by J H Thompson
– Stof, age 24
Many of us came out of different homes, different circumstances and different upbringings. We felt differently about the war. Many of the troops didn’t even want to hold a rifle, but I was very fortunate. I was very patriotic and, being in the State President’s Unit, I was very lucky because being an instructor there meant I worked with guys with strength of character. They were fighters. They could go the whole night without sleeping, or go without food. I didn’t have a problem like some of the other instructors did, with guys not wanting to fire a rifle. My troops wanted to. They wanted to protect the President. They wanted to do whatever it took to perform those duties. But there were stressful and difficult times. We had one guy who hanged himself in the shower and another who shot himself with his R4 while on guard duty. But I would rather tell you about the good times ’cause I prefer to remember those.
– Brett, age 18
It was primarily graduates who worked at Personnel Services. We were grouped together, and army life was made more bearable working alongside people who were intelligent and had some qualification or other. Unfortunately, not the same could be said of the corporals and lieutenants. We quickly learnt that if we stuck together as a group and did things together, they couldn’t do much to us. So, if we were told to run to a fence and back in less than two minutes, we ran as a group, constantly reminding each other to stick together. We’d get back in two minutes and five seconds and be told to run again. This time we ran it in two minutes and ten seconds. Do it again. We took longer each time. Do it again. And so on, until we were all running it in three minutes. What could they do? We acted as a single unit. However, I recall this one time that even sticking together didn’t help. While we were north of Pretoria doing bush exercises near Hammanskraal, there was a rail strike, so they couldn’t get food to us. We were given what they had, tinned pickled fish, which after a while got a bit much. One afternoon we were told to report to the parade ground immediately. We decided that we weren’t going to comply without having decent food for dinner first. So we sent our Bungalow Bill, who was pretty brave to do this, to tell the corporal that we weren’t moving until we got some proper food. Next thing, the captain comes stomping down the path, yelling, ‘This is not a fucking trade union movement! This is the army!’ It was at this point that we realised that we had probably pushed matters a little too far, and that the captain and his staff really had the power, and could effectively do anything with us. Result: we got up smartly and marched to the parade ground. Later we had to put on a show as part of a competition, and our platoon won, even though we made some fun of the captain. I think he secretly admired how we stuck together.
– Michael, age 21
Because our tent was so far away from everyone else in the camp, and because we were hung-over, we didn’t hear the Sunday morning reveille and missed church parade. The RSM came into our tent and screamed at us because we were late. As punishment he made us rake the parade ground. Not with a normal rake, but with a small one. It was so hot raking this bloody parade ground under the blazing sun and with a hangover. But we still managed to have fun and play around. We feng-shuied parts of that damn parade ground. I doubt any general had a little feng shui thingy on his desk, so I don’t think that’s where the little rake came from. We managed to enjoy ourselves. We played a lot, in a lot of places. They did try to break our spirit, but I think because we didn’t have the seriousness of war to deal with and no running or push-ups and such, they could only mess us around with inspection and stuff like raking the parade ground. But we stayed strong for each other. The Sisterhood survived for the entire two years and some years after. It was an incredible bond. I can easily say that I have never experienced such strong friendships like the ones I had in the army.
– Rick, age 18
If you ask any guy who played rugby in the army, they’ll tell you they were well looked after. If you played rugby, you were a god. Our colonel was rugby-befok. The very first day I arrived at the base, he said he wasn’t interested in soldiers, he was only interested in rugby players, and if you were a rugby player, you were a natural leader. Rugby was life and death, the be-all and end-all of everything. They put all the rugby players in the same bungalow. We lived in rooms, five guys to a room, in a long bungalow with a room at the head for someone with rank. A corporal or someone had to sleep there every night to make sure we behaved ourselves. There was a standard command when someone with rank entered the bungalow and wanted everyone’s attention, to issue orders, to report something or before we were marched somewhere. He would shout, ‘Almal in die gang!’ [Everyone in the passage!] Because of the pronunciation of almal, it sounded just like they were calling my surname, Hummel. So we all had this thing going, when they shouted, ‘Almal in die gang!’ Instead of everyone coming out of their room, only I would go out, and I’d say ‘Hummel hier.’ Everyone else just remained in their rooms, doing whatever they were doing. It really pissed them off! I think they were a bit nervous of us ’cause we were all rugby players, all big guys and all older than the usual 18-year-old recruit.
It really annoyed this one 17-year-old corporal, who hated me, probably because of that little trick, but also because I was English. I was one of only three guys out of 50 who were English. He would mess me around and instruct me to run up hills with the biggest rock and so on. We had this big rugby match coming up, and a few days before it, he told me to pick up this huge rock and run around with it. I picked it up and threw it down at his feet and told him that if I went to the colonel and told him he had fucked me up just before Saturday’s big game, who did he think would be in the shit? I took a chance, but he did back off after that.
So on the one hand they did take care of you, but there was this one time our rugby-obsessed colonel took us to Potch to play in the SADF Rugby Week. It was a huge rugby event at the Olen Park Stadium, and every unit in the country sent a team. There must have been about 500 rugby players in the tournament. It was a knockout competition. We got through to the semi-finals and were up against Free State Command. We blew our first-half lead as André Joubert slotted six penalties in the last few minutes of the second half to beat us. It was hard, especially after we had been in control of the game till then. Now our colonel’s life’s dream was to win this SADF Rugby Week, and he wanted his little boys in Oudtshoorn to take out the big guns and beat units from Northern Transvaal, Free State Command and whatever. I thought we had done very well to get that far in the tournament, but we were out now. After our loss, we went back to the change rooms and the colonel comes in. He was apoplectic and going berserk; he was screaming and going absolutely mad. At the end of the ranting and raving, he locked us in the change room. We had left the field at about five o’clock, and only at about ten that night did someone realise that 21 guys were missing and they came looking for us. We had sat there for five hours with nothing to eat or drink. In those days there were no cellphones or anything, so we had to just sit until someone from the function realised where we were. Our colonel would have left us there the whole night. It shows how passionate he was about rugby.
– Stof, age 24
I was kla-ed on for KFC. We were at Maselspoort, a training ground about 20 kays from base, and four of us asked the OC for permission to run back rather than go with everyone else, as we were in training for the Comrades Marathon. We ran back in full kit, and when we got back the mess hall had closed and we were a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y starving. There was nowhere to get food on the base, but there was a KFC outlet not far away. We were not supposed to leave the base, because there was a curfew, but a few of us decided to scale the wall and go and buy Kentucky Fried Chicken. We did that, ate it, and afterwards we went back to our respective bungalows. Next thing the commandant came in and shouted, ‘Walland, you cunt! Don’t lie to me. Where have you been?’ I knew that no one had seen us scale the wall, but what had happened was that one of the guys had split on me and told the commandant that I was involved. All I was trying to
do was get food for us hungry guys. There was no sympathy, because we had decided to run back off our own bat. They removed the belt from my trousers and the shoelaces from my boots, and they locked me in the kas. I’d never been in a cell before. It is not somewhere you wanna be. There was one tiny barred window too high up to see out of. It was so bleak and I spent a horrible night. I was told I had committed a serious offence and I was being kla-ed aan and would be sent to DB in Pretoria after a trial in the morning. I was absolutely devastated. My OC, who despite having a very English name couldn’t and wouldn’t speak a word of English, liked me for some reason, and he pleaded my case before we were tried. He suggested hard labour rather than DB. I was stripped of rank, but at least I didn’t get a record. All for scaling a wall to get Kentucky Fried Chicken.
– John, age 18
As religious objectors in prison, we were never really ill-treated as such. There were times when it was tough, but the hardship was mainly emotional, mental. They used to bolt our doors closed in the evenings, and all we had for a toilet was this little potty. There were three of us, all big guys, over six foot two. And Steve had the longest arms I’ve ever seen. He could reach through the bars above the door and slide open the bolt. Around two in the morning he would open our cell door. Then we would let everybody else out and all go to the toilet. One night, before I could get back to my cell, the guard came round with his Rottweilers. I flattened myself against the bathroom wall in terror. I think the only reason the dogs didn’t smell me was because the guard was smoking.
– Alan, age 17
The World Outside
Jeremy, one of my best friends, died. But because I was doing Basics, we were not allowed any communication with the outside world. We were so isolated. The only information we were given was what they wanted us to know. Pretty quickly I would’ve believed anything they told us. If they had said there’d been a coup and we had to head out to quell it, I would’ve gone. I was later told about Jeremy’s death and that I should’ve got the message, but that I wouldn’t have been allowed to go anyway because he was not immediate family.
– Paul, age 17
There was this little line of phone boxes, tiekieboxes, next to the mess. I will never forget the sound of those bee beep bee beeps as the seconds counted down, knowing that the call to my mom or dad had only ten seconds, nine seconds, eight seconds before that dreaded doo doo doo doo ended it. The queues were not something that anyone can relate to today. There were only certain times that you could use the phone and there were hundreds of guys. Everybody wanted to use the phones. There was no allocation of time; it was a free-for-all, but if anyone took too long we would all start chirping. If we were loud enough and insistent enough, the guy would hang up. I’m also sad to say, but there were guys who really wanted to get out of home, not necessarily to the military, just out. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have the family I did. They never raised a hand to me.
– Paul, age 18
On the first Sunday, we were all called together on the parade ground. Instructions were shouted and the guys ran all over the place into new groups to go to church. I went to the nearest group, not knowing it was the NG Kerk. Picture this soutpiel with a red helmet in the NG Kerk. I never made it to the church – the rank pulled me out of the platoon and I was drilled until church finished. The dog tags I was issued for the Border read ‘Baptist’. I had never seen the inside of a Baptist church in my life. Of course, they refused to change my denomination.
– Brett, age 18
I was so happy on Sundays during Basic Training ’cause we all got out on church pass. This meant tea and cake. I was and still am Anglican. We were one of the smaller groups and used to attend the evening service. We had some time off to prepare, to shine our boots, to shower, and were then marched in our browns in our group right up to the church door, with the MPs driving up and down making sure we didn’t disappear. After the service we got tea and cake. The grannies made us tea and cake. It was so – when you are in that military environment – I just don’t think anyone will ever understand how it feels when you are so completely immersed, so surrounded by everything military and people with a military mentality, to be able to see a woman wearing normal clothes, even if it was the colonel’s wife. It was an escape. An escape from the regime of discipline, the ‘Ja Korporaal’, ‘Nee Korporaal’.
– Paul, age 18
Each company had a posparade area. We would be called outside, and the corporals would get this big bag of mail. They were bastards. They would open our mail, and sometimes they would tear the letters in half, not into little pieces so you couldn’t read it, just once in half. The guy’s name would be read out, but before they gave you your post, you had to sak for push-ups. For every letter you got, you had to do push-ups. They made it very difficult for guys who got letters from girlfriends. Chicks would put lipstick kisses, or little sayings and things, on the backs of envelopes. I do recall them occasionally opening these letters and reading them out to us to embarrass the troep. It was hell hanging around until you got dismissed, ’cause you were not allowed to open them there.
– Paul, age 18
One of the best, best, best days of my life at that time was 14 August 1983. My mom, dad, sister and brother came to visit me in Pretoria. You get Visitor’s Day before you even get pass. This was the first and it was long overdue. They lined us up, and when they dismissed us, all 240 of us started running for the car park where our families were waiting. My mom started crying when she saw me. She had packed lunch, roast chicken and potatoes, and we picnicked on the rugby field.
– Nick, age 20
I was so looking forward to seeing my parents and girlfriend. It was the first time they were allowed to visit us. We were to wear our summer step-outs, which always looked really smart: short-sleeved beige shirt, name badge on the chest, tailored coffee-coloured trousers with a smart bronze belt with a square buckle, green beret and smart shoes. Full step-outs also looked very cool. They comprised a long-sleeved shirt, tie, step-out jacket with large shiny convex silver buttons, and the shield-shaped unit flash – ours, 7 SAI, depicted a Rooikat – worn on the top of the arm, and the same green beret with the bokkop and unit balkie. But I didn’t get to wear anything that made me look cool or smart. I got a fungal infection on my testicles, and when they came to visit I was lying in the hospital totally naked with my legs open. It was not lekker.
– Clint, age 18
Luckily the possibility that a conscientious or religious objector would get six years didn’t happen. After 1984 they made it six years, but three years of that was commuted. We never got leave or received any pay while we were in prison for those three years. We had a once-a-month family visit, which was for an hour, sometimes two, but sometimes reduced to 15 minutes. While I was in Bloemfontein, this was often at the whim of our sergeant major, who was an alcoholic. The one Christmas Day, there were about 15 of us, all Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we were looking forward to seeing our families. We were also looking forward to the visit because it was the only time of year we were allowed sweets. Some of us had parents who had driven up from Durban, which was an eight-hour trip then. We were standing in front of the offices and could see our parents through the gate. Next thing, the sergeant major, who was stone drunk, comes up and tells us that the visit is off and we can’t see our parents. You know we Jehovah’s Witnesses are a peaceful bunch, but that was the closest I’ve ever seen any of us come to rioting!
– Alan, age 17
My greatest fear in the army was that leave would be cancelled. Weekend Pass meant everything, and if there was just one speck of dust in your rifle, it could be cancelled. Even after parade, just before you went on leave, you were still scared leave would be cancelled. Until you were out of the camp gates, you were scared.
– Paul, age 17
I was one of the few people to go home during Basics. It just so happened that I was awarded my Springbok Scout Award while we were away for the two wee
ks’ compulsory bush training during Basics. So not only did I get to go home during Basics, but it was also while everyone was roughing it in the bush! I was allowed to go, but I had to go in browns. I remember thinking how paraat I already was, after only a few weeks in the military. Compared to the Scouts, we were the manne! Two nights in bed at home, hot showers, cooked meals, time to relax while all my mates were stuck in the bush. Part of you thinks, shame, but the other part thinks, uh-uh, self-preservation. If I can do something to make my life a little easier, fuck my mates. But I remember going back to hell. I’d been out of it for two and a half days. I’d got out of the cycle and everyone else was used to it by now. It was pouring with rain, it was wet, and we didn’t have tents, only a groundsheet and a poncho. The transition from a nice cosy bed, having a lie-in, to that – it was like switching a switch from on to off.