Allegiance -Sri Lanka
Service/branch -Sri Lankan Army
Years of service -1971 – 1992
Rank -Lieutenant Colonel
-Unit Gajaba Regiment
Commands held -1st Gajaba Regiment
-General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University
Battles/wars -Eelam War I
-Eelam War II
-Eelam War IV
Awards - -Rana Wickrama Padakkama
-Rana Sura Padakkama
Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa), UoC
Other work - Defence Secretary, Sri Lanka
Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lanka Army as a Cadet Officer on April 26, 1971 , when Sri Lanka was still a dominion of the British Commonwealth. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on May 25, 1972 and given his first command as an officer in the Ceylon Signals Corps. Thereafter he served with in the Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment and the Rajarata Rifles before being transferred to the Gajaba Regiment upon its formation in 1983 with the amalgamation of the Rajarata Rifles and Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment.[4]
He rose up the ranks in the military, serving as the second in command of the 1st Gajaba Regiment from 1983 - 1990. He served in the battlefronts of Jaffna, participating in Operation Liberation, the offensive mounted to liberate Vadamarachi from LTTE in 1987. He also commanded the same battalion in Operation "Strike Hard" and Operation "Thrivida Balaya" in 1990. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and served as the Commandant of the Kotelawala Defence Academy at the time of his retirement in 1992.
Early life
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was born in Palatuwa in the Matara District,[citation needed] and brought up in Weerakatiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[citation needed] According to a writer called Narada Karunthilaka, the name Gotabaya means "Abhaya, the Giant" or "fearless giant" in the Jat language.[3] He hails from a well known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament,Deputy Speaker and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. His uncle, D.M. Rajapaksa, was a State Councilor for Hambantota in the 1930s. His brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa was first elected to parliament as a member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party at the age of 24 in 1970. He gradually rose through the ranks of the party, becoming opposition leader in 2001, Prime Minister in 2004 and the President of Sri Lanka in 2005. Two of his other brothers, Chamal Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa, are also in the politics being current Members of Parliament.
He obtained his primary and secondary education at Ananda College, Colombo
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