The gun is not for killing people, it is for protecting good people, you don't fight because you hate what is before you, as a true soldier, you fight because you love what is behind', that was dad's favourite saying.
My love for naval force was comparable to a child's love for chocolate, little wonder then I had to do ten backstrokes and fifteen push ups before my dad's very presence to prove how readily available I was to respond to the call of duty that night he came back with my admission letter to the Nigerian Defence Academy.
My love for guns was immeasurable, though books were a greater companion in time of distress but I had always wish I were born in the State of Pennsylvania in the US where all shooting stuff prevails so I would always comfort myself with war games. The night was still very young when I was preparing my bag on the eve of my departure to Kaduna. I packed my luggage with enough provisions, Two custardful of garrison wasn't exempted, thus making my bag very heavy.
I had visited all my aunts, nephews and uncles to bid them goodbye, I was a great admirer of Shakespeare, thus often times I had bid them adieu with one of his sayings in Julius Caesar that: 'if we meet again, we shall smile, if not this parting is well made'. Some of my aunts were crying and some were happy. My uncles were just indifferent about it. I was so proud of myself, 'my last days as a civilian has come', I often said to myself. We arrived Kaduna earlier enough. Dad had intended taking me inside the school in the cap we boarded considering the heaviness of my load(my luggage), but that wasn't the system there.
We were dropped at the gate and my father alongside other parents was asked to go. I with other boys and girls, some from very rich home who were only there because their parents wanted them in the military as it appeared from their reluctance and indifferent attitude, were summoned. The heaviness of our bags notwithstanding, we were commanded to carry it on our heads while frog jumping from the gate to the administrative block, a distance of about one hundred and twenty meters from the gate while at the same time chanting some strange wars songs, 'there is something I want to be, I want to be a soldier's, though the syllables were not well articulated, perhaps, it was part of the military lifestyle or maybe their own way of speaking in tongues.
We were all registered at the administrative block, each person receiving three lashes at the back from our senior mates in Tarma three and four respectively. This, they called 'welcome tea'. We were shown to our different hostels, no sooner had we been shown how to dress our bed militarily than the bell for lunch sounded. If you couldn't finish dressing your bed before the sound of the bell, sorry was your name. We were all guilty and we never escaped the punishment of head pinning before we had our lunch at three. Some of those rich kids were already worn out and on the brink of giving up, but I loved it, that was the life I wanted to lead.
The evening was marked with long distance marathon and lastly, a dance around what they called a 'camp fire drill' in which everyone was obliged to jump over the fire as well as being 'baked'for some minutes. We went to bed at a half past eleven on to wake at five the following day at the reechoing sound of the bell. It was time for deep water swimming, we were drilled on how to stay under water for minutes and how to tackle an enemy with a knife. It was all a rigorous exercise. Some of the rich kids could not withstand it, some nights later they scaled the fence against all the rules and sanctions and ran home, but we were determined to make it to the end, we couldn't wait for the prospect of being in tarma four, for the prospect of having a full meal and having your own command of you guys recruited cadets.
ALL IMAGES WERE GOTTEN FROM THE NDA SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHER.