SELECTION
The average age ranges in the early-twenties. The selection and training of today’s parabats remains exceptionally rigorous to ensure that the standard of combat efficiency is retained at it’s very high level. Generally, the leadership element of 1 Parachute Battalion will visit the various South African Defence Forse units early in the training cycle, of each year in search of willing volunteers. These must then pass a PT test at their unit prior to appearing before a selection board, which looks at their character and motivation. To give would-be paras the endurance and the fitness they will need for operations in the harsh African conditions, the instructors of the 44th Parachute Regiment place particular emphasis on basic physical training. Young men volunteering for service with the parachute forces first undergo a battery of medical tests - as stringent as that for flying personnel - before setting off on a 4km timed run. Before they can recover their breath, they tackle the second test: 200m run in which each man carries a comrade on his back. The applicants are then put through various psychological and physical tests - though these are usually well within the reach of anyone with sufficient motivation and willpower.
The real ordeal will then start: for four long months, the paras will sweat it out during forced marches, physical exercises, shooting sessions and kit inspections - all this barracked by the screams of their eagle-eyed instructors. Built like a “baksteunk kak-huis”, the average South African drill instructor is a stickler for regulations, just like his British counterpart, and as stubborn as a mule. For example, trainees always take their grooming kit along with them on long marches and at dawn, when back at the base with aching bones, devote whatever little time is left they have to rest to ’spit and polish’.