The Joint Staff Chief of Engineering, Brigadier General Cyrus Besigye Bekunda, has urged newly graduated combat engineers and explosive experts to keep their discipline and continually enhance their skills to excel in their military careers. He shared this advice during a graduation ceremony for 255 students at the School of Combat Engineers in Karama, Mubende District.
Brig Gen Besigye addressed the graduates from Combat Engineering Level III and Explosive Ordnance Devices/Improvised Explosive Devices (EOD/IED) Level II courses. The graduates included 204 students from the Combat Engineering course and 51 students from the EOD/IED course.
Expressing his pleasure in officiating at the event, Brig Gen Besigye highlighted the school’s significant development from a single building to a thriving institution. He emphasized the importance of ongoing training and skill enhancement for better career advancement in the army. “We expect you to perform much better in the field than the way you have demonstrated to us here,” he said.
He advised the graduates to maintain the discipline they exhibited during training, regardless of their deployment locations, to ensure a long and healthy service in the army. Brig Gen Besigye also warned them against the misuse of alcohol and its associated problems. He mentioned that the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs is committed to securing motor vehicle bridge equipment and prioritizing its budget.
The commandant of the School of Combat Engineers, Colonel Wilson Kabeera, expressed his gratitude to the Army leadership for their support of the school and its training programs. He stressed the importance of discipline, readiness, and adaptability in facing enemy threats. Col Kabeera highlighted the school’s vision of training officers and soldiers who can provide practical solutions to commanders’ decisions.
The comprehensive training the graduates received covered essential aspects of combat engineering, such as organization, rigging, demolition, water supply, mine warfare, booby traps, roads, and rafts. The EOD/IED course included training in explosive theory, task management, modern mines, explosives usage, skill at arms, political education, drill, financial resilience, and military law.
Col Kabeera expressed optimism about the training’s impact, noting that units like the Special Forces Command (SFC) have benefited from the knowledge offered by the combat school. He emphasized the importance of integrating knowledge in water purification, EOD, urban military breaching, and basic NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) defense into every soldier’s basic training.
Among those present at the ceremony were Brigadier Peter Ongiya Candia, Commandant of the Mechanized Brigade, and Colonel RC Wakayinja, Acting Commander of the 14 Combat Engineering Brigade, along with other senior Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) officers.
