CHAPTER 36 CULTURE WARS THE EFFECT OF CULTURE ON OUR TRAINING

The cultural divide caused us a few problems. Not only did our instructors come from all corners of the world, and have a variety of exotic accents and phraseology, but many of our black African students had little or no English, and a large proportion came from rural back-waters without any mod-cons.

It was, of course, essential that all students be made to understand safety protocols and this was where the brilliant communication skills of our PJIs came to the fore. For example, one of the PJIs responsible for ensuring the troops understood what was said to them was Paul Hogan, an Australian with a suitably thick Aussie accent. When he conducted his first lesson to a section of Rhodesian African Rifle troops, he would teach them to say “G’day, Sergeant Hogan” for 30 minutes, or until they got it right. This was not as silly as it seems, by doing this he learned their names, got their attention, earned a few laughs, helped them relax, and taught them his name in a way they would never forget.

Another problem with training the Rhodesian African Rifles, and black Selous Scout soldiers was their general inexperience with, and therefore lack of understanding of, and, most importantly, trust in, modern technology. Even small things, like running water, and flushing toilets were new to the men who had joined the RAR straight from the Tribal Trust Lands. Considering these men were being asked, in a language they did not always understand, to use equipment they had never seen before, to jump from a plane they’d never flown in, shows quite remarkable bravery.

As he spoke the language, it was often left to Selous Scout RSM, Sergeant Major Mavengere to instruct some of his troops in how to behave on a sophisticated Air Force base, especially when it came to using the toilets. A notice on one toilet door in Number 3 Squadron toilet, read “Please flush twice, Selous Scouts eat anything.”

But the greatest concern, as always, was over safety. The lack of understanding sometimes resulted in failure of technique which was unacceptable. The SAS in Rhodesia had a 98% pass rate in parachuting, with a 2% failure due to injury, on basic training. The RLI had a 96% pass rate, and a 4% failure rate due to injury on basic training. Usually those who initially failed, completed their parachute course later and were eventually awarded their wings.

The RAR, on the other hand, had about a 70% pass rate, and with the exception of one or two, the 30% who failed the course were returned to their units. Only a small number of these failures managed to sneak back at a later stage and finally pass.

The Selous Scouts only had about a 56% pass rate. This was largely due to the ‘turned terrorist’ factor – as mentioned in an earlier chapter, some of the Selous Scouts were recruited as captured terrorists. These men would be given the option to change their allegiance, or to be sent to trial.

When these Selous Scouts failed, very few would be retrained. Naturally, this caused some frustration amongst the staff of the parachute school, including myself, but I cannot say that I completely blame the turned terrorists for their lack of enthusiasm. I am sure parachuting was never mentioned when they were persuaded to change sides. These things were sent to try us, and we just got on with the job.

Lack of experience, sometimes made parachute training a trial for all troops. For example, when troops were taken up for air experience flights, we’d bring them to the stand-in-the-door position and ask them to look out. This was a bit frightening for those who had not flown before, but was usually ok first thing in the morning, when the air was relatively calm. But everything changed when the pilot was told to take evasive action, or to throw the aircraft around a bit. Then the troops became weightless and it was not uncommon for even the most experienced flyers to empty the contents of their stomachs. On a few occasions some of the RLI troops, who’d had previous parachute training with other forces around the world would try to jump out. The instructors would hang onto their harnesses to prevent them from abandoning the aircraft.

It is a testament to our PJIs that our injury rate due to parachuting incidents remained so very low. Not only did they have to deal with a huge number of trainees, but they also had to contend with a language barrier and a cultural divide. They were damn good teachers.