For many career soldiers in this country it has never got — and will never get — bigger than it did with Lieutenant-General Xolani Brian Ndlovu on March 9 2023, when all divisions of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) took turns, bowing before him, taking a salute as he was being formally installed as the chief of the army’s logistics division.

In a highly choreographed display of pomp and ceremony, air force aircraft flew past the Pretoria military headquarters, scores of the navy’s officers lit up the grounds with their all-white uniforms, and well-co-ordinated army forces marched past...