An Unpopular War Read online

  ‘An authentic snapshot of the profound effect national service had on those who served their country, rightly or wrongly; of the camaraderie and crap; idealism and idiocy; professionalism and bungling that’s part of any military organisation or operation.

  Thompson has captured every facet … and succeeded in letting the different voices be heard, without bias or judgment. And in doing so, she has not only provided all South Africans with a critically important account of a forgotten time, but also lifted the lid on something that needs to be out in the open to finally be allowed to heal.’

  – Kevin Ritchie, Saturday Star

  ‘Revealed at last: ex-national service soldiers’ shocking experiences.’

  – You magazine

  ‘The first book of its kind in South Africa to unmask the private lives behind South African Defence Force soldiers.’

  – People magazine

  ‘A riveting, personal look at recent South African history, and a poignant reminder of the multi-faceted effects of war on innocent youngsters.’

  – Kate Turkington, joburg.co.za

  AN

  UNPOPULAR

  WAR

  AN

  UNPOPULAR WAR

  From afkak to bosbefok

  Voices of South African

  National Servicemen

  JH THOMPSON

  Published by Zebra Press

  an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd

  Company Reg. No. 1966/003153/07

  80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town, 8001

  PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

  www.zebrapress.co.za

  First published 2006

  Publication © Zebra Press 2006

  Text © JH Thompson 2006

  Cover photograph © Christo Crous

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

  PUBLISHER: Marlene Fryer

  EDITOR: Robert Plummer

  PROOFREADER: Ronel Richter-Herbert

  COVER DESIGNER: Natascha Adendorff-Olivier

  ISBN 978 1 77007 301 2 (print)

  ISBN 978 1 77020 121 7 (ePub)

  ISBN 978 1 77020 122 4 (PDF)

  Over 50 000 unique African images available to purchase from our image bank at www.imagesofafrica.co.za

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  You’re in the Army Now

  Soutpiele and Dutchmen

  G1K1, G4K-Fucked Up

  Drill and Weapons

  Washing, Ironing, Inspection

  Chefs and Blue Eggs

  Afkak, Opfok, Rondfok, Vasbyt

  Making and Breaking

  The World Outside

  Fear and Loathing

  Black and White

  Propaganda and Subversion

  Gyppoing

  Training

  Boetie Gaan Border Toe

  In the Bush

  Plaaslike Bevolking

  Contact

  Ballas Bak

  Where We Weren’t

  The States

  Oh My Fok

  Stripes and Stars

  Somewhere on the Border

  Under Attack

  Bosbefok

  At War

  Township Patrols

  Changes Coming

  Klaaring Out

  Glossary

  Preface

  History is not another name for the past, as many people imply.

  It is the name for stories about the past.

  AJP TAYLOR (1906–1990)

  Until 1994, all white male South Africans were called up for National Service in the year they turned 18. This could be deferred for a few years if the person was studying, but to avoid it meant a jail term. In the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of young men served in the military, most going through intense physical training and many of them being sent to fight the war in northern Namibia and Angola.

  I interviewed over 40 men who were required to do National Service, in order to record their personal memories of this military era. This book is a collection of mental snapshots from their time as SADF conscripts: an inspection, the routine of camp life, the monotony and dread of patrols, the terror of a battle. Whatever the experience, it came with an intensity absent in civilian life. The men I interviewed spoke honestly of fear, boredom, loss, crying, drinking, fighting, of deep friendships and a yearning for the camaraderie they had then. Their stories also give an anecdotal record of the idiosyncrasies and slang from that period, and the way that these varied in different regions and units.

  The interviews covered a wide range of experiences. The men spoke of life in the army, the navy and the air force. Some were chefs and medics, others were Recces and Parabats. One was a conscientious objector serving time in a military prison. A few of them stayed on for longer than their two years’ National Service, such as the helicopter pilots. Most are identified by their first name and their age at the time, although some preferred to remain anonymous. There are a few duplicate names but no false ones.

  Even though most National Servicemen called up for military service did not experience combat, their time with the military had a profound and lasting impact on them. The war, fought primarily in South Africa’s protectorate South West Africa (Namibia) and in Angola, was an unpopular one on many fronts. Many young men, straight out of school or university, were not staunchly patriotic and did not want to give two years of their lives to the military, mothers didn’t want to lose sons, and South Africa’s apartheid government was condemned internationally for fighting an unjust war.

  It was a radically different political climate – one that now, from the perspective of a non-racial and democratic South Africa, is almost impossible to comprehend. Today, it is not socially acceptable for these men to talk about their experiences. But even if the politics were abhorrent, this doesn’t make the soldiers so.

  These stories are their experiences as remembered by them. I wrote them as they were told, with no embellishment or editing to make them seem better men, or worse.

  JH THOMPSON

  Acknowledgements

  It is not clichéd at all to say that without certain people this book would not exist. Most obviously and most importantly are the men whom I interviewed. Thank you for trusting me with your stories and memories, without which I could not have written this book. This is not my book, it is yours.

  I hope there will be many more books on the experiences of South African soldiers, for there are thousands of stories that should be told, in print, not just among close friends. For those of you who kept diaries or notes of your time as a National Serviceman … get them to a publisher!

  Whether it was a concern about reprisals, privacy or a more personal reason, some men requested to remain anonymous, while the rest agreed to the use of their first names in the main body of the book. I wish to thank every one of them. Some of the men whom I can list are Andy Thomas, Anthony Hansen, Christian Bowker, Christoph Hummel, Clint van Haght, Dave Keegan, David O’Sullivan, Ferdinand Taljaard, Jeremy Mansfield, John Scholes, John Walland, Martin Blignaut, Paul Redman, Paul Rotherham, Rick Venter. Thank you for the telling.

  Thank you too to Kate Rogan for valuable insider information on the publishing industry, her guidance and encouragement. Lieutenant Colonel Taljaard for his invaluable information and checking of facts concerning the South African Air Force as well as military terminology – geen toffies vir jou! Richard Henry, Curator Armoured Fighting Vehicles at the SA National Museum of Military History, who saved me hours and hours of tra
wling through reference books to check obscure Angolan towns or military hardware facts, thank you for your sharp eye and for sharing your vast knowledge on all things military. Baie dankie Zelda en Anton le Grange vir julle humor en ondersteuning met al die vertalings vir wanneer my feeble en verkrampte hoërskool Afrikaans my in die steek gelaat het! Dan Moyane for his cross-border phone calls to ensure that every single diacritical mark was accurate and in its correct place regarding the Portuguese translations.

  Marlene Fryer, thank you for your record-breaking response and giving me feedback only hours after I sent through the proposal. An unforgettable phone call. Robert Plummer, my managing editor, who managed my doubts and my unstructured manuscript so well. Thank you, Robert. Riveting? Marvellous? Your words meant the world. Thank you for always being patient with my ignorance of the publishing world and for your kindness and humour, and for being gentle!

  Although this resembles one of those Oscar acceptance speeches, I must thank my mom. Thank you for instilling in me a love, appreciation and awe for books, as well as for creative thoughts and words. Thank you for the subbing, the left-field questions and being the first person to read the interviews and confirm my belief that the stories were worth telling.

  Jem, you are so aptly named. You are my rock and my lighthouse. Thank you for pushing me to put pen to paper after a year of mulling over the idea, considering the possibility that, perhaps, this book could and should be written when I considered it only a firm definite maybe. Thank you for recognising my fears and procrastination and blitzing them. You shine.

  Every person I have mentioned, and the many men I couldn’t mention personally here, as well as friends and family, inspired me, motivated me, and most importantly believed in the book and the absolute importance and necessity of talking about personal experiences in a time of shadows in our country’s history. I humbly thank you.

  JH THOMPSON

  Dedicated to Guy Sajer

  and the forgotten soldiers

  You’re in the Army Now

  It was the worst day of my life. I arrived on the troop train at Voortrekkerhoogte. The train went from Port Elizabeth and picked up conscripts all the way up. At every little siding there were guys waiting with their parents and a battered little suitcase. You knew because of the list you got with your conscription papers that every person with a battered suitcase had a two-metre length of chain, two padlocks, a list of addresses, a pack of envelopes, a sheet of stamps and one of those big Croxley writing pads with two pens. Also a small steam iron, and a picture of your girlfriend. The train stopped at every single siding. All I remember from that whole trip was parents crying. I don’t think it was really because they were saying goodbye to their sons, but more because they didn’t know where their sons were ultimately going. They knew their sons were initially heading to Voortrekkerhoogte, but they didn’t know from there what would happen to their lives, and neither did we. The whole comic bravado story about the troop train is an absolute load of shit. They talk about how everyone gets pissed and throws the cushions out of the windows and fucks around all the way to Voortrekkerhoogte. It is absolute crap. It’s a comic’s way of trying to make the journey all right, but it was not. You’re surrounded by corporals and Military Police who aren’t being horrible in any way, but you know already that they are a sign of authority. You sit in your pre-assigned cabin, with your pre-assigned passengers, going to a pre-assigned destination with a supposed purpose, and you don’t understand any of it.

  We arrived at the shunting area at WSK at Voortrekkerhoogte, and that’s when all the chaos broke out. You had troops from one railway line destination being shepherded into Personnel Services, Finance Services, Medics, Tiffies, MPs and a whole host of other regiments, and that’s when the screaming began. I remember roll-call and Staff Sergeant Marx. It was so ironic. There I was, prepared to fight Communists, and the first person I meet is called Marx. He’s calling out the names and everyone answers differently: ‘Yes’, ‘Present’, ‘Here.’ Eventually he turned around and said, ‘As ek jou naam uitroep, sê net ja Staff of ja poes. Maar net nie yes, present, en al dié kak nie’ [If I call out your name, only say yes Staff or yes poes. But just not yes, present, and all that shit]. Three names later, this one guy is called out and he answers, ‘Ja poes.’ I don’t know what happened to him. That night we got to the camp. I found I was in a tented section. We had a Highveld summer storm, the tent leaked, half my mattress was wet, I curled up into the dry upper half and even though I was 18, I cried.

  – Jeremy, age 18

  I remember us all showing our call-up papers to one another at school. I was called up for the July intake. That would have wasted a whole year: the six months from when I finished school at the end of the year until I went in, and the six months from when I came out until the beginning of the next year. So my dad pushed to get me called up for the January intake. We had this friend in the Medical Corps and she organised for me to get into SAGDOS in Voortrekkerhoogte. I was excited because it was January now and it was so close to home, much better than the July call-up to Phalaborwa. We got this little list of things I had to take. Some of the things I remember were soap, padlocks, one set of clothes, starch, a length of chain, a spray bottle, toiletries, towel, two boot brushes, a tin of Kiwi polish and an iron. No ironing board. I remember that, because on the first pass, that’s the one thing everybody came back with – an ironing board. They did have an ironing facility in the dorm, but it was this horrible metal table against the wall. Because that was all everybody had to use, the queues were horrendous. We all had to meet at Nasrec and were taken through to Pretoria in a convoy of 20 or 30 buses. Once on the highway, I looked back and it was just buses. It’s not an overly long journey, but, boy, it took forever. I didn’t know anybody. Nobody knew anybody. I was afraid of the unknown. Yes, I was supposed to go to Voortrekkerhoogte, but I didn’t know for sure that that would happen. The buses were packed with guys from all walks of life. Some were wealthy, with the attitude of: okay, we’ve got to take it on the chin and have to go to the military, but we’re going to handle it. Then there were those who were down and out, and this was actually saving them. Going to the army would provide them with a roof over their heads and three meals every day. We look at it now and think it was the non-whites who appreciated that, but it wasn’t. It was the whites from down-and-out areas.

  – Paul, age 18

  We had to catch the train to Cape Town from the station near Milpark. I told my mom she couldn’t come if she was going to cry like all those mothers on TV. The guys were very friendly and told us to make sure we left alcohol, drugs, knives or guns with our parents! I wasn’t sure if they were joking or not. I remember thinking: this isn’t so bad, I don’t know what the fuss is about. It was quite pleasant. But the minute you stepped through the gate – what a rude awakening! They screamed and shouted and called us all sorts of names. Some of the things that stood out for me that day were: the stale sandwiches – which you had to eat – vrot bananas and coffee so sweet you could die from insulin overload, having to close the windows at Joburg station so that the enemy could not see in to count the number of troops, and that my mom didn’t cry.

  – Dave, age 19

  I’ve always had a love of weapons and combat uniforms. I didn’t get called up; I volunteered. It was the only way I could eventually get a job. No one would hire you unless you had completed military service. I managed to get an appointment with this bloke in Pretoria. I walked into this commandant’s office and told him I wanted to sign up. He vloeked, ‘Fok it! Niemand … nobody volunteers for this armies!’ We talked and then he asked me, ‘Where do you want to goes?’ I didn’t even know there were different divisions or anything. So I said I wanted to have a weapon and I didn’t want to sit behind a desk. He said he would sort out something nice for me. Three days later I was at this huge field in Johannesburg with my parents and all the stuff I was told to bring. There must have been about 2 000 guys on the field. It was very
exciting, busloads of people coming and going all the time, all these guys with rank and rifles. I couldn’t believe it – I was now in the army! They took us to the train station late at night, and all the okes were friendly. We said goodbye to our parents and then everything changed. The guys started shouting and screaming, but all in Afrikaans. The swearing I understood, ’cause we used to swear in Afrikaans at school as it was more colourful. But even the basic commands were difficult to understand. The inflection they gave the commands made them difficult to understand. It wasn’t links, regs, links, regs; it’s more of a grunting shout. I didn’t find it scary; it was more like anger. I was extremely mad at these guys for not speaking my language and screaming in my face. It wasn’t one oke standing there, it was a few of them, backing one another up, and they were armed and I wasn’t. I’m not easily intimidated, but I didn’t like that. It made me want to take them out.

  We left on the train with all the shutters closed. There was no indication where we were going or in which direction. The worst thing was just not knowing what was going on. The officers were patrolling the corridors, flicking the lights off and on at all hours of the night, shining torches in our faces so we couldn’t sleep properly. They’d wake everybody up and make us line up outside our compartments. It was three or four days of chaos, total chaos. Bad chaos. Everything I knew and the way I was used to handling things wasn’t possible. I was not a very disciplined kid at school. I got into a lot of fights. I was not a big guy, and yet I thought I could take on anybody, and now I was in a situation I couldn’t control by fighting. This was all about taking you out of your routine. Already on the train some guys were cracking. They were crying and breaking down. I saw a lot of fear in guys’ eyes, but I thought, I’m not gonna show these guys fear. Anything they ask me to do, I’m gonna wait two seconds before I do it; you know, start getting to them. But what happened was they all started taking turns in nailing me. Other guys in another compartment might get woken up two or three times, I’d be woken up nine times. Of course I was just making it harder for myself. We finally arrived at Rooikop Air Force Base, Walvis Bay, home of the infamous Dune 7 – the seventh-largest free-standing sand dune in the world. It was night and there was all the running, screaming, swearing and chaos as they sorted us into colour groups. I couldn’t believe they had sent me to the furthest bloomin’ training ground from South Africa. You couldn’t get any further away for Basics. I volunteer and they send me to another country!