As Malaysian Battalion (Malbatt) I’s engineering commander, Azme had been tasked with leading a convoy of 25 trucks from Split, Croatia, to the United Nations peacekeeping force’s camp in Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina, about 30km from the capital city of Sarajevo.
Little did he expect his journey back to base would lead to one of his most traumatic experiences.
“I was horrified when we encountered Major Ariffin Zakaria’s bloodied body. He had been killed in a mortar attack. There was a gaping hole at the back of his head, while his limbs had been shattered by shrapnel.
“We brought his body back to our camp, which was located 15km away, and reported the matter to the force’s chief observer Colonel Tairobi Abdul Razak. The body was then flown to Amsterdam, Netherlands, for a flight to Singapore and then to Kuala Lumpur,” said Azme, now 63.
Azme, who served in the peacekeeping mission from 1993 to 1994, and other officers were recounting their experiences at a reunion of retired peacekeepers at the Segenting army camp in Si Rusa, Negeri Sembilan, late last year.
Azme recalled another incident on Jan 15, 1994, that left him fearing for his life: his convoy was blocked and attacked by a group of angry, hungry locals. He soon realised they were just desperate for food, and brokered a deal with them.
“I managed to negotiate our release by offering them supplies,” said Azme, who retired from the service shortly after returning home that year.
Lt Col (Rtd) Samin Sih, who served in three peacekeeping missions before retiring, recalled his most challenging mission ever – conducting daily patrols in their vehicles in the Western Sahara, where thousands of unexploded ordnance had been buried under the road by the rebel Polisario Force guerrillas, who were fighting the Moroccan army’s invasion.
These ordnance were responsible for blowing up many vehicles of Dakar Rally participants while they had been racing through the Sahara Desert, he added.
“We also had to endure sandstorms, relying heavily on global positioning system gadgets,” said Samin, whose last peacekeeping mission was in Lebanon in 2001, where he was the Malaysian Contingent’s (Malcon) commander.
“The most dangerous threat in Lebanon was improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were detonated by mobile phone sensors from far away.
“We narrowly missed an attack just upon reaching the Beirut airport. The Spanish force that came after us were not so lucky and had two of their members severely injured by an IED explosion.”
Samin additionally recalled his stint in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996 with Malcon, where he was not only forced to take cover from sniper fire but also made the gruesome discovery of mass graves.
Meanwhile, Lt Col (Rtd) Mahadi Abu, 62, also served in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, and then in the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste in 2011.
While the mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina saw frequent firefights and artillery shelling, he said it was vastly different in Timor-Leste as they had not carried firearms for protection since they were just military observers.
“We had to rely on establishing cordial relationships with the locals and, more often than not, survived on their measly rations during our extended deployments away from base camp.
“I lost 20kg during our frequent outward missions to collect data from local folk,” said Mahadi, who served in the last Timor-Leste mission that ended in December 2012.
Former deputy army chief Lieutenant-General (Rtd) Hasagaya Abdullah, 61, believed that their stints in the UN peacekeeping missions had groomed them into world-class officers and military observers.
“Our liaison with foreign military equipped us with valuable knowledge and skills that money cannot buy,” said Hasagaya, who served under the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia in 1994.