KOTA BHARU: The abdominal gunshot wound he sustained while battling the communists four decades ago is still fresh in the memory of former Royal Malay Regiment Warrant Officer II, A. Rahman Wahid. Recalling his experience, when confronted by the communists, he said, in a special operation on Sept 16, 1982, 15 members of his platoon were deployed to a forest reserve in Durian Tipus, Negeri Sembilan.
The 62-year-old father of seven, said the special operation was carried out to trace the routes and places that the communists might use as their resting place or temporary camps. He said, with the help of intelligence from the Orang Asli in the vicinity, his platoon began the surveillance at 1am and after almost two hours, they decided to split up.
“Of the 15 platoon members, only myself and four others were ordered to conduct an inspection around the area on the hill,” he said when met at his home in Ketereh here, yesterday.
“To prevent the communists from detecting our arrival and to reduce the sound of footsteps, I willingly volunteered to monitor the situation at the top of the hill alone,” he said. He said, after walking several metres he was able to locate the trail of footprints that probably belonged to the communists.
“When I was about to bent down to make sure it was footwear impressions, I was suddenly ambushed and shot by the communists at a distance of only 20 metres,” he said. In fact, when he was shot, he did not feel pain and did not realise he had been shot until he saw blood sputtering out of the left side of the abdomen “I used a bandage I had brought to stop the bleeding while waiting for help to arrive, almost five hours later,” said A. Rahman.
He said after the incident, he received treatment at Seremban General Hospital for two months and was not allowed to participate in military operations and only served in the camp for nine years. “Although the gunshot wound is still visible to this day, it did not break the spirit of my struggle but instead I am proud of having been able to serve and defend the homeland against communist threats,” he said.
He said during each operation he never forgot to take the ‘Yasin’ (holy verse in the Quran) as a protection against any danger. “The bullet could have easily penetrated my chest instead of the stomach and I attribute this to my practice of always having the ‘Yasin’ with me during an operation,” he said with a laugh. A. Rahman said he retired in October 1998 and ended his service in the 105 Infantry Unit at the military camp in Pengkalan Chepa. – Bernama
