Singaporean Soldiers in Taiwan — Memories from My Air Force Days
An unforgettable story of military life, quiet neighbors from Singapore, basketball games, and fighter jets returning home at sunset.
More than thirty years ago, I served at an air base in Chiayi, Taiwan. It was a time before smartphones and social media, when everyday life moved at a very different pace.
Alongside the Taiwanese Air Force personnel, there was another group of servicemen and servicewomen who came to the base for training — members of the Singapore Air Force.
We hardly ever spoke to one another.
Yet we stayed in neighboring buildings, watched the same basketball games, listened to the same evening flag-lowering bugle call, and ate exactly the same meals in the same military dining hall.
More than three decades later, I still remember them, and I remember many other ordinary, yet unforgettable, moments from those years.
Life at a Vast Air Base in Taiwan
Around 1992, I was serving at Shuishang Air Base in Chiayi, Taiwan, I belonged to the Repair Unit of the Fourth Air Group, where I worked as a procurement specialist.
My daily responsibilities involved handling procurement paperwork, riding a bicycle between different departments, collecting official stamps, delivering documents, and returning them to the office.
Military life was simple and highly structured, Every morning began with waking up, roll call, breakfast, and work. After lunch came a short rest, followed by another afternoon of duties.
The air base was enormous, In fact, there were parts of the base that I probably never visited during my entire two years of military service, My office, the dining hall, and the departments where I delivered documents were more than enough to keep me moving every day.
Back then, I enjoyed running laps around the sports field after work to stay fit.
Later, as the Japanese basketball manga Slam Dunk became increasingly popular, my fellow servicemen and I began playing basketball regularly after work, For a group of young men in military service, it was the perfect way to exercise, sweat, and relax.
Our barracks were also quite memorable, They were housed in a historic-looking two-story building, with thick, solid walls and a high tiled roof. The architecture somehow reminded me of the old hutong neighborhoods in Beijing, The building was sturdy and well ventilated, Behind our barracks was a golf course.
I played golf there exactly once during my military service. To be frank, I found it rather boring, so I never went back, Next to our barracks stood another building used as a guesthouse.
When I first arrived at the base, I stayed there with some of my fellow recruits for about a week. After receiving our assignments, we moved into the barracks of our respective units, because the base was so large, some of us rarely saw one another again after being assigned to different departments, But among all the people living and working at that enormous air base, one particular group left a lasting impression on me.
They were military personnel from Singapore.
The Singaporean Soldiers Next Door
As I remember it, Singaporean Air Force personnel came to the base for training roughly once a year, They stayed in the guesthouse next to our barracks.
In the late afternoon, when my friends and I went to play basketball, we would sometimes see them sitting quietly beside the court, watching us.
We knew they were from Singapore, Some looked quite similar to us, while others had appearances that, at the time, reminded me of people from India, But we rarely talked.
In fact, I can hardly remember having any conversations with them at all, I remember many of them being rather slim, quietly watching our basketball games.
There was also one small difference that caught my attention, Their hair seemed to be allowed to grow longer than ours, Taiwanese military personnel, on the other hand, had to follow very strict haircut regulations.
We were all serving in the military, yet our everyday rules and habits were different, I also remember seeing female military personnel among the Singaporean visitors. The Taiwanese Air Force had female non-commissioned officers as well.
People from different countries and backgrounds were living and working at the same air base, Although we rarely communicated, their presence gradually became a familiar part of our daily lives.
5:00 PM — When Everyone Suddenly Stopped
There is one scene I can still picture very clearly, We usually started playing basketball at around 4:30 in the afternoon, We wore white short-sleeved T-shirts and shorts issued by the Taiwanese Air Force, The Singaporean personnel wore dark olive-green short-sleeved T-shirts and matching long trousers.
They would sit beside the court, quietly watching us play, Behind the basketball court stood a row of tall trees. About 150 meters away was a two-story barracks building with a grey tiled roof, light-grey walls, and aluminum-framed windows.
That was the setting of so many ordinary afternoons, As we played, the clock would slowly approach five.
Then, suddenly, the bugle call for the evening flag-lowering ceremony would sound over the base's loudspeakers, We would immediately freeze.
It was almost like playing a childhood game of musical statues, Nobody touched the basketball. Nobody kept running, We stood still and waited until the bugle call ended.
It was part of military discipline, just like the morning flag-raising ceremony.
What impressed me was that the Singaporean personnel sitting beside the court would immediately stand up as well, For those few moments, everyone stopped what they were doing.
We came from different countries, wore different uniforms, and hardly ever spoke, Yet when that familiar bugle sounded, we all paused together.
More than thirty years later, I still remember that moment.
The Quiet Reconnaissance Drones
The Singaporean personnel were in Taiwan for military training, and I remember seeing the large fixed-wing unmanned reconnaissance aircraft they operated.
At that time, drones were not something ordinary people knew much about, Their unusual shapes fascinated me, I also remember how quietly they flew.
Compared with the deafening noise of the fighter jets and helicopters at the base, these unmanned aircraft seemed remarkably quiet.
Today, drones are used in countless civilian and military applications around the world, But whenever I think of those Singaporean servicemen and servicewomen, I still picture the unusual reconnaissance aircraft I saw more than three decades ago.
A Bicycle and Helicopters Too Loud to Talk Over
My office was located in the headquarters area of the Fourth Air Group, There were usually three of us working there: a female non-commissioned officer, a senior officer, and me.
I handled procurement paperwork, and delivering official documents by bicycle was part of my daily routine.
At the time, the base operated F-5E fighter jets and S-70C helicopters, The S-70C helicopter takeoff and landing area was right beside our office.
Every day, the helicopters conducted flight training, Takeoff, landing, takeoff again, and another landing.
The afternoons were especially noisy, Whenever the helicopters were taking off or landing, the noise was so overwhelming that we could barely have a normal conversation inside the office.
Sometimes, we had to write things down just to communicate, Fortunately, my job often required me to leave the office.
After lunch, I would return to the barracks for a short rest before reporting back to work at 1:30 PM, Then I would get on my bicycle and travel between departments, delivering documents and collecting stamps.
Looking back, I find it rather amusing, I spent my days surrounded by fighter jets, helicopters, and military facilities.
Yet the vehicle I used most often at that air base was an ordinary bicycle.
Dinner at 5:30 PM — We All Ate the Same Food
After basketball and a shower, it was time for dinner, Military schedules were precise, The dining hall opened at exactly 5:30 PM, Even if we arrived early, we were not allowed to enter before opening time.
I still remember the meals we ate, Cabbage was a regular feature, along with dried tofu, meat, and sometimes scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs with tomatoes, There was nothing fancy about the food, It was simply the everyday food served to military personnel.
The Singaporean visitors ate in the same dining hall, They had several designated tables, What stayed with me was that their meals were exactly the same as ours, There were no special foreign dishes and no separate menu.
We ate the same food, just at different tables, Looking back, perhaps those shared meals were the moments when we came closest to one another.
We rarely spoke, but we experienced the same daily rhythms of life at the base.
A Thunderstorm and Lightning Just Outside My Office
The weather in Chiayi could sometimes be unforgettable, I remember one afternoon when a powerful thunderstorm swept across the air base, The rain was heavy, and thunder rolled continuously, Then, suddenly, lightning struck the ground just outside my office, It happened incredibly close to where I was, I could hardly believe it.
Not long afterward, the rain stopped, When I looked outside, I noticed that the lightning strike had left a small hole in the ground, I have never forgotten that sight.
Military life may have followed a strict daily routine, but unexpected things could still happen, For me, that thunderstorm was one of them.
A Cold Winter Night and a Pitch-Black Barracks Corridor
Besides the thunderstorms, I also remember the cold winters in Chiayi, One night, I was assigned to guard duty at the barracks, It was around 1:30 in the morning, The night was bitterly cold.
I sat at the duty desk with a blanket wrapped around my body, In front of me stretched a barracks corridor that was at least 150 meters long, At the far end, there was nothing but darkness.
Cold wind swept through the building, making a long, eerie howling sound, The glass windows and aluminum doors rattled in the wind, It felt almost like a scene from a horror movie.
During the day, the air base was filled with the sounds of fighter jets, helicopters, and people going about their duties, But late at night, everything felt completely different.
I sat alone at that desk, wrapped in my blanket, staring into the darkness of the long corridor and waiting for the hours to pass.
More than thirty years later, I still remember that cold winter night.
Sunset — Watching the F-5E Fighters Return Home
If I had to choose the most beautiful scene from my time at the air base, it would be the sight of F-5E fighter jets returning at sunset, I often stood near the Fourth Air Group office and watched them approach from the distance.
The F-5E was incredibly loud during takeoff, But in my memory, the aircraft seemed almost silent as they came in to land, Especially at sunset.
Watching those fighter jets return to the base, one after another, was something truly beautiful, For a brief moment, it felt as though time had stopped.
Back then, I was simply a young serviceman whose daily job involved riding a bicycle and delivering paperwork, I never imagined that more than thirty years later, I would still remember those sunsets so clearly.
Nor did I imagine that the Singaporean soldiers who lived next door and quietly watched our basketball games would one day become part of a story I wanted to share.
More Than Thirty Years Later, I Still Remember Them
The world has changed enormously since those days.
The large fixed-wing reconnaissance drones I saw back then may now belong to a very different generation of technology, Fighter aircraft have evolved, and military equipment has continued to advance.
As for those of us who once served at Shuishang Air Base in Chiayi, our younger days are now far behind us, I do not know where those Singaporean servicemen and servicewomen went afterward, I do not know whether they still remember that air base in Taiwan.
Do they remember the basketball games at 4:30 PM? The evening bugle call at five? Or the military dining hall that opened promptly at 5:30?
We hardly ever spoke.
But I still remember that they once lived next door, And I remember a time when people from two different countries shared the ordinary routines of life at the same air base.
Some memories do not need extraordinary events to remain with us.
An air base, a bicycle, a group of quiet neighbors, and fighter jets returning home at sunset can be enough to stay with someone for a lifetime.
Author's Note: This article is based on my personal memories of serving at Shuishang Air Base in Chiayi, Taiwan, around 1992. It is a personal recollection rather than an official historical account.
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