00:03The beginning of the army nation born in Kongsamba,
00:19tracing its path to the coming of the train.
00:24As an infant, I went to school in Kongsamba.
00:26I grew up seeing the arrival of the train loaded with material destined for the military.
00:32They were offloaded in that storehouse owned at the time by Reggie Frikam.
00:37All the military men in Kongsamba know me, but I can't know, I don't know all of them.
00:46They know I'm the chief, the paramount chief, and they respect me, and they protect me whenever they see me.
00:53In the heat of pre-independence violence and the involvement of the Makiza group,
01:00the chief town of today's Mungu division played the Bufa zone,
01:05waiting of threats from both the rest of the littoral and today's west region.
01:11Kongsamba, as you know, is a town with a negative security image, in quotes.
01:22The decreeing of a military base transformed into the Field Artillery Regiment by the President of the Republic, Paul Beer,
01:33is an act worthy of praise and our gratitude.
01:35From the creation of the DEN unit to a full regiment, the Artillery Field Regiment,
01:55and it is the concretisation of what the population recognises as the building of a security belt around the area.
02:03The RAS has four kinds of missions.
02:08The first one concerns peace mission.
02:12The next concerns war mission and international operations.
02:19Concerning peace mission, we ensure the security of the population.
02:26We train our personnel.
02:28And concerning war mission, we bring the firing support to other militaries who don't have heavy guns as us.
02:41We fire an intelligence because of the kind of material we have.
02:47Now, concerning the international engagements, we have our personnel in MINUSCA, in Central Africa.
02:57We have also our personnel in Wulgo, in Nigeria.
03:01And our people are therefore an international mission.
03:06The relation between RAS and population, as used to say the head of state during his speech to the nations, is very good.
03:19The link, army and nation, is visible.
03:25In Haas, we have many services where civilians and militaries are welcome.
03:34We have 10% of personnel who are civilians.
03:47And while its mission of providing fire support to fighting troops and the protection of public institutions received the needed booster from the enabling host environment,
03:58the presence of the RAS, in return, impacts the socio-economic life of the community.
04:05Even though created and run by the regiment, therefore, the outfit in which a patient presents themselves is of no consequence at this hospital complex.
04:22The same drugs, same care, and same attention to emergencies is accorded to you in military or civilian attire.
04:37This is where we register all the parameters of patients, temperature, width, height, etc.
04:48The civilian military character is even more evident at this other complex of both education and social care with the very young of the locality benefiting from the existing peace in this part of the country.
05:11This, while the young children receive teaching on a common ground in the adjacent building.
05:18The civilian children are here, the military children are also here with us.
05:25Every activities we have here, we need their help, such as the end of year, any celebration here, they are the ones giving us the support.
05:41We have both of them.
05:43We have civilians.
05:44Much of the children are from the military RAS.
05:47This military-run nursery establishment was created way back in 1976.
05:53I am serving as its feet head mistress since its creation.
05:58We have eight teachers and myself nine.
06:01Our teaching staff constitutes two military trained staff from the Ministry of Defense, two civilians from the same ministry,
06:09with the rest of the teachers coming from the Ministry of Basic Education.
06:13Even though most of our kids are of military parentage, we are made kids whose parents are civilians.
06:21On their part, authorities of Nkong Samba One Council see in the RAS a benevolent benefactor of double dimensions.
06:30It is a feeling of great pride that a great extent of national security is ensured by the artillery-filled regiment that has its base in Kongsamba, the Kongsamba One Council area.
06:44I know each commander brings in their unique style, but the current head of the RAS, Colonel Medjo, is an example of a builder of social cohesion within the regiment.
06:56It is not only the population of Kongsamba that benefits from the actions of the artillery-filled regiment.
07:04The RAS impacts lives in the entire Mongol division and beyond.
07:09The regiment constitutes soldiers of different religious beliefs, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, etc.
07:16What is of great interest and unusual is the fact that these different religious groups are given the opportunity to freely express themselves as seen during events organized at the base.
07:30Each of them take turns to lead prayers. That is very significant.
07:34The RAS is a very significant.
07:48The RAS is a very significant.
07:54The RAS is a very significant.
08:00If the RAS is God's creation to go by the population, then nothing draws the creature closest to the crater than that of facing a deadly enemy in the far north region.
08:20Elements of this base, therefore, are aware that not even the mightiest of their guns can guarantee security in the face of a disguised Boko Haram.
08:31They therefore flock together in this chapel of the RAS, civilians joining in the mass.
08:37There are soldiers, yeah, but there are also families, the families and the neighbors of this parish.
08:52And they also need to be accompanied by us.
08:57You saw the choir, you saw all the groups, yeah, because we have all the groups here in the parish to animate the parish.
09:08And also the families, the friends of soldiers and the soldiers together, we share the same faith and we manifest our faith here into the parish.
09:23They need the presence of God and they need to entertain this relationship with God.
