and traditional threats to Singapore's peace and security. These include cyberthreats and terrorism, among others," he said.
For ME4 Lee Ze Bin, 25, an RSAF engineer, technology could help even more in the day-to-day operations of the SAF. "We have a lot of data, collected over the years... By analysing trends in the data, we can do predictive maintenance, such as estimating the mean time before failure for some of our equipment."
The course also included people about twice his age. ME4 Lim Chew Loon, 46, chief ops planner for the RSN's 7th Flotilla, said the older and younger members could make use of one another's strengths, such as in planning the virtual graduation ceremony.
Said ME4 Lim, who has over two decades of experience in the SAF: "The younger ones are very tech-savvy... For us older ones, we were more familiar with the protocols."
Added ME4 Roy Tan, a lead engineer at maintenance and engineering support headquarters: "The younger course members like myself were very eager to hear about the real-life case studies that our more experienced peers were able to share."
When he decided to sign up in 2017, his father was quick to offer advice. Said the older ME4 Tan, a senior RSN instructor: "When at home, we'd share with each other what we'd learnt."
