Mashile , Tears (T)

SASFA In Memoriam (selection incomplete): passed selection but died before completing the cycle and becoming an operator (not awarded operator status). SASFA: Mashile Tears 1990. https://www.recce.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/4.1.-Memoriam.pdf SASFA: died after selection, before operator status (1990). ROH CauseDeath is Ops Askari AA-team narrative (1983/84 incident text on a 1990-08-30 1 Recce row). Cause left; SASFA pre-operator note added. 26 Aug 2026: Unit was leftover "202 Battalion"; Regiment was "1 Reconnaissance Regiment". SAWGP Regiment 1 Reconnaissance Commando with no separate unit.
Col (rt) Graham du Toit, Last Post, 30 Aug 2026: Rfn Tears Mashile, 1 Reconnaissance Regiment, killed while carrying out helicopter insertion (rappelling) training near Madimbo -- became entangled in the ropes as the helicopter became airborne and fell to his death, age 25. Matches ROH record; note ROH's existing CauseDeath text (an Ops Askari Anti-Aircraft-team firefight narrative from 1983/84) appears to be a mismatched/contaminated narrative for this 1990 rappelling-accident death -- already flagged in the record's own SASFA citation, not re-litigated here.
7 Sep 2026: CauseDeath was a forward-fill copy from PN 31661 (Mashika, Esau (E)), an unrelated record -- cleared as contamination (CauseDeath-contamination scan, data/causedeath-contamination-scan-2026-09-07.md), not a real cause.
Mike Sandham's research log ("List 1"), imported 16 Sep 2026, credited to The South Africa War Graves Project unless his entry says otherwise: gives Age 25 against this record's 20. This record has no date of birth, so there is nothing to adjudicate with. Flagged, not changed.
25 Sep 2026, Unit2 service-branch sweep: the stored Secondary Unit "Army" was CLEARED as a duplicate. It was not a sub-unit, it was a service-branch word repeating what the Branch column already says. Secondary Unit is for sub-units -- a company, a squadron, a commando -- and this record's branch of service is unchanged at "Army".