Lam Dorji

Lam Dorji (23 October 1933 – 27 April 2020) was the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) from 1964 to 2005. He was succeeded by Batoo Tshering on 1 November 2005.

Military career Lam Dorji was born in Haa. He graduated from the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, India, at the end of 1954, and completed a post-training attachment with a range of Indian Army units and instructional schools. In March 1959, he received his first assignment, to establish the RBA training center in Wangduephodrang. He also represented the Armed Forces at the National Assembly. In 1962, during the Indo-China war, he was posted in Lingmithang to oversee the training of a military force drawn from Kurtoe, Bumthang, Mongar, and Shumar (now Pema Gatshel). He was promoted to the rank of Maktsi wogma [Lieutenant Colonel] on 7 August 1962, and served as the Commandant of the Training Center from 1963 to 1964. On 25 November 1964, he was appointed as the Chief Operations Officer at the army headquarters in Thimphu by the King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, who promoted him to Maktsi (Full Colonel) in 1970, and promoted him to the rank of Goongloen Wogma (Major General) in June 1981. He was further promoted as Goongloen Gongma (Lt. General) on August 2, 1991.

He died on 27 April 2020.

Awards and decorations

For dedicated and distinguished service to the Tsa-Wa-Sum (King, Country and People), Lam Dorji was awarded the Royal Order of Bhutan Druk Thuksey medal on 24 June 1969, by King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. In 1991 King Jigme Singye Wangchuck awarded him the highest medal of the Royal Bhutan Army, the Druk Yugyel (DYG). In recognition of his long and dedicated service to the Tsawa-Sum he was awarded the Drakpoi Wangyel medal (DW) by the king on 17 December 2001. Lam Dorji was awarded the Royal Order of Bhutan Druk Thuksey by the Fifth King of Bhutan on 17 December 2010 for 49 years of service under the Third and Fourth Kings. The Fifth King said that Lam Dorji had already received the highest awards of the nation but was being recognized as a symbolic gesture to present him to the youth as an example and to show that "service to the nation shall never go forgotten."