A Life in Service, Year by Year

Milinda Priyadarshana Peiris is born on 12 August 1961, into a family with deep roots in Sri Lanka’s Buddhist revival and tradition of social service.

Becomes Nalanda College’s first President’s Scout in January 1978. During a civic-badge survey of the Wellawatta Canal, he sinks chin-deep in mud before fellow scout Jagath pulls him clear with a pole.

After a short preparatory phase at Panagoda, completes a six-month course at Officer Training School Madras, India, culminating in the Passing Out Parade on 25 October 1980. He then returns to Sri Lanka for further training at the Sri Lanka Military Academy, Diyatalawa, with Intake SSC-1.

Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on 15 December 1980 and posted to the Sri Lanka Armoured Corps, alongside 2/Lt Ravi Hewagama and 2/Lt Tissa Aluvihare.

Two unarmed platoons were deployed to Kanatte Cemetery as a precautionary measure to maintain law and order in the event of tensions arising over the proposed burial of thirteen soldiers killed at Thirunelveli, with Milinda in command of one of them. As mourning gave way to violence and the Black July crisis unfolded, he was redeployed with armed troops and subsequently tasked with protecting President J. R. Jayewardene’s residence at Ward Place.

Witnesses the catastrophic breach of the Kantale Tank bund and photographs the disaster and its immediate aftermath. His photographs later provide crucial evidence that the collapse was not caused by deliberate sabotage. He subsequently revamps the Gramarakshaka system, secures Kanniya, and leads humanitarian and civil-military work across the district.

Appointed Military Assistant to Commander of the Army Gen G. H. de Silva on 1 January 1994. As the only officer on the Commander’s personal staff drawn from outside his own regiment, the appointment broke with prevailing military tradition.

On 3 February 1996, Milinda receives the Rana Wickrama Padakkama for bravery and distinguished service in the face of the enemy during Operation Balavegaya II. The medal recognised a battlefield story that had begun years earlier - with intensive armour training, the selection and induction of Sri Lanka’s T-55 tanks, and his determination to prove their capabilities in combat.

Commanding Alpha Squadron in his first major operation with the T-55s, Milinda finds himself at the heart of a fierce combined assault: armour and infantry advancing under fire, engineers breaching the LTTE’s formidable Ditch-cum-Bund defences, tanks repeatedly evacuating the wounded and dead, and men and machines being tested to their limits. He witnesses the Army’s first T-55 destroyed - and, on the same devastating day, a Y-8 aircraft explode in the sky.

Behind the gallantry medal lies a story of courage, loss, comradeship and the brutal realities of armoured warfare.

On 22 September 1996, while leading the armour column of a deception advance towards Mullaitivu, Lt Col Milinda Peiris was critically wounded by heavy mortar fire near Murasumoddai. What followed was a 43-day battle for survival across field and military hospitals: life-threatening injuries, repeated surgery, a splinter lodged dangerously near his spinal cord, a paralysed left arm and medical predictions that he might never recover. Yet amid agonising uncertainty came extraordinary turns of fate — conflicting advice over surgery, an astrologer’s warning, an Indian friend’s uncanny prediction, prayers across faiths, and a physiotherapist who promised that he would ride a motorcycle again. Milinda’s eventual return to active service became one of the defining demonstrations of resilience in his life.

Sent to Washington after Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar advised him to transform his mind-set from that of a military officer to a military diplomat, Brig Milinda Peiris entered a world that would broaden his understanding of leadership, diplomacy and national strategy. Working with Ambassador Bernard Gunathilake and the Embassy team, he engaged the Pentagon, State Department, FBI and other agencies in a sustained effort to strengthen U.S. defence cooperation and international understanding of the LTTE threat.

The results reached far beyond diplomacy: Intelligence cooperation deepened, FBI action disrupted LTTE networks in the United States, military ties strengthened, and Milinda returned home with a wider view of education, institutions and the qualities required of future leaders. His service earned him the U.S. Legion of Merit (Degree of Officer).

Washington did more than make him a military diplomat. It expanded the horizons he would later bring to national command and the transformation of KDU.

Takes command of 22 Division in December 2006 at a critical stage of operations against the LTTE in the Eastern theatre. Leads the progressive clearing of LTTE-dominated areas within the Trincomalee area and blocks LTTE movement during the Vakarai and Thoppigala operations. By the end of 2007, the East is liberated, enabling the Army to shift its main effort to the North. Milinda’s leadership of 22 Division forms an important part of this decisive phase of the campaign.

Promoted Major General on 13 April 2007 while General Officer Commanding 22 Division. At 45 he was the youngest Major General in the Sri Lanka Army at the time. Relinquishes command that December for the National Defence College, New Delhi.

A court of inquiry presses him to confirm he had reported a senior officer directly to the Commander of the Army. He declines to say what was not true, telling the Commander the truth instead, and is moved from the mainstream to the common stream, forfeiting a Security Forces Command. He is restored to the mainstream in 2009.

Takes office as Vice Chancellor on 28 December 2008 and begins an unprecedented transformation of KDU. His first great objective — the Faculty of Medicine, widely regarded as Milinda’s Dream — becomes the starting point of a much larger institutional vision. He relentlessly pursues new faculties, civilian admissions, academic recognition, major infrastructure and expansion beyond Ratmalana, while initiating the University Hospital project and laying the foundations for KDU’s emergence as a comprehensive national university.

What began as an unexpected appointment became the defining institution-building achievement of his career.

Appointed Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army on 12 February 2016, the first Nalandian and the seventh cavalry officer to hold the post. Retires on 11 August 2016, farewelled by the Armoured Corps mounted on a Saladin armoured car.

Returns as Vice Chancellor in January 2020 and soon confronts the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19, followed by national economic and political turmoil. He keeps the University functioning through the crisis, turns constraints into opportunities for innovation, and continues its academic expansion. New faculties and degree programmes broaden KDU’s national role, while a deliberate drive towards international recognition takes the University into global ranking systems.

By 2022, KDU enters the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, earns national distinction for Quality Education and Reduced Inequalities, and receives the President’s Colours and University Colours - marking a period in which institutional resilience became institutional achievement.

More than four decades after becoming Nalanda College’s first President’s Scout, Milinda returns to the movement that helped shape his leadership, becoming Chief Commissioner of the Sri Lanka Scout Association. He begins a programme of strategic reform and revitalisation, only to confront the restrictions of COVID-19. Refusing to let Scouting fall dormant, he drives virtual and international engagement, strengthens training and governance, promotes community service and keeps the movement active through one of the most difficult periods in its history.

In just twenty months, he helps reshape Sri Lankan Scouting through resilience, innovation and a renewed emphasis on quality, character and service.