Page 164 - The Circle of Life
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their wickedness in making their fellow innocent cadets suffer on Sunday
afternoons since God had ordained the seventh day as a day of rest, a command
which had now been broken with their communist tendencies of sleeping in
church. More importantly we did our laundry on Sunday afternoons so the
culprit’s snoozing interfered with our laundry, which is not an acceptable
behaviour between civilised men! Perhaps that had been the idea after all. To be
sure, they never slept again in church. They should be grateful for the life
lesson.
Then one day a Chaplain proved to me that they actually had a sense of humour
when he explained that “Adam was originally a black man who got such a fright
when God caught him stealing apples from God’s garden that he turned white
from shock and fear. After all, when you get a fright you don’t turn black in the
face…but white! It is a well-known medical fact.” I chuckled respectfully, but
took bets in my mind on how long he would last saying such things, which the
Nationalists would surely regard as sacrilege. He may have been correct
according to the latest genetic research for all I know. Perhaps he was also
ahead of his time.
On a more thoughtful note, I once had a major fallout with the Chaplains. Some
years later I got fed-up with the Chaplains meddling with my operations while I
was on border duty. Right at the time when I had wanted to follow some spoor,
they wanted to talk to my platoon. From their point of view, it had been a great
opportunity to fly in a nice Police helicopter to talk to us. For me it was like: “I
have a job to do here which has no Biblical application, so please p off! I have
terrorists to f kill if you don’t mind!” Because they were representatives of God
Almighty, I could of course not speak my mind, and they had flatly (very brave I
say) ignored my evil eyes to p off too. So I’d had to interrupt them by asking:
“What is the reward for faith Chaplain?” Their answer was "To go to heaven
sergeant, and eternal life." I replied, quite reasonably I thought, "Chaplain, what
should I do in heaven? By the time I arrive, God would have sentenced all of the
criminals and terrorists to life in hell. He therefore would have no need for my
skills! Who should I arrest or kill there? There can be no job or satisfaction for
me in heaven, Chaplain. Do you wish for me to endure a thousand years year of
extreme boredom while I wait for the convicted criminals and terrorists to
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