09/09/2025
GSU TRAINING SCHOOL EMBAKASI
BASIC TRAINING
DURATION 9 MONTHS
Trainees experience…
Life in GSU Training school was one that I will never forget. There are so many details but i will summarize and capture what i can remember well…..
After reporting to the training school, the first two weeks were marked with what the instructors called ‘kutoa Uraia’, to literally mean removing the ‘civilian mindset’ and inserting ‘an officer mindset’ into the selected men.
We were taught how to basically do everything like a cop. From making our beds, cleaning our barracks, scrubbing pavements, walking, shaving our hair, maintaining strict conditions of hygiene plus another whole lot of things that we were to do like cops and not as ‘civilians’.
Here I met what I can readily call hell on earth. All manner of abusive language existed here. Instructors would practically call you anything including references to your mother without caring.
An instructor would be a pastor on Sunday and be someone very different when you met at the drill square, or in the barracks. We would later be organised into squads.
A normal day would start at around four in the morning where we would be woken up, get into our tracksuits ready for a road run. In song and dance we would run in darkness several kilometers to and from a distance that the squad in charge felt that was the best.
We would then get back to the training school some minutes to six, go to the armory pick our rifles, have our breakfast, get into our well ironed uniforms and boots and then proceed for inspection.
At the inspection stage, the instructors were merciless and required only the highest standards.
Those who had attained the desired grooming standards would head to the drills square and start the drills session where we were trained on how to match in formation.
This area was dominated by instructors who were not jokers and anyone who missed a step during the matching found the going rough.
After drill we would head
