Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

IT’s not every couple who work and travel together, wear the same clothes – complete with the same names above the pockets – and have the same rank.

So when Warrant Officer-1 Scheepers and Warrant Officer-1 Major Scheepers got out of their car at the Lord’s Ground Military Base in Durban on Friday, there were some raised eyebrows.

“Yes, we are married,” confirmed WO-1 Sheron Scheepers, who is the Sergeant-Major of the SANDF’s Joint Operations Division, which was established after the integ-ration process for operations in and out of the country.

Her husband, WO-1 Johan Scheepers, is the SergeantMajor of the SANDF, and he was in town to talk to the leadership of 10 KwaZulu-Natal Reserve Force regiments.

His wife was part of the “A” team which he brought with him to be on hand to answer questions that cropped up.

Both were appointed to their present jobs on the same day in October 2006, the same year they “got together”, said Scheepers (the wife, that is).

She calls her husband “Sergeant-Major” at work, while he addresses her by her first name.

While her husband is not her direct boss, she does report to him on certain aspects.

“There is a closer liaison on discipline issues than operations,” she explained.

Working together made life easier as “we both understand the situation and what the job involves”.

But who was the boss at home?

“Well, you know the answer to that,” grinned her husband.

She had to get her husband’s permission for our picture, but of course, there could be no hand-holding in uniform.

W0-1 Ken Gillings of the KZN Reserve Force Division told Scheepers that the regiments at the briefing represented almost 1 000 years of service to South Africa and that this was “nothing short of amazing”.

Sacrifice

Scheepers said defending one’s country was the highest commitment someone could have, and that a soldier might have to make the ultimate sacrifice and die for his country.

“If you are not prepared to die for this country, you are not a soldier,” he said.