An Enthusiastic Jewish Conscript in Gibraltar

BY DAVID BENTATA

When I turned 18 I was called up for conscription. Now whatever you hear about the intakes of the Gibraltar Regiment (GR), & also the Gibraltar Defence Force (GDF) as it was previously known, all the stories that you have heard, half of them are untrue and the other half are exaggerations of a possible truth. But most of the stories, fact or fiction, make for good jokes over reminiscent drinks with old soldiers everywhere in the world.

I was a bad asthmatic as well as having a bad leg. Obviously when I went for my medical, I was pronounced medically unfit and excused conscription. What! My friends were going up to be soldiers and I was not? No way!

I requested “Volunteer Status” and managed to get myself in with the 29th intake after signing waivers that were I to die, the Regiment would accept no liability for my stupidity. A couple of days later we were gathered together, roll called, counted, loaded onto to military lorries and taken up to Buenavista Barracks. Sixty guys, nearly all of us 18 years old and full of beans. Oh yes, and with many a Beatles haircut, or Elvis quiff which didn’t last the next 24 hours!

Buenavista Barracks on a cold January morning, with a cold wind slicing through our civvy clothes, looked very much like Alcatraz to me. In fact it was also known as “Stone Block”. Cheerful, huh?

As soon as we got off the lorries everybody and their grandmothers were shouting at us! We looked around like lost sheep and were huddled together and told to get into straight lines. The sergeants shouted. The corporals – even the cook shouted at us. What had we done? We were placed in some sort of loose formation and marched to the barbers who had a field day with us. Off came the Beatles haircut, the Elvis quiff, the long sideburns and everything except one-eighth of an inch stub which barely covered our very white scalps. And it was cold! January at the Barracks, with a cold wind blowing.

I remembered a story my Dad once told me he was conscripted into the Spanish Infantry in 1930, having been born in Ceuta, Spanish Morocco, to a Spanish father. As a corporal he was placed in charge of new conscripts. Just for kicks, when he herded them to the barbers, he had the barbers use the hand clippers front to back and side to side. Then he’d send them off with a shaved cross on their heads. Obviously, Dad thought it was great fun! But Karma bites again! Here was me with not enough hair on my head to do a parting anywhere.

From there we were rushed, those first few days it was rush-rush- rush everywhere.Left right, left right double time up to the dorms on the first floor of the stone block. Two rows of eigh beds each and the green metal locker that was to be our home for the next four months. There were eight such dorms, but ours was a small intake of about 60 so half of them were left empty. Then again rush-rush-rush. We were formed into a straight line outside the stores. We went in one way and were piled with mattress one, blankets three, pillows two, sheets two, pillowcases two. Left right left right double time, out the other side and back up to our dorms. We were kids, to 18 years old kids this was fun. Until the sergeant and the corporal and the cook and everyone else shouted again and we had to rushed down to the stores.

There we were loaded with work boots pair one, best boots one, denim trousers one, denim jacket one, (no, not Levi denims, gentle reader. These were work denims in vomit-green cotton, nothing cool about them, shirts three, tie one, beret one. And rush up to the dorms again. This, our first d, the only good thing I remember was the mess. Yes, yes, there was a mess in the dorms but this is The Mess where we were served our first military meal. Nothing like a pint of hot tea and generous portions food to bring a smile back to our faces. In all fairness despite we four Jews having to go through a few intricacies seeking out the more kosher foods available, the regiment’s Mess served good and wholesome food always.

That first week was hectic and tiring. We had gone in as boys and one week later we had been broken down and rebuilt gradually into men. Looking back, I am very grateful to have been enlisted in the Regiment. I met other Gibraltarians I had never seen before, and made friends with them, and marched, and learnt something about loyalty, comradeship, and yes, making war. By the time we were demobbed four months later, we all knew how to take care of ourselves and could count on our new friends as needed. We definitely knew how to shine boots! The fact that shining our boots to that high gloss is called “bullshit” is neither here nor there.

Natural abilities within each of us became apparent. Some were born leaders and became Lance corporals and section commanders, my close childhood friend, Toby, prominent among them. Others were good with radio equipment and they were trained as radio operators. Brawn was well rewarded as there was a lot of equipment being transferred from one place to another as we did exercises up and down the Rock. Some of us were even trained as “nuclear specialists”. The horrors of nuclear war were shown to us as well as the plans for fallout protection and refuge for citizens in the unfortunate case of such a war ever exploding. I was in those lectures and till today I am still scarred by the films and information that we had to take on.

A nd then, there were the eternal, unending parades! We learnt to march as individuals, as platoons and as the whole intake. Simple, one would have thought, after all we only have two legs, and yet we managed to exasperate all the sergeants and all the corporals before we got it right in the end. Pride was instilled in us in those days. We became proud to be able to match in perfect formation up and down the bloody Square. Quick March!

Halt! Then Port Arms, Stand at Ease and march up and down and up again turn right, turn left, halt, quick march. (I bet you are singing “Oh the famous Duke of York” to yourselves now ). And even that very elegant slow march that looks so good when properly executed.

Again, those with natural abilities for marching, as well as the smartest in uniform, were handpicked for special duties. These were treasured prizes in themselves. One such duty was at the Frontier where UK regiments would stand guard, more ceremonial than anything else. But for one week of each intake our regiment would take over. Just across the frontier fence Spain had its own version and if you want to know what that look like you will best understand it if you remember that their nickname, “Sloppies”, came from their display when they did the guard duty on their side. We were proud to be the better soldiers then.

A nd then, la creme de la creme did guard duty to the Governor at the Convent. This was doubly rewarded. Firstly because of the sense of pride instilled in us to be chosen for such an honour. But far greater than that, vastly more so if you ask me, is that we did Guard Duty at the convent opposite the Loreto Convent Girls School!

To chosen by the Sergeant Major was wonderful. That you were a huge source of joy and pride to your parents and family was wonderful. But being on duty at 12:30 and at 4:15 when the girls came out of school, WOW. What more could a red-blooded GR Soldier wish for! Another aspect and a very exciting one was learning about the weaponry that the army used. This is something I looked forward to immensely since from the age of seven or eight. Dad had bought me my first air gun and shooting came almost as second nature to me. To then use the real things, the Bren gun, the SLR (Self Loading Rifle), the Sterling and the Rocket Launcher (never, ever to be called the “bazooka”, that was for our American cousins, not for the British Army!) I was in weaponry heaven. So much so that I even won the coveted Cargill Shooting Trophy, as had my older cousin Isaac Abudarham, in his intake several years before.

I am convinced that my four months in the Gibraltar Regiment were pivotal to my development from brash teenager to responsible young man. I am not certain whether conscription per se is that good. Not if you’re raising an army to conquer the land of others. Making war is a “normal” part of human history but definitely not a necessary one. I can well understand a defensive army being required, in given circumstances, so as to avoid being conquered by others. But the history of humanity leapfrogs from war to war, conveniently downplaying the millions who die ignominious deaths and the many millions more who are maimed and wounded forever, having the horrors of such a conflict branded onto their brain.

The first book I read after being demobbed was “All Quiet on the Western Front” novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. To everyone that sees glory in war I commend this book and it will touch your soul.

However, harnessing the energy of youth and its rambunctiousness at the age of 18, teaching them to fend for themselves under hard circumstances, to rely on your comrade and be the one on whom he relies, to be torn away from home comforts and learn turn to live on basics and on your own wits. What can I say?

Thankfully, even many of the less fortunate among us, though we must never forget there some still in great need, most of us have more then we need and do not appreciate it. It may be politically incorrect to say this but blocking 18-year olds from their comfort zones and teaching them real life can only make them more responsible adults, something so badly needed in our Society of millennials.

But where are the jokes? They were there. My efforts at having fun cost me a total of four blocks of seven days each, 28 days of Restricted Privileges! No pass to dress in civvies (& no pass to cross the frontier either) plus several perks that were summarily cut off. During exercises up the Rock, we were taught how to camouflage ourselves. One soldier camouflage himself so well that we forgot him and marched all the way back for lunch at the Mess leaving him stranded somewhere near Signal Hill. Those ogres of the first days, the screaming corporals, always angry sergeants, the fearful officers, all mellowed to become excellent instructors on warfare, marching drill, dressing elegantly and infusing pride in our Regiment and in ourselves.

A nd such good friends I would never have met otherwise, One in particular was Corporal Montero, a gentle soul in charge of the armoury. Why do I remember him? The day I had to compete for the Cargill, I went to collect my SLR and he told me: “No Bentata, no. I have just corrected the sights on this one, it is far better” It certainly was, I scored 96/100!

Notes

David Bentata, a regular contributor to Menorah, is a poet, artist and jewelry designer based in Gibraltar. Conscription in Gibraltar, albeit a shortened four month version, continued until the 1970s.