A teacher, an award winning horse trainer, a pilot, an airline safety officer, CEO at an airports development company and now an aerodrome accident investigator — and a woman.
For Jossie Swiegers, 68, her illustrious and diverse career path was only possible because of the time she spent in the army.
She and 127 other young women, mainly school-leavers, were the first women to receive army training in SA. Her 1971 class was a test to see if it was possible to bring women into the then SA Defence Force.
And it was a success — the troops, she said, went from being called the panty-platoon, to receiving high praise.
Swiegers, now living in Johannesburg, spoke to Sunday Times Daily on Monday in celebration of International Women’s Day. She said she would not have had the wonderful career she has had if it weren’t for the discipline she learnt in the army.
“Life would’ve been different if I had not done that class ... the biggest lesson I learnt from Civil Defence College was discipline. Without that I could not achieve what I did — especially in a career in safety. There is zero tolerance for error so discipline is very important.
“Twice I was first on scene to horrible traffic accidents — but we learnt emergency command and management. As soon as I got out the car the training kicked in.
“We also learnt leadership and I was the leader in many of my roles. But a big thing I learnt was self confidence and to be assertive. They taught us to believe in ourselves. They taught me that I was good enough to step forward — to stand up and to make a difference — without that I don’t think I would have believed that I could make it.”
This year commemorates 50 years since women were first trained at the Civil Defence College in George, and Swiegers looks forward to meeting up with 108 of her troop later in the year.
The college was opened by the then-minister of defence PW Botha who stated: “The start of this college is the confirmation of faith in the woman in this land — these women are future leaders who were carefully selected over many applications.”
There were 800 applications to be exact.
After the success of the first class, the college went on to become a leader training centre in the 1980s, where the army was fed with qualified officers and non-commissioned officers.
But by the late 1990s the unit had been closed and female trainees were trained at the army Gymnasium in Heidelberg, the home of army junior leader training.
According to the SANDF, this heralded an new era where women could choose a career in any mustering in the army, including combat roles.
Swiegers remembers the college opening and the enormous media attention the troop received. She remembers too the headlines which were used to describe the unit. One magazine wrote: “A day in the life of SA’s Petticoat Army”, and another referred to them as the “Panty Platoon”.
“At the Civil Defence College we volunteered; we were not called up. The boys with me in matric did not understand because boys at the time were called to service in Angola — all they wanted was to get out of doing the service, and they would say ‘and you’re out now volunteered go to the army!’
“Then there was the media. Some were for us and some against us. They were so negative. But we were going to squash the negativity and we achieved that by being extraordinarily unified. We were all in the same boat, we wore the same clothes, ate the same food, had the same training difficulties — however, college allowed us individual and personal growth.”
She said as soon as they arrived, they started three months of basic training which included physical training, self defence and drilling. “It was endless fun.”
“We went all over country to be introduced and show off our skills. When we were marching we always received a standing ovation — because we were good, not because we were girls.
“We were so synchronised that in the 1971 parade, of course we marched last — we were the babies. But here come us girls — PW Botha gave us a standing salute — when we walked past everybody gave a standing ovation, we were so very proud. We made small stuff of the boys.”
In 1972 Swiegers entered in a four-year teacher’s diploma and taught at a school for 12 years.
She then trained horses for a while including, she says proudly, three SA champions.
But her dream was to fly and in 1992, on her 40th birthday, got her private pilot’s licence.
“When I wrote matric ín 1970 there was no way a young girl would be accepted in the SA air force — you passed matric and became a secretary, teacher or a nurse. I also love skydiving, so I became a paradrop pilot — and the first woman in SA to have been accredited by local civil aviation.”
She kept this role from 1995 to 1997, then got her night flying licence and then a commercial licence. She worked as an airline safety and quality control manager.
“It’s funny you ask about the army and being in a man’s world — but in the subsequent jobs I was more in a man’s world. I often found myself the only women in big teams, so I had to study, study, study!”
In the early 2000s she was appointed to an airport company in SA where she had to create the emergency plans for 10 airports around the country — “an absolute joy”.
Then in 2005, with an advanced aerodrome emergency management diploma, she found herself with a team of 14 men creating the airport emergency plan for a new airport in Bangkok.
From 2015 to 2018 she worked in Nigeria as MD and CEO at an airport’s development company.
“It was fantastic . There were challenges, but I learned to cope with these from what I learnt in the army — perseverance, never give up.”
She officially retired in 2018, but is still working — as an aerodrome accident investigator at a British company.
But her hardest job, she said, was working as a grandmother to three grandchildren.
