Jackline Eyokia narrates ordeal as wife to man in military

Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | It is said that military life is a life of sacrifice, however large or small, for service members and their families. Equally, some have suggested that being married to a man in the military is not a glamorous life; one has to be patient and understanding because life can be unpredictable and stressful.

Jackline Eyokia has been married a UPDF soldier for over twenty years and has had a first-hand experience as a wife to a man in the military.

Therefore, when her husband, Corporal Godfrey Surundu stood at the quarter guard or Fourth Division barracks, Jackline Eyokia could not hide her joy.  It was like a permanent reunion seeing Surundu’s ranks mates watch him exit the gates.

Wearing a red and silver long dress, kissing her wedding ring as she waved off his husband transitioning into civilian life from the military.   Corporal Godfrey Surundu retired after serving in the military for 23 years alongside 205 others on Saturday October 26, 2024 from Fourth Division Infantry Barracks.

Sergeant Eyokia, a Nursing Officer at Bombo military hospital had travelled to Gulu to witness her husband retire. She presented him a gift, a red flower as she ululated with tears of joy. With the sounds of some of the popular Acholi songs in the background, Eyokia explained that life as millItray man had always kept hem far from home.

The joyous moments transcended to a plain memory of the emotional distress, she endured in the slope of Imatong Mountains in South Sudan with the warlord shortly after her husband joined the army.

“Life became hard when he joined the army and we had to relocate to the village from where I was abducted by the rebels of the Lord Resistance Army”

Wives of men in the military rarely open up to speak about the endurance, the waiting and the patience the experience while waiting for the men at the front line.

However, for Eyokia opened up including what she went through in the hands of the Lords Resistance Army rebel group. Eyokia was in In January 2002 abducted from Adjumani District, few months after her husband joined the UPDF. She was held in captivity for 10 months in the slope of Imatong Mountains, the then military base of the rebels.

She was abducted at the time Kony and his group retreated from Uganda to South Sudan and built their military base at Imatong Mountains, about 80 kilometers from Kitgum border to Equatorial Province.          At the time of her abduction, Eyokia was 37 years old, married and left behind two of her children.

“My husband was for training and I was in the hand of Kony “Eyokia recalls her fraught journey for liberty.      That day, a group led by Ex- LRA Commander, Brigadier General Kenneth Banya had crossed into Uganda through the Nimule border connecting through Adjumani-Pakele to Amuru District.

Sergeant Eyokia was with her aunt in Pakele where she was abducted with three family members to South Sudan. Eyokia was assigned to work under rebel leader, Joseph Kony.

‘’I was already of age and they took me to take care of children in Kony’s home but some were forced to marry” she narrated.      The rebels were notoriously known for executing sexual violence against women.  She did not escape from the violence.

Eyokia narrated that lost counts of times the junior rebels who were not entitled by the ‘decree’ of Kony to be with women raped and sexually abused her.

Kony himself became fond of her as she fell in love with his children. From a housemaid, Eyokia said, Kony later deployed her for military training with the rest of the abducted persons. The instructions were through Arabic that they had to learn through beatings.

At the time of her abduction, Eyokia was holding a Uganda Certificate of Education. She was singled out for training as a causality nurse.

Upon completing a three months training on emergency medical care, Eyokia said, Kony deployed her to a sickbay within Imatong Mountains to attend to sick and injured soldiers.

“Rape stopped, beating stopped and abuses stopped and they started respecting me because I was the one now taking care of their broken bones” Eyokia shares her dark memory with Uganda Radio Network.

When Kony fled to South Sudan after the Ugandan army intensified attacks on them, Khartoum Government signed a pact with Uganda to allow its forces pursue Kony in their territory.

When the UPDF intensified operation in the Imatong Hills, Sargent Eyokia was rescued and taken to Kitgum rehabilitation Centre. She was recruited for training as part of the UPDF.

Once she completed the 9 months’ military training, the army again took her back to a primary teacher’s training college where she graduated with a grade three certificate.

But before long, she was enrolled at Mulago Health Training Institute and graduated with a Diploma in Nursing and subsequently deployed at Bombo Military Hospital where she currently serves.

Amidst her struggles for liberty, Eyokia commended the army for saving her life and transforming her husband from alcoholism into a model husband.

“Today, my husband is going home as a ’home pastor’ and a father union and I don’t regret what the UPDF has done to him. From his little earning, he ensured all his children graduated” She further noted.

Leaving the Barracks dressed in a block blue suit holding the trumpet on his right hand and bouquet from his wife, Corporal Godfrey Surundu could not stop thanking God.

“Lord, I thank you…I want to thank you for protecting my life and I want to thank my wife who endured my absence for long…now I come home…” Surundu cried out as he left the Barracks.

Even after the two had reunited, Surundu was always away from home on mission that took him away from the borders of Uganda.

After defeating Kony from South Sudan, a few months later, Surundu pursued the rebels who had fled into Garamba, a thick savannah and equatorial forest in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The rebels made life worse for them as he recalls not a single day in the jungle for 6 months Kony and his group had missed out attacking the Ugandan troops, there was no time to cook and no time to bathe.

Throughout the mission, he said, army had to survive on rotten beans,” when the bullets stop, you make sure you boil beans, put in a jerrycan and feed on its for 5 days, the next day you do the same”

But like many, Surundu aged 53 faced off with dilemma to reunite with his wife who had survived with health complications, becoming both victims of rape and sexually transmitted diseases.

His attempts to reunite with the wife were fraught with many challenges, first, he had to deal with the stigma and isolation from his own parents who never wanted the wife getting back to his life.

For 6 years, the two divorced but children reconciled, today, the two do not only share their long quest for liberty but turned out as model parents adored by the armed forces.

As he joins civilian life, his wife will still be serving in the army.

Wait for time when Retired Corporal Surundu will share the other side of the story of a retired military man sharing the experience being a husband to a wife in the military.

His memory goes back to the first battlefield with the rebels in February 2002 at the bank of the river where he was deployed but was surrounded with the rebels of the Lord Resistance Army.

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