THAT bright Saturday midmorning, we were gathering at school. It was December 4, 1979. It was warm. It was just after our Form Five exams. We were through with Kamwala Secondary School, Lusaka.

There, I had experienced much with others. I had done much writing, stories and drama, and theatre. At Kamwala, we had talked much about following principles and truth.
David Wallace, our class teacher and teacher of English, would in our Critics Club lead exploration on thoughts and principles.

The national New Writers Group of Zambia and the ZANTAA theatre movement were our environments for discussion and practice on independence, creativity, and social relations. I was aware that one has to be careful not to be driven to action by “mob psychology.”

And that morning, Saturday December 4, 1976, began a major phase of our lives. Compulsory military training of all who completed school introduced in 1975, we were in the second compulsory intake. We were going into the Zambia National Defence Force, ZNDF, which was a unity of command of the forces Zambia Army, Air Force (ZAF), and Zambia National Service, ZNS. General Kingsley Chinkuli was ZNDF commander.

As we waited to leave Lusaka for Katete, where boys from Lusaka, Central, and others from Southern province were destined, friends and relatives were seeing us off. And the girls were going to Mansa camp.

Some schoolmates who were not citizens of Zambia and thus not under compulsory military training, also came to cheer us off. That was a period of tension in southern Africa. For the armed liberation struggle, heating up, sometimes spilled into Zambia, with neighbouring racist or colonial regimes attacking Zambia. For friends and relatives, it was not just about army training, but also potential risks for young persons they knew.

Many days before, at Kamwala Secondary, Captain Chindanda, of ZNS Headquarters, had talked to us, preparing us for military training. Days before departure, I had been unwell. Some blood had dried on my shirt. I had asked a doctor at UTH to allow me to go to Katete days later but she felt I would be alright.

Now, friends and relatives waved us bye. Then the ZNS dark green Mercedes Benz trucks, on top of the roof a hole for an observer or gunner, took us to Lusaka's Arakan Barracks, the home of Zambia Army headquarters and the Second Battalion, Zambia Regiment.

There, we met colleagues who had come from other schools. We waited in the big parade square. Because of where we lived in Libala, friends and relatives living in Arakan Barracks, and my trials with Zambia Army Under-14 soccer team, I did not have fear of the military. But still, I prepared with basic drill.

At Arakan, while we waited, a cheerful young Zambia Army lieutenant came to chat. He said ZNDF needed officers and some amongst us should later join.

At Arakan came buses from the state-run UBZ. They were the smaller, short wheel base, Tata buses. In the buses, we freely mixed, from many schools. A ZNS lieutenant, assisted by a non-commissioned officer, headed the convoy. As we left Arakan Barracks in a long convoy, and onto Great East Road, Military Police motorbike escort took us out of town, up to near Chongwe.

We wound our way on the Great East Road, passing through the hills and valleys of the Great Rift Valley. In daytime, sunlight shows beautiful vegetation near and very far high on mountains and down on valleys. And the area had a reputation of travel danger, especially before independence.

We reached Luangwa Bridge. The suspension bridge replaced a bridge bombed, in 1967, by Portuguese forces from neighbouring colonial Mozambique. In the night, at Petauke centre, we stopped. We were hundreds of kilometres from Lusaka.

In the bright morning, the convoy started off for Katete. Shortly, we were onto the Great East Road. Then the bus drivers began to drive fast and even overtake others. Our brother Dexter Chilala now remembers his driver speaking discomfort about other drivers overtaking others.

Shortly, a short distance after the junction, suddenly our bus slowed down and pulled over. There was commotion. We got out and, a few buses ahead, there had been an accident.

Our friends were injured. Then things happened very quickly. A driver had lost discipline, overtook another, and facing a vehicle coming from Chipata, went off road. The bus had overturned.

It was tense. People were shouting. People were moving about. There was panic. The ZNS NCO shouted orders at the recruits. He was attacked and fled the area. The lieutenant's bus had driven ahead, unaware of the accident.

“National service has ended!” our colleagues shouted, “There is no military training now!” and, “we are going back to Lusaka, right now!” The UBZ bus drivers, tired and against their will, were ordered to drive back to Lusaka.

“Gabriel, let us go!” a friend called out. I said I did not think the rebel convoy was going to reach Lusaka. “I will remain here,” I said.

“Gabriel, every one is going! Let us go!” another said. But I remained on the scene. Alone. Over a thousand of our colleagues went with the U-turned buses.

I sat there, waiting. Later, I woke up to find around me people, many women, from a nearby community. “He is one of the school people,” they said.

“You can see he is injured.” I told them I was not injured and the dried blood was from the past. “Aha,” they said, “he is confused.” And, “You can see he has some blood on his shirt.”

They did not listen to me. A man with a van came over and it was said my friends were still at Petauke boma, preparing for Katete. I got onto the van, for Petauke boma.
At Petauke boma, my friends had commandeered the buses to the hospital, to see the injured before going to Lusaka.

The lieutenant was attacked. Petauke district governor, Mr Jacob Chisela, addressed the young men, saying he understood their situation. He then asked those who wanted to proceed to Katete and military training to go to one side and board buses. The ones for Lusaka would also form a side and be allowed to go. Somewhat, a few persons began to go onto the Katete line. Slowly, many, and all, went into the Katete buses.

I joined my colleagues and we all proceeded towards Katete, passed Sinda and St Francis hospital. We stopped over at Katete shopping area for water. In the hot afternoon, we were at Chiwoko training camp.

Later, we heard that our parents and guardians, my father and mother inclusive, had rushed to Arakan Barracks to find out about casualties. Sadly, there was Mutakwa, from David Kaunda school, who died in the Petauke accident. Some were injured.
For months, Chiwoko was to be our home.

Many of us were transformed. All over Zambia, recruits had various experiences, favourable and otherwise, linked to place, intake, and administration. Because of the Petauke accident and the recruits' reaction, instructors initially somewhat treated us with caution.

I was amongst the few aged 16 to 17 years. Most at the camp were two to four years older than us. But my stay there was still to be some useful lesson about growing up, principles, and the relationship between team and individual. This we will share.