{"id":74550,"date":"2021-10-02T03:17:20","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T03:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=74550"},"modified":"2021-10-02T03:17:20","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T03:17:20","slug":"a-literary-appreciation-of-the-commando-regiment-by-capt-elmo-jayawardena-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-commando-regiment-by-capt-elmo-jayawardena-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by Capt Elmo Jayawardena"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\"><b><span style=\"color: #333300;\">A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d<\/span><span style=\"color: #003300;\"> \u2013 by\u00a0<\/span><\/b><span style=\"color: #003300;\"><b>Capt Elmo Jayawardena<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-74551\" src=\"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/A-Literary-appreciation-of-the-Commando-Regiment-\u2013-by-Capt-Elmo-Jayawardena.jpg\" alt=\"A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by\u00a0Capt Elmo Jayawardena\" width=\"600\" height=\"849\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-74552\" src=\"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/A-Literary-appreciation-of-the-Commando-Regiment-\u2013-by-Capt-Elmo-Jayawardena2.jpg\" alt=\"A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by\u00a0Capt Elmo Jayawardena\" width=\"600\" height=\"849\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-74553\" src=\"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/A-Literary-appreciation-of-the-Commando-Regiment-\u2013-by-Capt-Elmo-Jayawardena3.jpg\" alt=\"A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by\u00a0Capt Elmo Jayawardena\" width=\"600\" height=\"849\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\"><strong>A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-53595 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Capt-Elmo-Jayawardena-1.jpg\" alt=\"Capt Elmo Jayawardena\" width=\"146\" height=\"201\" \/>When the presentation of the book is excellent, a prospective reader would be encouraged to see what is inside. That is where the Colonel won his first round. I will jump over the Author\u2019s writing and talk about the Foreword to the book. It is written by Major General Lalin Fernando. What he wrote reminded me of a similar sentiment I read years ago by Jean-Paul Sartre for the eternally popular \u2018Wretched of the Earth\u2019 by Frantz Fanon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">General Fernando\u2019s Foreword gives the essence of the story reduced in size but done with military precision.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t varnishing anything when I linked Sartre and Fanon to the commando book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Now I come to the photos. The \u2018man of the match\u2019 is there, The Colonel, and he is flanked by another Colonel and a Major General.\u00a0 They were regiment leaders. Then comes the \u2018salt of the earth\u2019 two Warrant Officers and an elderly Sergeant, the men that mattered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Right along, the book is filled with what the soldiers of the Commando Regiment did. The braid was there to lead and so were the brave in uniform who fought to the demanding order. It sure is nice to see the recognition spreading from the ranks to the top even before the story begins to unfold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">When I received a gifted copy of the Commando Regiment, courtesy of the author, I noticed an invitation too. It was for the launch of the book at the BMICH. What caught my eye at first glance was the rank and name of the Chief Guest who would grace the occasion.\u00a0 Strangely he was no Julius Caesar nor a local Hannibal.\u00a0 But someone who had served in the Commando Regiment from its inception. Warrant Officer Colin Silva who hails from Tudella was to be the Prima Donna of the event. He\u2019s been the Colonel\u2019s shadow from Day One. Selecting W\/O Silva as Chief Guest was not only an honour to him but to all those commandos who toiled, sweated, fought and died for the regiment and the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The \u2018First Person\u2019 for the event at the BMICH being a Warrant Officer was nothing but a platinum performance by the author. To recognize and honour the ranker who stood by him from the birth of this unit to the day they retired was a magnificent tribute. I salute you Colonel, for your choice of a Chief Guest who has more than earned the laurel than picking one from the \u201cNodding Crowd\u201d purely for the pomp and pageantry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">That alone made me think of the worth of the man who wrote this book. So, I started reading the story of the Commando Regiment and \u2018The Colonel\u2019 who started it all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The book gives in detail the author\u2019s entry into the military, the usual young blood in search of adventure in a peace-time army. The ambition had been fostered from early teens and shared with younger brother Eksith where they both collected and read and learnt about combat matters and especially about Task Forces around the world trained for dare-devil operations.\u00a0 All that was home-grown till they both joined in tandem the school Cadet Corps that may have cemented the zest they both had to seek carriers in the armed forces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Young Sunil joined the military. He had been a top all-round student at the school by the beach and reached the pinnacle of being appointed as the Head Prefect. All that you can read in the book including the rigorous training he went through at Diyathalawa to pass out as a Second Lieutenant in the Gemunu Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Next, we see him as a young Captain, 29 years old, and attached to Army Headquarters. One day, out of the blue he gets a message to accompany the head of the Army, General Dennis Perera, to meet the Prime Minister JRJ. The Big shots who flanked the Prime Minister on the power side of the table were the who\u2019s who that ran the country. Some were of the great grade, and some were merely those who thought they were great. I leave you to read the book and do your own separating of the wheat from the chaff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Our author had been called to set up from the ground-up a Commando Unit, the first of its kind in the country. Captain Peiris was to be the Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill. There was one on the Prime Minister\u2019s side of the table who was not from the \u2018Dream Team\u2019, Capt Rakitha Wickremanayake. He had just been appointed as the Chairman of the new airline JRJ was planning. The setting up of the Commando Unit was a deterrent to anyone who might highjack a plane of Airlanka, the new airline that was to take wings in an year\u2019s time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Better read the book and make your own conclusion. This was November 1977.\u00a0 The country was at peace. Prosperity trumpets were blaring away from every orifice like a national anthem.\u00a0 I could not figure out why the high powers wanted to set up a specialized Army unit to protect two secondhand Boeing 707s from being hi-jacked? True the PFLP with the blessings of Yassar Arafat skyjacked jetliners and took them to Dawson\u2019s Field in Jordan and blew them up.\u00a0 Names like Leila Khalid, Carlos the Jackal, Bader Meinhof, Japanese Red Army and \u2018freedom fighters\u2019 as such were scaring the skies toting machine-guns. But to carry out that level of terror in peaceful Sri Lanka was hard to imagine. Maybe someone at that power table was hearing the rumble of distant drums blowing across the island from the north?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">\u201cWe have decided to select you to set up this exclusive unit\u201d (page 43 will tell the reader the rest, I need not elaborate).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Either way, our Captain Peiris was no politician. They wanted a Commando Unit and his job was \u00a0to obey orders and get the special unit operational. It is clear that Captain Peiris had great respect for his Commander General Dennis Perera and more than that, he knew the integrity of the man and had total confidence that the General would never scapegoat him and sell him down a political drain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">On the other side of the coin was his wife Manisha. I can imagine what role she played in the Commando Unit drama.\u00a0 I have worked with her before and know how valuable her \u2018still water\u2019 personality is. Captain Peiris would have received the unstinted support and much needed encouragement as well as the sincere salient criticism from Manisha, the Captain\u2019s Captain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">When reading the book, it was clear to me that the author was a man of deep faith. His reliance on God was a major factor that boosted his confidence in himself. No wonder when the crossroads blocked the path, he knew which way to go.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Setting up an entire new unit in the military was no walk in the park. Amidst a hundred logistical hurdles there were officers with more brass on their shoulders who watched with \u2018Argus Eyes\u2019 and wished for the young Captain to faulter and become a defeated orphan. The criticisms came direct and in camouflage. Yet the man had the grit to fight it through and snigger the last laugh.\u00a0 Sunil Peiris had what it takes to survive. General Dennis Perera had chosen wisely a round peg for a round hole that fitted perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The soldier selection was from people recommended by their respective units. Thirty were chosen, out of which 29 reported. The training started and four dropped out leaving a mere 25 passing out after their final exercise of a march from Inginiyagala to Sigiriya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The entire planning structure and the detailed training procedures are all in chapter 4 from page 71.\u00a0 Gives the reader a very good idea of how men were moulded to fight the impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The first home of the Commando Unit was established temporarily at Diyathalawa. The numbers were small but well-trained, tinkered and minted to become fierce fighting machines. Reminded me of Thermopylae. The passed out 25 were the first to represent the unit. And the numbers increased as the new recruits added their names to the muster. The operations they carried out and the battles they fought are detailed in the book and makes interesting reading. Very interesting indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The years rolled and the conflict exploded plunging the country into a brutal war of races. The death toll rose on both sides which also included innocent civilians who were caught in the crossfire. The leadership of battle adversaries, often politically motivated, moved their pawns and sent them to die. Some for their country and some for their cause. Simplified \u2013 it was our soldiers, their war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">By this time the Commando Unit had moved out of Diyathalawa and found its permanent residence in Ganemulla.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Chapter 13 is about a personal tragedy that the author wrote. Maybe to seek some solace or maybe he just did not want to tell his story without baring what tucked at his very soul.\u00a0 This chapter has nothing to do with the Commando Regiment of the Army.\u00a0 Yet, the Colonel\u2019s inclusion of an event that took place in 1985 in a lonely airfield in Batticaloa is in pages 175-180. I have no heart to write about that. Mine would be meaningless words with hardly any comfort to someone who will carry the sorrow to his grave. I leave you to read and digest how absurd and fickle life could be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The fighting had intensified, and the political jigsaw puzzle was being fitted by the powers that be with some of the key pieces missing. The IPKF arrived adding a strange dimension to the already abstract equation. Parents buried children, what did it matter whether they were Sinhalese or Tamil? I clearly remember the times, the mid-80s and what a political mess it was. The Commando Unit increased in strength and was in the forefront fighting the enemy and protecting civilians.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The Colonel left the Army in 1988. Whichever way you look at it, the parting was a sad farewell to a dedicated career soldier. The band played \u2018Auld Lang Syne\u2019 and the \u2018Father of the Regiment\u2019 took his last salute from the Commandos in the Ganemulla Camp and walked to his jeep and was driven away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">The reason was nothing strange. It was purely political.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">In 2009 when the guns went silent in Nandikadal the commandos went back to Ganemulla. What started with 25 soldiers in 1978\/79 had grown to four regiments of tough men who wore the maroon beret. Some had died for their country, 43 officers and 689 other ranks. Some suffered injuries and were marked for life. There were 49 officers and 890 soldiers among them. Such figures are on record. My fervent wish is the continued remembrance of the sacrifices they made.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Maybe not now, but in the coming years,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Possibly in a better land, without conflict and corruption, but in lasting peace<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">We might recall the swollen mounds that buried the unknown soldier,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Or a cemetery memorial of a lost young life<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">At such times we could imagine the meaning of the shed tears<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Perhaps then, we will understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\">Capt Elmo Jayawardena<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"mailto:Elmojay1@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elmojay1@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by\u00a0Capt Elmo Jayawardena A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d When the presentation of the book is excellent, a prospective reader would be encouraged to see what is inside. That is where the Colonel won his first round. I will jump over the Author\u2019s writing and talk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,31140],"tags":[37597,37596,2346],"class_list":{"0":"post-74550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-aside","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"category-capt-elmo-jayawardena","9":"tag-bmich","10":"tag-commando-regiment","11":"tag-elmo-jayawardena","12":"post_format-post-format-aside"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.7.1 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by Capt Elmo Jayawardena - eLanka<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When the presentation of the book is excellent, a prospective reader would be encouraged to see what is inside. That is where the Colonel won his first round. I will jump over the Author\u2019s writing and talk about the Foreword to the book. It is written by Major General Lalin Fernando. What he wrote reminded me of a similar sentiment I read years ago by Jean-Paul Sartre for the eternally popular \u2018Wretched of the Earth\u2019 by Frantz Fanon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Literary appreciation of the \u201cCommando Regiment\u201d \u2013 by Capt Elmo Jayawardena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When the presentation of the book is excellent, a prospective reader would be encouraged to see what is inside. That is where the Colonel won his first round. I will jump over the Author\u2019s writing and talk about the Foreword to the book. 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