A soldier's story: He lost his leg fighting a war few Malaysians remember

New Straits Times

22-06-2025

THE line of the trees had turned red, and Second Lieutenant Zulkifli Datuk Haji Tahir didn't like it one bit. Then just 26 and serving in the 9th Battalion of the Royal Malay Regiment (9 RMR), Zulkifli uttered a curse under his breath, eyes sweeping the thick jungle.
Among soldiers stationed in Gubir, there was an old superstition: when the leaves turned crimson, something bad was coming. Some dismissed it as a tale meant to spook new recruits. But those who spent enough time in this accursed place knew better.
In the 1980s, Gubir was one of the most volatile flashpoints along Malaysia's northern border. It was a dense, dangerous strip of the Ulu Muda forest in Sik, Kedah, where Malayan Communist Party insurgents could roam and strike with deadly precision.
The army had a forward base in the area, but it was a perilous frontier, laced with booby traps, ambushes and landmines.
According to many accounts, whenever the leaves changed colour, tragedy would soon follow. Some never made it out. Others returned maimed or scarred. Explosions erupted without warning. And the jungle, vast and indifferent, kept its silence.
Few today remember that Malaysia endured three distinct conflicts: the Emergency, which began in 1948 under British colonial rule; the Indonesian Confrontation from 1963 to 1966 and the Second Communist Insurgency, which lasted from 1968 to 1989.
Zulkifli's story, along with those of other veterans, is preserved in Memoirs: Malaya and Borneo At War, a memoir by the Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans Association (Macva).
In 1986, during one of his most dangerous deployments, Zulkifli and his unit were sent into a jungle already marked by tragedy. In the 1970s, a Royal Malaysian Air Force Nuri helicopter was shot down there by communist insurgents, killing everyone onboard.
Intelligence warned the area was riddled with booby traps. The enemy, known as the "Black Jackets", were brutal and highly familiar with the terrain. Their name alone struck fear into young recruits.
Zulkifli knew this mission wouldn't be easy. The red leaves were just the beginning.
"No one's ever truly prepared for death," he says quietly, thinking back on those days. "As soldiers, our duty was simple — to do and die. For king and country, no questions asked."
His mission was to lead a small section of 10 men. Their task was to scout and clear any booby traps before the rest of the battalion moved in.
"It was extremely dangerous," he remembers, adding: "If anything went wrong, no one was coming to help."
A series of explosions rang out across the area. The first casualty the battalion suffered came less than 20 minutes after arriving at the landing zone. A corporal from the Unit Combat Intelligence Section had the soles of his feet blown off.
Each explosion forced the team to pause and listen. Tension filled the air. Eventually, the radio crackled to life with a clear order: all movement must stop.
By then, Zulkifli and his team had climbed hills and crossed rivers to reach their position. They were deep in hostile territory, with the Thai border just 300 to 400 metres ahead.
As night fell, but Zulkifli and his men couldn't sleep. They were too close to the border and the risk of enemy harassment made rest impossible.
At first light, Zulkifli set out to scout the route ahead, taking two of his men with him — Corporal Ismail and Sapper Arif. They moved cautiously. When Zulkifli saw silhouettes, he signalled his men and rushed forward to investigate.
A deafening explosion then tore through the air.
SEEING THE LIGHT
The 65-year-old man in front of me absentmindedly touches his right leg, his eyes drifting to a past nearly four decades ago. His hair, like his beard, is streaked with salt and pepper.
Today, he's Colonel Zulkifli, but the memory he's about to share marks the moment that changed the course of his life — a deafening explosion that tore through everything in an instant.
"Do you know what it's like to be caught in a booby trap explosion?" he murmurs, voice barely audible. Just then, the blender roars to life behind the cafe counter, and the sudden noise makes me flinch.
In that blinding flash, Zulkifli saw something he couldn't explain — fleeting images of his parents and wife. He saw her serving tea to his mother. Later, when he asked them about it, they told him that's exactly what they'd been doing at that moment.
That moment was surreal. There was no fear, no pain — only the quiet realisation that life, in all its beauty and terror, keeps moving. The wheel turns, even as death draws near.
He thought he was dreaming. But as his senses returned and the sharp smell of carbide filled the air, he heard someone moaning in pain. It was Sapper Arif. Zulkifli, his own body still smoking from the blast, crawled to where Arif lay and quickly bandaged the bleeding on his face.
The rest of his men arrived moments later, drawn by the sound of the explosion. They had only one morphine shot, and thinking Arif was the most seriously injured, Zulkifli instructed them to administer it to him.
"I tried to get to my feet, but every time I stood up, I fell back to the ground," he recalls.
Then he heard his platoon sergeant named Busra saying: "Sir, please stay put. Be patient… trust us," as he tried to take away Zulkifli's rifle.
Zulkifli was confused and upset. Why would a senior non-commissioned officer be giving orders to an officer and trying to disarm him?
"You know, back then — especially during the Vietnam War — the moment a soldier got hit by a booby trap, without realising it, he would pull the trigger," he says, his voice steady as he recalls the moment.
Sergeant Busra, thinking ahead, had gently relieved Zulkifli of his weapon. He wasn't being disrespectful. He was just being careful.
"Sir, you're hit," Busra said firmly. Zulkifli looked down at his arms and left leg. They seemed fine, apart from bits of shrapnel and a few superficial cuts. Then Busra said: "Look to your left, sir. Whose boot is that?"
Zulkifli turned his head and saw it — his own boot, several metres away, unmistakable with its familiar lacing and knots. "That's mine," he said quietly.
"Now look at your foot, sir. Look at your foot!" Zulkifli pauses in the telling, then looks at me. Without waiting for a response, he begins rolling up his right pant leg.
"Mind if I show you this?" he asks.
He's wearing a prosthetic leg, which he promptly removes, revealing a stump just below his right knee. There's no trace of bitterness on his face; instead, he smiles widely.
"Okay… imagine this is what was left of my leg," he says blithely.
The young Zulkifli had looked on in horror. The lower part of his right leg was gone, blown apart by the blast. Twisted bluish veins dangled like loose wires from the remains. It was a sight he'd carry with him for the rest of his life.
HE AIN'T HEAVY
The elderly man closes his eyes for a moment. From his stance to his dry humour and unflinching recollection, he's army through and through. The kind of man who has lived a hard life and survived more challenges than most can imagine.
"Forty years," he says dryly. "And 10 days. That's how long I served."
There's a brief pause before he adds: "I'm colour blind. Being in the service teaches you that."
He's not referring to eyesight, but to the way a soldier learns to see beyond race, religion or background. Years in uniform had stripped away the differences, leaving only trust, loyalty and the bond of shared survival.
"You never understand comradeship," he says, "until you've had brothers like Ahmad, Ah Weng or Pillai covering your back. All of us moved as one".
The camaraderie among "brothers" runs deep. That's how it is in the army — you trust the man beside you to have your back when things get tough.
That same bond kept him going. With only one stretcher available and insisting it be used for Arif, Zulkifli's comrade-in-arms Second Lieutenant Azmi Abdul Aziz had to carry him on his back.
Azmi carried him through two kilometres of danger. The helicopter couldn't land anywhere nearby, so they had to walk 45 minutes through booby-trapped terrain. Zulkifli's smile fades, and his eyes brim with tears as he remembers the long journey back.
"My men were in tears that day," he says softly, voice thick with emotion. "You carry me, and I'll sing," he'd told Azmi.
When Azmi asked why, Zulkifli simply pointed to his men.
" Tengok anak-anak buah aku… menangis kerana aku (Look at my boys… they're crying because of me!)" he said.
To lift their spirits, even as pain coursed through his body, he sang loudly. Perched on Azmi's back, Zulkifli filled the jungle air with P. Ramlee tunes, the battalion song and whatever else he could remember — anything to bring a smile, anything to keep them moving.
At the landing point, the medivac helicopter arrived 20 minutes later. Both men were evacuated to Penang General Hospital. Arif, it turned out, had only minor injuries.
"It was such an irony," he says with a laugh. "I was the one missing a leg, but Arif got the stretcher and the only morphine shot we had!"
ONE STEP FORWARD
The indefatigable father-of-six speaks candidly about his amputation and the life he had to navigate in its aftermath.
There were bouts of depression, moments when the weight of it all felt too much.
But one verse from the Quran anchored him: "Indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed, with hardship comes ease (Surah Ash-Sharh, 94: 5–6)." Those words stayed with him, offering clarity in the midst of pain.
Says Zulkifli: "It made me realise that if I hadn't been injured, we would have walked straight into a communist camp just 70 metres ahead. We would have been outnumbered. Maybe none of us would've made it."
Losing his leg was hard. But Zulkifli eventually returned on his own to the jungle in Kolam Air Panas, Ulu Legong, Baling, in the later part of the year to overcome his trauma.
He deliberately walked a path that was possibly filled with booby traps to rebuild his confidence. Despite the risk and danger, he managed to cover 30 to 40 metres on his prosthetic leg.
He explains: "I just needed to get my confidence back. And that walk did that."
Life didn't stop for Zulkifli — it simply moved forward in a new direction. Although Azmi, who carried him to safety, had left the army as a lieutenant, Zulkifli continued to stay in uniform, driven by discipline. Later, he joined Malaysia's Paralympic shooting team, competing in pistol events with the same focus that defined his service.
In 1995, at the age of 30, he completed a Master's degree in Business Administration — driven by his desire to keep learning and serving more effectively in his evolving role.
But there are some things he'll never forget.
Zulkifli still remembers the red leaves in Gubir, the silence before the explosion and the belief that when the trees turned colour, something bad was coming. That superstition proved true — but it didn't end his story.
Instead, the jungle that nearly took his life became the very place he reclaimed it. Colonel Zulkifli remains a reminder of the men who walked into danger, and those who returned — changed, but never defeated.
There are no regrets whatsoever. He had to do what he had to do, for king and country.
"If we don't defend our own country, who will?" he asks quietly.
He pauses, then adds: "There's a quote — 'You won't realise how important your country is until you lose it'. I've never forgotten that. You only understand what you're defending when it's almost taken from you."
For Zulkifli, that understanding was forged in the heart of the jungle, through fear, loss and the quiet resilience that carried him forward.
His story is a reminder that even in the darkest parts of the forest, duty, loyalty and love for country can still light the way.
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