Fire & Manoeuvre – Range Shooting at Oloshoibor

The Emali III group in a group photo after the closing of the manoeuvre  in Oloshoibor 

It was a site to behold during the final day of range exercise for 34 Senior KFS Officers (5 ladies and 29 men) who are training in the Ngong, Oloshoibor APTC Range. The charged air, as they rushed to and fro in military formations, only seen in war zones was impressive and it was hard to believe that they were senior officers used to working in Offices and not the fierce and mean looking solders shooting and rushing around like the American Marines.

The chief guest at the occasion was the Regional Commandant Nairobi,Col. (Rtd). Otieno who was representing the Director KFS Mr. D. K.. The APTC Commandant either represented by S.S.P Njoka.

After the demonstrations, the officers sat down under a huge tree on stones which served as their resting place and waited patiently for the guests to address them. When the officers approached, they all stood to attention and only sat when told to do so by their instructors. Madam Jeniffer Ngige the In-charge of the group was called upon to welcome the guests officially and requested one of the participants to lead in a word of prayer.

SSP Njoka was invited to speak to the group and read out a speech from the APTC Commandant Mr. Shurie. He commended the participants for their endurance and perseverance which was so impressive given that they were not used to the hardships they were going through and asked them to keep up the good work.

Col. (Rtd). Otieno was invited to address the gathering. “The basis of the course you are undergoing is part of reforms in the KFS so as to introduce integration and team work with different cadres and stakeholders.”  He went on to state that the course was important as it would instill discipline and help the officers be in a position to understand the Rangers they were working with on the ground, help whenever they were with the rangers to cope with disciplinary issues of the rangers.  He urged them to keep the good attitude towards the course as it was about to come to a close, and declared the range exercise officially closed.

Kepha Wamichwe gave the vote of thanks for the visit and thanked the speakers for their words of encouragement stating that the course was very interesting as they were getting the real feeling of what “Operations” in the forests were all about. He noted that the skills learnt were very relevant to forestry operations and could be applied in fire fighting skills, organization of staff, tree planting seasons including the actual use of fire arms. There was consensus that the Course made the participants better officers than they were when they came for the course.

Report & pictures by Rahab Gitau