KTN news anchor Joy Doreen Biira has revealed that she wanted to be a soldier when she was young.
Biira says she “would probably bring peace to this part of the country (Kilembe, Uganda)”, which she says was insecure, because of rebel group Allied Democratic Forces.
“I wanted to be a soldier because I used to see these soldiers with bullets tied around them and then the guns. There were all kinds of guns there. Then there were the tanks as well. I was like if I could be a soldier, I would probably bring peace to this part of the country,” Biira said during an interview with The Observer.
“But when I grew up, I started changing, I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be all kinds of things. Then I wanted to be a journalist. I used to listen to a lot of BBC courtesy of my parents as well,” she said.
Biira spoke of how she and her primary school mates used to count gunshot sounds as the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, fought with the country’s military soldiers.
“I remember in my P6, we used to count bullets flying from one end to another and we would be like one, two, three and we would count all the way 22, 35, you know. And we used to enjoy it! Enjoy it in a way that when you would start hearing the gunshots now, it would get scary,” she said.
The KTN journalist grew up in Kasese area in Kilembe, Uganda.
She went to Namuhuga Primary School and Kilembe Junior Boarding School.
She furthered her studies at Kyebambe Girls School in Fort Portal, did her A-level in Immaculate Heart in Rukungiri and later joined Makerere University.
"...when I was completing form four, I had wanted to be a lawyer. It had started coming through, but then again with the subjects that I was given, I was starting to doubt it because I used to think if I could tell all these stories in a way…and teachers were telling me that I was good at English comprehension. I started thinking maybe journalism could be the thing for me," she said.