However, it was still a shock for him to witness the devastation wreaked by Tropical Storm Greg in Sabah 27 years ago.
Almost three decades later, he is still haunted by the memory of a group of villagers, some of them still in their wooden houses, being swept away by a raging Pampang river in Keningau.
The battle-hardened 60-year-old remembers the feeling of helplessness as he watched the villagers drown.
Yazid recalled that some were stuck in the flowing mud, while others were screaming for help from the windows of their homes.
“It was shocking to see people drowning or being swept away or waving for help, right in front of you and you can’t do anything because of the strong current,” he told FMT, recounting the time Tropical Storm Greg struck Sabah on Dec 26, 1996.
Yazid remembered seeing houses being swept away by the strong current and shattering like matchsticks when they slammed into a bridge.
“They looked like they went through a blender. Only pieces of wooden planks were coming out from the other side of the bridge,” said Yazid, who joined the defence ministry as a recruitment head in 1995.
The violent storm that struck Sabah a day after Christmas saw winds reaching 85 km/h.
Yazid and his team were on a recruitment drive across 25 centres in the state and they happened to be in Keningau – the worst-hit district – a day before the storm struck.
Heading out to Nabawan at 7am on that fateful day, they came across an unexpected obstacle – the bridge across the Pampang river was inundated by floodwaters.
It was then that tragedy unfolded before their eyes. Yazid, along with five colleagues, were still able to save around 20 victims.
They also recovered 10 lifeless bodies, including that of a pregnant woman – a sight which had stayed with Yazid all these years.
“I am a trained soldier and we are used to these scenes. Still, it was very sad.”
Tropical Storm Greg not only claimed many lives, with 227 fatalities in Keningau alone, but it also left some 25,000 people homeless as landslides and floods destroyed their homes, with losses amounting to millions of ringgit.