Joseph Burrell This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Captain Horace Burrell: The man who gave back Jamaica its lost soul - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM

   www.jamaicaobserver.com/column - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/23/2004   Last Visited: 5/24/2004

   Burrell learnt to appreciate their simple life and their generous disposition. He recalls that his mother was always there to care for the children. She had taught for a short time after passing the 3rd Jamaica Local exam, but gave that up to become a tower of strength to her husband as he managed so large an enterprise.
   ...
   At age 11, Burrell passed the Common Entrance Exam and went to Clarendon College under principal C L "Pops" Stuart and later John MacMillan.
   ...
   His brother Carlton was at the newly-created Glenmuir High with one Omar Davies, a finance minister-in-the-making and "whom I got to know from he was in short pants", Burrell muses.
   ...
   At Clarendon College, Burrell was a 'little boy' to big boys like Robert Pickersgill, now minister of transport and works, his brother Tony Pickersgill and the girl, Fay, whom Tony would marry after many years of 'rent-a-tile' dancing.
   ...
   Burrell was involved in almost every extra-curricular activity at school, especially enjoying football (he made the school's Under-14 team for the Galloway Cup), cricket, camera club and the debating society. But there was nothing to him like the cadet force. So engrossed was he that he soon began to ignore the other activities to concentrate on the cadets, loving to teach the younger boys map reading, rifle shooting and other disciplines. He attained the rank of drum major in the cadet force at school, something he had day-dreamed about from younger days when he saw the drum corps leading the school's annual Founder's Day parade from Rose Bank through the town of Chapleton and fancied himself at the head of it. He was selected two years in a row by the Jamaica Combined Cadet Force to represent Jamaica in cadet exchanges with Canada and Trinidad and Tobago. To anyone looking on, it wasn't hard to see that Burrell had already found his calling in life. He would one day be a soldier. "From those early days I had a strong sense of discipline. I believed in being disciplined, tough and daring. I was a very adventurous person," he reflects. But after 'A' Levels, Burrell wasn't immediately clear on what he would do with his life. As fate would have it, he went to hang out for a while with his brother, Carlton, who by now was working as an engineer at the Revere and Alpart bauxite-alumina plants. There he met Carlton's engineer and school-master friends, including Ryland Campbell, the current chairman of Capital and Credit Merchant Bank and who was teaching at St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS). Campbell told him he seemed to be a fine young man and would probably do well at teaching.
   ...
   Burrell had done both at Clarendon College and liked the idea. But he was totally bowled over when Pottinger, at the end of the interview, told him he was hired immediately! "I was dumbstruck, excited and scared all at once because most of the boys there were about my age," he says. But everything fell into place, once he had started.
   ...
   "He was my little brother, my best friend and so his brutal murder was devastating," says Burrell, his face a mask of grief. "But closure is just now coming since his two murderers have been convicted and sentenced to death." These days, Burrell has transferred all the love to Romario, his gifted eight year-old second son. He was named after the Brazilian football whiz who has given him his shirt and played host to him at dinner. Recently, Romario led his school science team to victory in a competition and has been called on to read for his Roman Catholic Church congregation. The proud father forgets this is his interview! "I love him dearly," he confesses.
   
   A soldier's training
   
   But before Burrell had left STETHS, he was inching ever closer to a career in the defence force. He had been placed in charge of the school's cadet squad at the rank of second lieutenant. At this point, he had no doubt that he wanted to be in the military, and the passion was growing. Sure enough, he applied to the JDF and enthusiastically took on the physical endurance, leadership appreciation and mental ability tests, carried out over three days under very discouraging conditions. In the end, he was one of only three persons selected from the 48 candidates in his batch, to be trained overseas as commissioned officers.
   ...
   Says Burrell: "After the first two days in that cold, dark forest, I felt as if I was never going to live to return to sunny Jamaica." They made it in four days. But they were a sorry sight to see with their blistered hands, swollen feet, cracked lips, and completely fatigued. Shortly after their arrival, a helicopter came with live chickens, one for each trainee. They were given fuel tablets and told to kill and cook the chickens in their mess tins. It was half-cooked when Burrell began to devour his. "But it was the nicest piece of meat I had ever had," he says, recalling the unbelievable hunger pangs that shook their exhausted bodies as they fought their way through the thick growth of the forest interred in snow. "That is how I know human beings don't die so easily," Burrell chuckles in retrospect. He'd also learn to appreciate more the Jamaican sun every morning he wakes up.
   ...
   There, Burrell tried out everything he had learnt in Canada. His favourite punishment was to have errant recruits roll the entire length of the parade square on the hot asphalt. He also liked to put them in a tear gas chamber and order them to take off their mask briefly and say their names.
   ...
   At the end, Burrell received the General Service Medal for service in Grenada.
   
   'Boys' Town drill soldiers'
   
   It transpired that Colonel Barnes was the man in charge of sports at the JDF when Burrell saw a humiliating headline in a newspaper, blaring out: "Boys' Town drill soldiers". Burrell was embarrassed. and livid. He went to Barnes and showed him the story, telling him that this was too shameful to be tolerated. Barnes put him in charge of football, and Burrell got to work immediately.
   ...
   Burrell didn't bother to listen.
   ...
   But more importantly, Burrell had taken the first steps on a journey that, even he could not have known at the time, would blaze a historic trail of glory for his small island country.