PAP New Face Goh Pei Ming Hopes To Blend Community And Military Stints

Deployment In Afghanistan Taught Him The Importance Of Defence, Governance, Politics

- Goh Yan Han

As he took cover in a shed with rockets flying overhead, Mr Goh Pei Ming felt each second was an eternity.

He would spend those seconds in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was deployed by the Singapore Armed Forces in late 2010, thinking deeply about whether he had lived a meaningful and useful life.

The PAP new face said his seven-month stint — he knew it to be a litmus test of his capability and commitment — taught him not to take his loved ones for granted.

Mr Goh had just come back from his honeymoon with his wife — a primary school classmate with whom he reconnected in his junior college years — when he was asked to uproot himself to go to Afghanistan.

"Multiple times a day, I would get rocket attacks. The insurgents, the terrorists, would shoot rockets into the base, and they could land anywhere... We can expect to take casualties, and there (were) casualties," said Mr Goh. He was one of two Singaporean officers attached to a US division overseeing deployments, intelligence updates and risk assessments in the area.

The 43-year-old, who has been confirmed to be among the ruling party's fresh team for the upcoming election, said the experience also taught him that Singapore cannot take defence and security for granted.

He noted that Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s was a progressive and well-developing society, but it is not so today.

"It's a reminder how it's important for us to get our governance, our politics right, if not, actually, we can go down a very similar path," he said.

These are lessons the former brigadier-general, who has three children, carries with him on his latest endeavour — joining politics under the PAP banner.

The concept of public service is familiar to him, as both a military man and a grassroots volunteer. He has spent 17 years volunteering in Kampong Chai Chee, where he grew up.