Real-Life Mulan at Milites Dei Academy

by

Rebecca Botha

Milites Dei Academy is a military-style training academy. Before I joined the academy, I actually started communication with their sales since October 2024.

When I first joined Milites Dei Academy (10 January 2026) for the Three-Month Course, I was told I am so far the only girl enrolled for my time here. What a shock that was as I stared at the other 23 male students enrolled with me. At first, I found it a laughable situation, almost like I was in the story of Mulan. The only woman in the squad and now needed to prove myself. But all the men told me with a lot of proudness that part of their training as leaders was to specially prepare this bush camp for me and the other ladies that will join.

Well, let’s just say, by the first Physical Training session I refused to let my arms cave during push-ups as I watch the rest of the students drop. Attempting to prove that I was capable; and I definitely drew some shock as I kept going after a lot of people stopped, but sadly as we all know when it comes to exercise, the first day is easy because your muscles are fresh, the second day I can confidently say that I don’t think I could do 3 push-ups without tremendous effort, and the rest of the week it wasn’t any better.

You have certain rules you must follow at Milites Dei Academy and if you fail to comply then you will get dropped for push-ups by one of the ranks. They took such pity on me they never dropped me for more than five because they could see my poor arms shaking beneath myself.

Now although I came here physically weak, my mentality from the beginning didn’t allow that to stop me. I was going to prove myself. So, every Physical Training session I would give it my all, even though that might’ve looked like me doing 5 consecutive push-ups.

I stayed in Bush Camp. It is a tented camp about 40 meters outside of the academy. This was where the girls were supposed to stay. Except, I was the only girl and so they put the Captain Gunnery of the time in the camp as well. His name was Gerrie, and he was one hilarious man. He loved cracking jokes, making people laugh, but was also strict and firm when needed. He became like a sort of older brother maybe even a father figure. He used to laugh at me when I came to cry at his tent when my body was so sore, I couldn’t move. Usually leading with, “Ja, you wanted to try and wrestle the boys. Now look, you might’ve won but who’s walking around like nothing happened and whose crying on the floor.” Which to that I would laugh and stick my tongue out.

The first two weeks of me being here it was raining nonstop. It rained so much that before I would go into my tents the evening, I would dip my whole shoe into a bucket of water, because everything was wet regardless. And I would do this so I wouldn’t have to mop dirt out of my tent every day, but rather just wipe up wet spots. This helped me pass inspection every time.

Inspection was pretty much PT round two. They would inspect the boys’ bungalow, and we would always fail and always get an absurd punishment. In the beginning you would pray to pass, but by the end you make peace with the fact that you will fail but rather the punishment be quick so you can eat something before drills.

In these two weeks of rain, we did a lot of community projects, like building roads nonstop. The original rounds got so wet that we would get woken up on a Saturday to go push a car. We even had to deliver food on foot to needy families that could not get out of their farms, and they ran out of groceries which MDA bought in town for them. Or on a Sunday we’re building a new road in the rain with bricks so that people could get their children to school on a Monday.

But this story starts with us building our first road with sandbags. I still don’t know how I managed this, but some of the guys were carrying sandbags up the hill and then me and one other person were carrying sandbags to where the others would lay them down and build a road. Eventually this other person disappeared, and I was the only one carrying the sandbags to the road from where the other gents dropped them off. Now this I proceeded to do for hours on end, but five weeks later we will find out that’s how I got a stress fracture on my rib. At the time I didn’t know this injured me, so I kept on exercising thinking the pain in my side was due to the fact that I’m unfit. But how is my running time getting worse when I’m five weeks in. Well, I thought maybe bad period cramps. One day during Physical Training during leg raises I tapped out. I knew something was wrong because this consistent pain was only getting worse. They took me to the doctor and the doctor said I have a stress fracture in my ribs, told me there’s nothing you can do for it and gave me some anti-inflammatory and there I was on my way. At first all the gents were stressed for me and tried to take it easy on me, but I refused. I was not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself, because I still had a lot to prove. Well, let’s just say from there on it didn’t get any easier. But in the time span of all these struggles I got some wonderful friends.

For a long time, I was the only girl student, but thank goodness, more ladies joined, needless to say, at that stage I was serving as their leader. I was in the position to guide them with ease due to the vast experiences I accumulated at that stage already.

I met ladies and men that truly cared for me and especially for my safety. Most importantly, I met a man who truly grew close to my heart. In our time here we became the best of friends. I became a sergeant and he was my staff sergeant and from there we grew very close to the point we realised we loved each other. From then on, we were inseparable. In this time, I was also awarded to be the Drill Sergeant of Milites Dei Academy.

Once we finished our Three-Month Course we decided to stay as assistant facilitators. And during the next two months we trained for Hyrox together. It was a challenge, but it was fun. We became Captain and Captain Gunnery, I’ll let you guess who out ranked who finally.

Once our time here was finished, we left to go visit my family farm in Eastern Cape, where Reggie met my dad. Oh, and wasn’t that just an experience. A protective dad and the first boy his only child bring home. Let’s just say it was civil.

We also did our First Aid Level 1 to 3 together and now we are back here at Milites Dei Academy. The management of Milites Dei Academy always said to us, “once you drank the water here, you will always come back”.

We took an enjoyable road trip from the Eastern Cape via Reggie’s family home in Lydenburg back to Milites Dei Academy. We are now here in full force, helping the academy to grow and expand.

Milites Dei Academy is a once in a lifetime experience and you will never have this opportunity again. I met a lot of ladies and men from different backgrounds and circumstances and hence I will recommend Milites Dei Academy to anyone for any of the following reasons:

• Take a gap year
• Come for the adventure
• Sort out your life
• Change your lifestyle
• If you did not finish school or you dropped out of school
• Add extra skills to your present profile
• Change your career completely because you always wanted action