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Mandla Moyo

DURING every military recruitment selection stage, young men and women report at various selection depots to try their luck.

However, at the end of the selection period only the few that are prepared both physically and mentally alongside their academic qualifications get the chance to don the military fatigue for a new challenging journey of their lives.

This journey is full of painful moments, happy moments as well as adventure depending on your mindset.
All activities are done in preparation of the individual to know what it means to wear the military fatigue as well as what one is expected to do.

To sum up one’s career in the army as they go about their duty of defending the nation, below is a poem dedicated to our defence forces.

Military Professionalism
Men who adopt the profession of arms
Submit their own free will

To a law of perpetual constraints.

Of their own accord,
They resist their right to live where they choose,
To say what they think,
To dress as they like.

From the moment they become soldiers,
It needs but an order to settle them in this place,
To move them to that
To separate them from their families
And dislocate their normal lives.

In the world of command,
They must rise, march, run,
Endure bad weather,
Go out without sleep or food,
Be isolated in some distant post
And work until they drop.

They have ceased to become the masters of their own fate.
If they drop on their tracks,
If their ashes are scattered to the four winds,

That is all part and parcel of their job.