Geisha Kow­lessar

On June 1, 1978, at the Pa­rade Square at Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas, Roland Maun­dy be­came a pri­vate in the T&T Reg­i­ment. To­day marks the end of Maun­dy's mil­i­tary ca­reer, which cul­mi­nat­ed in the role of Brigadier Gen­er­al and Chief of De­fence Staff. He will stand at the same spot again this af­ter­noon to hand over com­mand of the De­fence Force to Brigadier Gen­er­al Ken­rick Ma­haraj.

Af­ter serv­ing for 34 years and go­ing on tours of du­ty in dif­fer­ent parts of the world, in­clud­ing war-rav­aged Bosnia and Haiti, Maun­dy summed up his mil­i­tary life as re­ward­ing. His dream was al­ways to be a sol­dier, so, af­ter be­ing an in­sur­ance agent with British Amer­i­can for nine months, Maun­dy joined the force at 21. He looked back at that day: "In 1978, af­ter hav­ing left in­sur­ance and be­ing se­lect­ed for the De­fence Force, I came in here with a high lev­el of ex­cite­ment and not ex­act­ly know­ing what it is all about," he said.

"I think I had the same kind of naivety as most peo­ple com­ing in­to the force would have. It's a place where you put the kit on, you march­ing up and down all over the place, you have a gun in your hand-and no one thought about ex­pe­ri­enc­ing war or any­thing like that," Maun­dy re­called dur­ing an in­ter­view at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence of the Chief of De­fence Staff at Fed­er­a­tion Park, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

To­day's cer­e­mo­ny, Maun­dy said, would be a mix­ture of sad­ness and re­gret. "I re­gret hav­ing to leave. I think I still have a lot more to give. Prob­a­bly old sol­diers like me will al­ways feel like that. "I en­joyed every sin­gle day. I en­joyed the good days and I en­joyed the bad days."

Biggest chal­lenges

Maun­dy sin­gled out not be­ing able to meet all the re­quire­ments of his sub­or­di­nates was his biggest chal­lenge. "It was a great chal­lenge, in that it of­fered me some­thing to con­tin­ue do­ing to the peo­ple of the force, but we were not al­ways able to meet all of the chal­lenges," he said. "And this would be in terms of en­sur­ing that they were al­ways com­fort­able, en­sur­ing that they them­selves un­der­stood the im­por­tance of their be­ing mem­bers of what I call an ex­treme­ly elite arm of the De­fence Force."

Say­ing there was still a great deal of work to do, Maun­dy urged that ef­forts be chan­nelled in­to meet­ing the well­ness and hu­man re­source needs of the forces. He al­so called for more train­ing and equip­ment for all units. The com­po­si­tion of the De­fence Force is a re­flec­tion of so­ci­ety, and there­fore there will be "bad eggs," he said.

On Mon­day, sev­en sol­diers were sent from To­ba­go to Trinidad to face a court mar­tial af­ter they were al­leged­ly in­volved in a rob­bery spree in Old Grange and Scar­bor­ough. De­scrib­ing this as a "sad day" for the mil­i­tary, Maun­dy added: "I don't think any or­gan­i­sa­tion can be very sure of the peo­ple they en­list.

"Some­times it's a hit and miss and you would want to feel that you're get­ting the best that you can get out of your so­ci­ety," he said. "We are a re­al mi­cro­cosm of the so­ci­ety, so we will have every­thing that the so­ci­ety has." He said it was cru­cial there­fore that the De­fence Force be­come the ex­em­plar in "re­shap­ing peo­ple," which ul­ti­mate­ly led to a bet­ter so­ci­ety.

"It is not just a mat­ter of go­ing on the square and drilling. It is chang­ing the en­tire psy­che so peo­ple un­der­stand the en­tire im­por­tance of their be­ing to so­ci­ety; who they are as part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion; the fra­ter­nal re­la­tion­ship they have; and to en­sure they give all that they can to en­sure they serve their coun­try well," he as­sert­ed.

Lega­cy of car­ing

Un­der the stiff mil­i­tary uni­form, Maun­dy of­ten dis­played a soft­er side in his role as a hu­man-re­source man­ag­er. His lega­cy in the mil­i­tary, he feels, is one of car­ing. "I have at­tempt­ed, as far as pos­si­ble, to en­gen­der a vi­sion of car­ing for the mem­bers of the force, car­ing in every way, even car­ing to give you tough love. That doesn't nec­es­sar­i­ly mean be­ing soft," he point­ed out.

"It some­times means that you have to be ex­treme­ly harsh with your peo­ple for them to learn from their mis­takes so that they could grow. I hope that that's the lega­cy I have left." Like the Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fence Force con­stant­ly bat­tles to im­prove pub­lic con­fi­dence in it. The is­sue, Maun­dy said, would al­ways be a chal­lenge.

"From the time a sol­dier walks out on­to the streets, the view of the force be­comes the most im­por­tant thing...how you ad­dress your­self to peo­ple," he said. "The chal­lenge has al­ways been for us to project the right im­age. It is go­ing to be dif­fi­cult for us at times, but in most cas­es we have been able to do well."

Al­so in­te­gral to boost­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence were im­proved trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. The per­cep­tion that un­to­ward in­ci­dents were of­ten cov­ered up by the De­fence Force has changed, Maun­dy said. "Be­cause of the is­sue of trans­paren­cy, we are go­ing to en­sure that peo­ple know that peo­ple are go­ing to be dealt with."