The road to the establishment of a military wing of the ANC was as bumpy as the road to China for military training. For years, since the first news came out that the ANC would form an armed wing, Andrew Mlangeni had been a diehard supporter of the idea, but throughout those years it had never crossed his mind that he could be part of it, as he believed it was for a select few, much higher in the ANC hierarchy and at a level of leadership he didn't think he had reached. Nor did he think the armed wing would become a reality soon, and the approval by the ANC (which he received through unofficial sources) took him by surprise as he had known that the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) (of which he was not part) was strongly opposed to violence as part of the struggle.

A hint that the ANC was implementing plans to establish an armed wing entered Andrew's consciousness the moment he heard that the ANC NEC had given Nelson Mandela the go-ahead at one of its June 1961 meetings. He was not comfortable, however, with news that, in granting Mandela permission to establish the armed wing, the NEC had suggested (or, rather, implied) that it was a ‘Mandela thing’ and should not be seen to be part of ANC establishment plans. ‘I fully supported the idea, even though I still did not think I would personally be part of it,’ he confessed.

A glimpse that Mandela may have earmarked him as one of the first recruits of the army came one day after the meeting of the SACP's area committee at Mofolo in Soweto. Mandela invited Andrew to accompany him, a rare request that caught him off-guard. Mandela took him to a deserted spot and suggested they do push-ups together for a while. After the push-ups, Mandela told Andrew that he had wanted to see if he was fit, and was satisfied that he was. ‘You have just become my first recruit outside the High Command,’ he said to a bemused Andrew – who later admitted that he hadn't really understood what Mandela had meant. Mandela then took Andrew back home to Dube before disappearing into the darkness as usual.