One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

PULLING TOGETHER

262

TWELVE

VIII. PLAYING BALL

Cadets tended to be supportive and ‘play ball’ as it was called during exercise appointments

when one or the other would be assigned the role of Platoon Commander, Platoon

Sergeant, Section Commander or support weapon specialist. But, unlike the relatively minor

contretemps of barrack life, the stresses of fieldwork would bring out both the determination

of appointment holders and the personal predispositions of the followers. There was a

celebrated instance of one cadet who disappeared tactically whenever the incredibly heavy

locally-made assault boat of tough tropical wood called sampan which was adopted in the

early days of SAFTI training, had to be beached and camouflaged for the night at the end

of watermanship training. He shall remain nameless, but he was otherwise acknowledged

a sharp cookie and went on to hold key appointments although he left the service early

and migrated. In another incident, a slight, otherwise non-aggressive cadet who had been

appointed Platoon Sergeant for a strenuous field exercise, went ballistic with one of the

biggest and toughest cadets in the course and sent him back to the exercise area in the middle

of the night to recover a missing 60mm mortar, with the culprit meekly complying with the

help of a friend’s motor-cycle.

There were also typical flare-ups that are part of living in close proximity with limited

personal space. There were a number of cases of cadets going for one another with blunt

and sharp instruments following violent disagreements. The most dramatic instance was the

case of one well-known cadet with a colourful background fleeing for dear life across the

parade ground with a machete-wielding platoon mate in close pursuit. Fortunately, it was

after working hours, and even more fortunately, the chaser did not catch the fleer or the SAF

would have had one aggressive Brigadier General less.

There was also an unwritten code of honour among the cadets. They would not snitch on

a fellow-cadet and they would resolve interpersonal differences among themselves as far as

possible. How and when this value system developed, is impossible to ascertain but it must

have had its roots in the mutual support environment that the training regime created. An

illustrative example deals with the same cadet who skived during the watermanship training.

Gambling was a fairly common pastime among some of the cadets. One night, a session was

going on in one of the section rooms. The said cadet, who was from another section, asked

to join in but was promptly rejected. Up to mischief again and still playing the clown, he

climbed up the false ceiling through an access hatch with a bucket of water, navigated to the

spot just above the gamblers and after lifting the gypsum board ceiling panel, dumped the

pail of water on the gamblers. When they raised a hue and cry, he tried to scuttle back to his

section, but in the process one of his legs went through one of the ceiling panels into the

section room. Though he got away, his own section mates boycotted his attempts to cover

the ceiling panel. He managed to switch the damaged panel with one from the washroom,

but when he went to camouflage the damaged area in the replaced washroom panel with