Short Stories and Memories about National Service.

Teamwork & the Day the Bats became our Buddies. During National Service all units needed members of their companies with some form of specialization. This was one of the pro's of doing National Service. You could at least learn a skill which you could put to later use whether during your service or in later life. There were many functions to be performed eg. chefs, signallers, drivers, medics, etc. For many of these you needed to go to another unit for specialist training before being transferred back to your originating unit at the end of your course. While some purely provided functional training, others also involved a more complete change of corps, eg the Medics were transferred completely across to the SAMS (S.A. Medical Services), and were simply seconded back to their original units. This apparently had something to do with the Geneva Convention under which the medics operated. The troops selected to become medics for 3 SAI Bravo Company (July 1985 intake) went across to the Klipdrift base of the SAMS Training Centre to do the balance of their basics with the medics. While the medics had already done 2 months of their basics, this was renowned to be of a much "softer" level than other units basic training eg. that of the Infantry. A number of other units had also sent their own troops to be trained as Operational Medical Orderlies or Ops Medics as we were known. At Klipdrift we were known as the Smarties due to our resemblance to a box of Smarties. This was due the fact that we all wore different coloured berets eg green for Infantry, purple for Parabats, etc. etc. After the first few weeks we then moved on to SAMS College in Voortrekkerhoogte (VTH), Pretoria, where we then became known as the Foreign Legion. They believed that we were akin to a foreign force due to our origins, ie. not having originally been posted to the SAMS from the outset. There was also a belief that we would not be as good as the SAMS Ops Medics, although as with many other things we did our best to prove otherwise. In fact the only difference was that we did not do B&O (Bestuur & Onderhoud) course at SAMS and if our units wanted it done then they would have to attend to this training themselves. Because we all came from different backgrounds there was quite a lot of rivalry between the different components of the Smarties. In particular some of the Parabats believed that they were perhaps better, stronger, fitter, etc than the rest of us in the group. This did create some friction initially, but it was to work out for the best when we arrived at VTH, for by that time we had built esprit de corps amongst the group.. Despite attempts to give us Oppies, well what the SAMS P.T.I.'s thought was an Oppie and yet we thought was a bit of an afternoon leisure session, we just played along. On most occasions running to the fence or trommel-in-die-hoogvoor was not half as tough as what we were used to so we just "lag-ged it off". It obviously started to really rile the senior management of the College, and that together with a few other offences like not bothering to prepare for one of their inspections, not getting up for breakfast in the mornings, "slyping" down to dinner, or acting in a totally "naafie" mood when required to toe the line, resulted in the threat for one of ours sections to report to the Sports Field that afternoon for a PT session. Time arrived and they were ranting and raving as we arrived at the field that afternoon. A number of senior ranks were all lined up to watch the Foreign Legion get an Oppie. We took one look at this and a common thought went through our minds as we went off on the first trip to the fence. The usual practice was to get the troops to crack. The session went on and on, with situps, pushups, carry-your-buddy, etc. Eventually they saw that we were not going to crack that easily and the P.T.I. rantings got louder and louder in frustration. At this point we could have folded, but on one of the trips back across the field the Bats in the group told everyone that we won't give in and at this point team work kicked in. Those who were battling were now helped across the field by the fitter members. On the return from one of the fence trips we simply decided that we will run again without even being told and on arrival back at the assembly point we simply ran round the P.T.I. and headed off. This was probably the one that broke the camels back as we suddenly had no more P.T.I.'s on the field to give us the Oppie. On our return we simply sauntered off the field and on up to our bungalows. There was never another attempt to give us an Oppie at SAMS College. From this point on we worked as buddies and team spirit grew amongst all the Foreign Legion.

Copyright © 2001 S. Le Roux AND OpsMedic. All rights reserved.