SAF to bid state funeral of Lee Kuan Yew with highest honors

Singapore's Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said on Friday that Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) would bid the state funeral of Lee Kuan Yew with the highest honors by firing 21-gun salute.

Hours after the SAF personnel carried out a rehearsal for the state funeral in the wee hours on Friday, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen revealed details of Sunday's sendoff on his Facebook.

He said as the gun carriage carries Lee Kuan Yew's body from Parliament House, there will be a 21-gun salute fired by four ceremonial 25-pounder guns as the procession journeys around the Padang.

"Four RSAF (Republic of Singapore Armed Forces) Black Knights will also salute Mr Lee as his body passes City Hall with a' Missing Man'formation where one Black Knight breaks off," the defence minister wrote.

He added that Mr Lee's death has caused Singaporeans to focus on his life's work, and served as a reminder of how Singapore started out.

"It will be a painful moment of finality and parting, but life will go on," said the defence minister.

Ng also quoted a Chinese idiom which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shared with him as saying "A thousand sails pass the sunken barrage; ten thousand saplings spring forth around the dying tree. "

Ng believed Lee Kuan Yew would encourage Singaporeans to continue to live life to its fullest, to take Singapore further and make the world proud of what more Singaporeans can accomplish from what former PM Lee Kuan Yew had started. Endi