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Vasbyt!
| Date: |
20 April 2003 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Joy Wilson-Price
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
[Carte Blanche, February 2003]
Remember these guys? Carte Blanche spent a hell week with them in late January. For 86 hours they were barred from sleeping and eating and subjected to some of the toughest training in the world.
[Carte Blanche, February 2003]
Captain Duncan Scott, Head of Internal Training: 'It's definitely got nothing to do with size and everything to do with how much pain you can endure and how much willpower do you have - how much do you want to be in the Task Force?'
We watched how one by one they fell off the course, either injured or exhausted.
[Carte Blanche, February 2003]
Recruit No. 12: 'I'm going home now. I'm klaar with this.'
This was the entrance test for the elite unit of the South African police - the Special Task Force. Thirty recruits started the Sunday night march. Only fifteen made the final climb up the last hill on that Thursday morning.
[Carte Blanche, February 2003]
Duncan: 'That's 86 hours - well done! That's the end of Vasbyt.'
When we left them, the remaining 15 recruits had passed out, literally. Shortly afterwards they were sent home to recover for two weeks.
[Phase 2: Weapons Training - 6 weeks]
But now they are back for Phase 2 - weapons training - and we met them again: hollow eyed, sleep deprived and longing for home.
Roy: 'I'm sore and I can't wait to get home. I'm actually missing my kids.'
Recruit (unidentified): 'Everybody found it tough and so damn long, these six weeks.'
And the scabs and the scars revealed more to us than they were prepared to.
Roy: 'A bit of leopard crawling and rolling and running non-stop for a couple of hours.'
Roy Eales was one of the 15 guys that completed Vasbyt in January but he is one of the few still left. Of our original guys, 10 are out:
No 24, who made Vasbyt for his dying brother, is gone;
so too is No 25, Juan, who plodded silently to the end ...
and No 29, who hallucinated his way through two nights of torture
Of those we featured, only two are in.
One is Johan from the SAPS VIP Protection Unit, who was nearly beaten by dehydration and blistered feet: 'Ja, there are quite a few guys that have fallen out. It's really tough, physically, and some of them have got problems at home and just couldn't handle the pressure'.
And remember Griffiths, the Airport Policeman who almost fell out over the dam obstacle course? He too has made it and we found him waiting anxiously to pass his shotgun exam: 'Ja, a bit nervous, but looking forward to it ... just gonna shoot.'
He has 70 seconds to shoot 14 plates and a spare round if he misses. He must also load as he is running. The pass rate is 80%. Anything less and you have to fix the problem with an instructor. If you fail a second time, you're out. But Griffiths blew his way through his shotgun examination with ease.
Instructor: 'He's easily got within 100%. It's a very good time. I'm happy.'
Griffiths: 'I'm also happy.'
Hostage situations and high risk ops make up the bulk of Task Force work, so accuracy is critical and that's what's on the line right here.
Duncan: 'You're probably talking the size of an old one rand coin at five and seven metres - we're talking now rapid fire.'
Recruit Pieter: 'With the first exercise you had to be spot-on. All five shots had to go through the same hole, basically.'
But nerves got to Pieter on the MP5 exam: 'Not that accurate,' he said and laughed.
Accuracy doesn't happen overnight, as we soon saw when they were given these rifle grenades to fire for the first time.
Pieter: 'It hit me on the snoot!'
Bloody noses were a common sight. Once a week they put down their weapons and box the daylights out of each other.
So if you aren't getting punched in the face by a rifle grenade, you get it in the boxing ring. Despite a wrist injury, Pieter was still expected to fight.
Pieter: 'I have to drink pain pills every day just to try and keep my mind off the hand.'
[boxing scenes]
Instructor: 'Get up, 35! Stand up! Attack is your best form of defence.'
No. 35 said he couldn't see properly but this isn't a place for softies.
Duncan: 'No such thing as, 'Oh, my eye' or 'You've just broken my nose' or 'Feel sorry for me, now'. Nobody outside feels sorry for you. You get in there and you fight.'
Aggression here is a prized commodity and the only reward for tapping too gently through your round is a 25kg 'chocolate box' held high for two rounds.
Duncan: 'That's 25kg he's holding. Initially it might be easy but it starts getting heavy.'
While the days are long, the nights are longer. Classes usually finish between 22:00 and 23:00, but nights here don't automatically imply sleep.
No. 13: 'If we are lucky we get three to four hours sleep in a week night.'
Most days they shoot with their eight standard weapons. Every night each one must be cleaned. At around half an hour each, the recruits spend little time in their beds.
Recruit Johan: 'Basically this (bed) is a place for my guns. They rest here. We spend most of the time on our trommels.'
There are no watches, no radios and a single two-minute phone call on a Sunday is their only luxury.
Johan: 'For the first minute the girl just cries and then you only have a minute left to talk to her, actually.'
Recruit (unidentified): 'One minute for crying, one minute for comfort - then its finished.'
Pre-dawn PT shatters their few precious hours of sleep. What they
do get courtesy of the police are finely honed bodies. What they don't get is someone to do their housekeeping.
The 07:00 inspection deadline is looming and somehow the dust has crept back in overnight. As the inspectors enter, the tension is palpable.
Instructor: 'What is this? Rust!'
Instructor: 'And there?'
Recruit: 'Dust, sir.'
Instructor: 'You know what is happening if your gun is dirty?'
Recruit: 'Yes, sir.'
Instructor: 'You tell me.'
Recruit: 'I go roll round outside.'
Six weeks of this every morning and it was clear why so many recruits had fallen out.
Instructor: 'What's going on here?'
Recruit: 'I was rolling round outside.'
Instructor: 'You were strolling around outside?'
Recruit: 'Rolling around.'
Instructor: 'Why did you have to roll around?'
Recruit: 'My weapon was dirty, sir.'
By the time we left them, all 17 had passed their weapons exams. Two weeks of rest lay just beyond this day.
The next phase is called 'Rural Ops and Survival'. Could it possibly get worse?
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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