Only four days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, a group of 58 young officer cadets were sworn in at the offices of the Force Training Establishment on 6th August, 1990. They swore to protect the state president and the constitution. It was from that moment going forward that the instructors continued to intimidate these young lads about being sent to help in the war effort on the side of the Allied Forces.
I was personally privileged to belong to this group of young men averaging twenty-two years in age. The youngest of them included the likes of O/Cadet Sanako and O/Cadet Abi who were only eighteen years old. The oldest among us was O/Cadet Khupe aka Majoni. We had our expectations blown into pieces that day. First it was with the issuance of our new uniform. We were asked to queue at the Quartermaster’s store and before we knew it, overalls came flying into our faces. There was no order, from the moment we had concluded our oath, a mob of instructors descended on us and started shouting all forms of profanities.
I for one, coming from the born again Christian background, it was a tough ask to swallow words such as f**k’n idiot. Within moments, I found myself with five other cadets sharing a small room. This happened after we were allocated buddies and I found myself stuck with a not so good looking fellow from Tonota known as O/Cadet Thembo. But this fellow was an angel at heart.
Other roommates included O/Cadet Tladi, a fellow I had last seen at Ithuteng Primary School in 1976. He was partnered with such a gentle giant known as O/Cadet Kamwi from Pandamatenga. There were two elephants in our small room and these were O/Cadets Banda and Molefhi. This was a very odd pair as they always claimed intelligence superiority over all of us.
From the time we swore our loyalty to the president and the constitution, we then realised that we had lost all our civil liberties and it was from that moment going forward that we became subjected to swearing on an hourly basis. I had come from St Joseph’s College with two fellows who had been four years my juniors and O/Cadets Lesotlho and Plaatjie seemed to have caught up with this kind of profane language.
For the two months we had been going through the recruitment process, our recruiters who later became our instructors had been drilling something into our minds and we all seemed to blithely believe them. They always talked about a party that would be held in our honour on the first night. After running around the whole day in green overalls, we expected to go wash ourselves and get ready for the banquet where probably we would be welcomed by the commander as future officers in his defence force.
The moment we went for dinner at 5:30 pm and running a kilometre to arrive at our dining hall which was only 50 metres from the barracks, it was O/Cadet Mapotsane who raised the alarm that something very odd was happening. Most in the group were under nourished from the wilderness of unemployment and free dinner was such a feast.
Soon after our rich and hasty dinner, O/Cadet Mathews who was the senior of the serial called us to fall-in. One O/Cadet Kenosi whispered to O/Cadet Nthebolang aka as Pholoentsho and said, “mathaka a jaanong ke eng ba nna bantsintsi jaana?” (why are these fellows becoming too many) and this was in reference to the swelling number of instructors as the sun was beginning to set.
They mobbed us and overwhelmed us with shouts and cursing. Before we knew it we were all floored on the ground where there was some lawn growing that we soon turned to dusty ground. We were rolling, crawling and doing all you can imagine. There were two cadets with the same names and initials but no relations. That night O/Cadets Modise did the unthinkable. The tall Modise who was to be known as “Snake Park” had just arrived with a group of cadets who had gone to harvest river sand. When they arrived and were made to join our group of rollers, he shouted, “ga re a ja sir!”(meaning that their group hadn’t had dinner yet).
In fact they were so lucky to be in that state of hunger because most of us had thrown our dinner by the time they arrived. Later on the instructors paused the chaos for just a minute and they asked, “Who wants to quit?” the short Modise raised his hand while he was panting for air. From that moment the agony was multiplied for his misdemeanour.
The Commandant at FTE was Colonel Kgokgothwane and we had his younger brother in the intake. According to O/Cadet Gabaitse, he thought that would lighten our load. But Marshall Kgokgothwane’s presence just seemed to complicate things as instructors wanted to prove to us that they were not up to dishing out any favours.
The training was tough under Captain Morake who was our Officer Commanding, a man who was so unpredictable in his demeanour. One morning he told us that he was allowed 5% casualties (which included death) and he had not even reached half. That was scary to say the least. But casualties were common. O/Cadet Kgomotso almost lost his eyesight while O/Cadet Motsele still limps from that training thirty years on.
Training would never have been the same without O/Cadet Modisenyane who became known as Saddam because of his love for the Iraqi dictator. We had every imaginable character in this group that included the likes of O/Cadets Motsumi, Ramahobo, Mantata, Keoitse aka Sedupe. There were some controversial characters like O/Cadet Dick who never swallowed the line with the sinker and not forgetting his partner in crime, the Maruapula educated O/Cadet Masalila.
This is not a roll call, otherwise I would never leave out the likes of O/Cadets Molate, Bogatsu, Kgakge, Makgetho, Makgatho and the late comer in O/Cadet Mbaakanyi. It is not an easy thing to stick to one job for thirty years but you made it while some of us jumped ship at the earliest opportunity for retirement. We cannot exhaust the list without mentioning the mascot of the group, O/Cadet Kooagile aka Matshwane. Of course we cannot leave out our star, O/Cadet (now colonel) Nlebgwa who just graduated from Nigeria Defence College.
