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Book review: From Seminary to Battlefield
Book cover.
What you need to know:
- Title: From Seminary to Battlefield: My Life Journeys
- Author: Col (Rtd) Chris Mudoola
- Where: Most bookstores
Col (Rtd) Chris Mudoola’s book entitled From Seminary to Battlefield: My Life’s Journey reads like a Hollywood script. It starts from his birth in a missionary hospital unlike his elder siblings who were all born in banana plantations.
The account then details how he narrowly survived becoming a domestic help thanks to his father’s intervention. The reader is then given a snapshot of life in a seminary which was riddled with bullying and where the author had his first taste of wine.
Not long after we are apprised about the author’s response to an advert seeking new recruits to join the army’s air force section. During the interview, the panel asked thus: “We see you are from the seminary, but can you kill?”
Mudoola’s response was thus: “For self defence, you are allowed to kill.” The response and his general performance during the interview saw him selected to train as an air force pilot.
It also helped a great deal that he was physically and mentally fit. Pilot cadets would initially undergo infantry training. This was done at Jinja Barracks. The book captures the highs and lows of the training in granular detail.
Mudoola was then commissioned as second Lieutenant in September 1968—only ten of the 160 who had applied qualified as pilots. Mudoola was to do further training in Greece, Russia and the USA. In Greece, he narrowly survived being deported following a fracas in a night club.
As an air force officer, he soon found himself entangled in the military and political shenanigans that engulfed the country after the Idi Amin coup of 1971. Working in the Amin regime was like treading on eggshells. Indeed most of his fellow colleagues were killed.
In 1977, some air force officers led by his colleague and best man Col Anthony Bazalaki attempted to overthrow the Amin government. Idi Amin happened to be meeting ministers and permanent secretaries at Lido Beach in Entebbe. The air force officers had planned to blow up Amin and the other government functionaries during the meeting.
The infantry led by Major Patrick Kimumwe had planned to put their artillery to devastating use. They would also use so-called APCs to surround all the officials at Lido Beach and capture power. This was not the case, however, as the coup organisers were betrayed. Most of them were either killed or arrested.
Mudoola was lucky because he happened to be out of the country at the time of the attempted coup. He returned to Uganda briefly but had to flee to exile when the purging of air force officers continued. He soon joined the Save Uganda Movement (SUM), an anti-Amin struggle.
Mudoola’s book also highlights his stint as a Member of Parliament for Kigulu North and some of the intricacies of the sixth parliament. Mudoola also talks about his time as a Member of the Busoga Lukiiko and the role he played in drafting the Busoga Kingdom constitution.
Mudoola was privileged to serve through a number of regimes in different capacities. As such, his life story is intertwined with the story of Uganda.
