Short Stories and Memories about National Service.

Powerplays During the Summer season the Border region was particularly risky in terms of getting Malaria, and the Defence Force had strict measures in place to ensure that its troops did not contract this illness. Every week medication had to be handed out to each troop to prevent them from getting Malaria. The tablets had to be signed for in a register and it was usually required that they were swallowed in front of the medic and / or platoon sergeant. Often troops would simply refuse to take them, or would act as if they had swallowed them and then when you turned your back they would spit them out. One has to remember that these tablets were particularly vile so one can't blame the troops for not liking the taste. After one reported incident when a troop at another base was found on his bed in a comatose state, due to having contracted Malaria, there was an immediate tightening up of regulations and all Malaria Tablet Registers were called in for inspection. The Ops Medic in each platoon was responsible for keeping the register. The Platoon Commanders were given the registers and they had a look at them, and then the registers were passed on to the Company Commander. At this stage our company was located at Okatope base. One also has to remember the dislike for any medic that was held by certain senior (Infantry) ranks. What had been occuring in my platoon for at least a month prior to this was that there was a continuous refusal by certain of the troops to sign the register. Despite continuous pleading with them they still refused point-blank in most cases to sign it. One member in particular then had the grand idea that if I wanted the register to be "signed" then he would colour-in the entire block he was supposed to be signing in. There comes a point when one gives up arguing with people who are stubborn, and so the guilty parties were simply left to complete the register in whichever manner they wished, if at all. Naturally the day arrived when these registers were presented in front of the Company Commander as per his instruction. He duly perused them and came upon my platoon's register. Naturally the artwork of one member stood out in particular. I was summoned to appear before the Captain a day later, and on arrival have him ranting and raving at me that I will get an "oppie" because my Register is a mess, and " ... *%**%* what do I think I am doing with all the blocks coloured-in ?". It didn't take me long to enlighten the brilliant Company Commander that this was not my doing, and if he looked at the artwork he would see that it appeared to all be aligned on one line. He became most astonished at this "discovery" and now that he had the identity of the artist he was placed in a corner as he had explicitly stated that punishment would occur. Not being able to get out of this one he had to call the artist in. The member in question was given an appropriate punishment according to myself. The punishment was to rewrite the register from the beginning, and to get every member to sign for each entry therein. One has to bear in mind that all work was hand-written at bases such as Okatope at this time. There was no such thing as having the use of computers with spreadsheets and word-processing packages, typewriters, carbon paper, etc. To redo the entire register naturally took the guilty party some time to rewrite, page by page, and then to get each member to sign each entry again. I enjoyed every moment of watching this voluminous register being redone. In one way a medic therefore got an Infantry Captain to back him up on a get-even episode with the wise ones in the platoon over the Malaria-pill register. Needless to say the Register never suffered a work of art again.

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