Durban - It is often said that women love men in uniform.
For Warrant Officer Kevin Anthony, he knew, after seeing naval officers in their impressive gear, that was what he wanted to wear for the rest of his life.
Despite his mom’s protests he left Arena Park Secondary in Chatsworth after Standard 9 and in 1980 joined the navy and started his new life at the SAS Jalsena naval base, reserved for Indians, in Durban.
Last week, after 42 years and eight months, he finally retired and wore his uniform for the last time.
“There are many memories, good and bad, but the good outnumber the bad,” he said this week.
Highly decorated and with an impeccable record of never being disciplined or charged, he was also the last of the 1980 intake ‒ or Force 80 as they were known ‒ to retire.
But Anthony wasn’t just in the navy, he was a marine, trained to fight on land and at sea.
After finishing his year of compulsory training at the SAS Jalsena, he and about 80 other youngsters were sent via train to the naval headquarters in Simonstown for another year of training.
They were accommodated in a building on a mountain which they had to climb every morning and evening and he said with so many youngsters there, they always got up to mischief.
At one stage they even threw plates at the chefs for putting sugar in their curry, not being accustomed to the sweet and sour Malay style of curry cooked in the Cape and longing for the hot taste of home-cooked Durban food.
He said he would miss the spontaneous calls of “GI, GI”, short for gunnery instructor, from his naval colleagues as they used to frequently greet him throughout the day until last week.
Anthony, who turned 60 at the beginning of August, says he travelled extensively because of his career, seeing and serving in many parts of Africa including Angola, Namibia and Burundi.
The stories are too many to tell.
During his career he came face to face with dire situations, both frightening and exhilarating.
“Never knock down a cow in Burundi or you will pay in dollars forever,” he warned. And then there was the time he finally saw Gustave the Nile crocodile that everyone speaks about in hushed tones.
Anthony said they saw Gustave while flying over Lake Tanganyika and the pilot lowered the aircraft so they could get a close-up glimpse of the almost mythical animal which is said to be more than 100 years old and eats up to three people a day.
“He was massive, as big as a boat,” laughed Anthony.
In Burundi he also saw black chicken meat for the first time and saw how people just dumped their dead relatives in the water because there wasn’t any place for burials.
Anthony was deployed to Burundi twice.
First he was tasked with setting up a base for the AU in 2003 where they lived in tents in heavy monsoon weather for six months, without the conveniences of satellite phones to call home or even fridges.
“I learnt to write in French because there was no memorandum of understanding with the government of Burundi and their boats were stored in a warehouse.”
He needed to ensure that they could do what they were commissioned to and the only way to get the message across was in French.
“To type French is even worse than to speak because the computer has all those funny letters,” he said.
He chuckled as he disclosed that in preparation to patrol Lake Tanganyika he and other naval officials took the boats to Midmar Dam to get a feel for a lake because they were only accustomed to being out at sea.
However, Lake Tanganyika turned out to be a massive surprise because it was so big ‒ 32 900 square km ‒ that it felt like the ocean and the waves were equally rough at times.
In 2005 Anthony returned to Burundi to serve under the UN for a few months and to maintain a presence there during the elections.
An image he will never forget is that of the child soldiers, boys as young as 11 and 12, trained to be killing machines by the rebel forces.
“They had this hardened look about them, their skin was hard and their eyes were so deep they just stared through you,” he said.
What most people don’t know is that until last week Anthony was in charge of the spectacular drills seen at state functions like inaugurations and funerals. At any given time he had to ensure that up to 300 people were marching in unison.
He says being part of the guard of honour at Nelson Mandela’s funeral was one of the the highlights of his career.
He also led from the front during the drill at the inauguration of President Cyril Ramaphosa where he was the battalion warrant officer at Loftus Versveld.
He was also in charge of the massive parade at the renaming of Mafikeng to Mahikeng.
Anthony was in the marines until they were disbanded by former president FW De Klerk in 1989 and he moved to the navy again.
He was the basic training instructor at the SAS Saldanha in 1993.
In 1994 when MKMVA and APLA veterans were integrated into the SANDF he also trained the naval officers.
He was the boatmaster of naval station Durban from 1995 to 2005 and then served as gunnery instructor from 2007 to 2021.
Anthony says his only regret was that too many people were fast-tracked through the ranks these days without serving the appropriate amount of time and really learning the ropes.
Apart from his official service he represented the navy in cricket and soccer and attained SANDF colours for badminton.
He is still in the navy’s golf club and has taken up bowls, both of which should keep him busy for a while.
For now, retirement hasn’t sunk in and he feels as if he has just taken leave.
The Independent on Saturday