Before 1996, bureaucracy was one of major undoing within Kenya Defense Forces (KDF), the team tasked to defend the country's international borders.
When he took over from General Mohamud Mohamed, Tonje masterminded radical surgery, with most of the rules he introduced standing up to date.
In an interview with the Sunday Nation, former Defense Minister Julius Sunkuli paid tribute to the former general, who retreated to his Baringo home in 2000.
"He wanted a liberalised military. He was on the verge of changing the locations of military barracks, which he believed had been set up by the colonialists with their self-interest in mind," he said.
"I worked hard to stop some of his proposals. But together we managed to carry out various reforms among them a rule that a woman cannot command a unit that had men."
Besides allowing women corps to head units, General Tonje allowed female soldiers to marry, a practice which was forbidden by his predecessors.
Christined Tonje Rules, thd retired military officer introduced payment of soldiers through bank accounts. Previously, soldiers were paid on a long queue.
Also, Tonje abolished indefinite term limits for Chief of General Staff, now Chief of Defense Forces. He strictly maintained that the CDF can only serve for four years.
This informed his retirement in 2000. He handed over to General Joseph Kibwana. Tonje also insisted that the CDF seat should be held in rotational basis among soldiers.
Sunkuli, who served later as Kenyan ambassador to China, recalls a deadly mission of freeing Kenyan soldiers who had been kidnapped in Sierra Leone.
"The negotiations to free Kenyan soldiers who were on a peace-keeping mission in Sierra Leone were not easy. The soldiers were kidnapped by rebels from Foday Sankoh’s Revolution United Front (RUF)."