by J H Thompson
– Andy, age 18
Training
We had people who would come to our camp and give us talks on various units within the SADF. We had a guy from Bats come and talk to us, and a guy from 1 South African Reconnaissance came too. I remember him, ’cause he said, ‘Don’t worry if you smoke dagga, ’cause I smoke dagga too.’ There were rumours about joining the Recces, things like they make you kill a puppy to see if you have the mind for it. Despite that, 40 guys applied, but only one got in.
One day we were in a queue and these two guys were talking, and the one says, ‘Nee, ek gaan SP Wag toe’ [No, I’m going to the State President’s Guard]. I asked them what it was, ’cause we’d never heard of it, and the guy says it’s a very paraat elite unit. When I asked what they did, he says they drilled a lot, stood guard a lot, did demonstrations which involved throwing rifles around, and were guard of honour at Parliament. I said ‘Where is it?’ and he says ‘Pretoria.’ That was the magic word for me! Pretoria! The closest posting to home I could get. I was told I was tall so I would definitely get in. I had to do the 2,4 in less than 12 minutes, sit-ups, all sorts of drilling manoeuvres – omkeer, regsom – to qualify. I got in, and, yes, there was a lot of drilling, standing guard and so on, but the one day General Malan wanted his garden done, so we were sent to do his garden for him. And when the Prime Minister became State President, we had to go and lug all these personal belongings from Parliament. So we did furniture removals too.
– Nick, age 20
I loved Mine Warfare and Dems. It was lekker to blow things up! I think most little boys like to blow things up – you know, make little forts and blow them up, light crackers and blow up little soldiers. Now I got to do it for real. I learnt all sorts of interesting stuff: half a kilo of PE4 blows a half-metre gap in a railway track, and how much cortex is needed to cut a tree down. We even simulated a small nuclear explosion, a few drums of diesel and … sorry, I’d better not say what else, but it was all in the manual, so of course we had to try it out.
– Paul, age 17
All troops are given basic first-aid training. I trained further as an army ops medic with my battery. SAMS had just been formed, and we had it much tougher than those poofters. We did additional courses to qualify as much more than medics, things like a Signaller’s course and courses on the 20-mill and 40-mill guns. The SAMS guys didn’t even iron their browns. They said they were told they didn’t have to because there was only one plug outlet in their bungalow. Ja, we also had only one electrical outlet in our bungalow, but we still had to iron our browns. Their Basics was also a walk in the park compared to ours.
As part of our training for a war situation we spent three months working in government hospitals, mainly doing stitching, drips and learning how to deliver babies. I’m proud to say I helped to deliver about ten babies. There were doctors around, but they were usually only involved if there was a problem. It was us army medics and the sisters that delivered the babies. The difference between the theory and the practical side of childbirth was … amazing. I was only 19 and, boy, was it an experience and a half! Fortunately I’m not squeamish, so the process didn’t worry me. I did query why we were learning to deliver babies, and was told we might have to help the plaaslike bevolking. I’m sure the troops were happy and reassured that we were learning how to deliver babies!
On Friday and Saturday nights we worked in the casualty section of numerous coloured hospitals, and stitched people up. There was a sign on the wall saying ‘Only Doctors Can Stitch Faces’, but the workload was enormous and we did plenty of stitching of faces. I wish I could have seen my finished healed product ’cause I was very careful and tried to make the stitches as neat and small as possible.
One night this guy comes in with a stab wound in his back. It was from something very slender, maybe a bicycle spoke or something like that. There was a huge haematoma, which we knew we had to empty before we could begin working on the wound. Because of the pressure, we knew it would burst and cover us in blood, so my mate, another army medic, and I discussed for ages which angle to squeeze it at, where we should stand, and so on. Eventually we were ready and positioned ourselves and what happened? We got covered. The blood just sprayed all over us. So much for our planning. We collapsed with laughter, and this guy was just complaining and telling us to get on with it.
– Dave, age 19
The mechanics were known as tiffies – they fixed up vehicles. I was in the medics and we were known as Tampax tiffies, because we fixed up guys – we stopped the cunts from bleeding.
– Paul, age 18
At Berede we were told to catch our horses. These horses hadn’t been ridden for three years, so they were wild. The horses got three years’ pasture and then were ridden for a year. The first horse you caught was the horse you were going to keep. Both the horse’s spirit and the person’s spirit were broken and then built up. With us, they did that through lack of sleep, lack of control, and having to get back on a horse that kept bucking you off over and over again. To break the horses it was a case of riding them bucking and kicking until they were exhausted and they stopped. Only after that did they start building you and your horse up as a team, and then as part of a larger team of around a dozen guys. I must say it worked. We were told the horses were more important than the stupid little troops. The Artillery guys were not far from where the horses were kept, and the one day this guy must have got his gun a few degrees out or something, ’cause next thing this shell exploded in a field next to us. I also remember one day they again miscalculated and blew up the stables and a couple of horses were killed. So much for the horses being more important than us!
– Martin, age 23
As Marines we had to practise beach landings, even though there weren’t very many beaches for us to invade! This involved a great deal of running. And shouting. We were very used to the former because our base, Scala, was in two sections. We slept at the top of the hill, but all the amenities, like the canteen, were downhill at the lower base. We never walked anywhere, we always ran, and it was a kay between the two bases, and another 500 steps from the lower base to the beach. For our beach landings, we would set off from Simonstown in Delta boats and make our way to nearby beaches. The boats would go in as close as they could to shore without fouling their props, so we still had to jump into the water with our rifles held high above our heads to keep them dry. We would then charge up the beach with whistles blowing and much running and shouting. This was not as easy as it sounds, for there were always civilians. Charging up the beach in full kit, roaring at the top of your lungs was not a simple matter when you had to sidestep sunning grannies, little kids and their sandcastles, and lurking picnic baskets. It must have been rather startling for all of them to see two platoons of men suddenly come rushing ashore, their faces streaked with Black Is Beautiful and hitting the beach very hard. You can’t dig a foxhole quickly on sandy beaches, so you had to push the sand forwards to create berm-like walls to hide behind. After enough practice you could ensure you hit the beach in such a way that your chest pushed up a fair amount of sand ahead of you. The warrant officer in charge was an ex-Parabat and, boy, was he gung-ho. He would check to see if anyone’s head was visible, and if it was, he jumped on that person’s back. Once he did this and the poor guy underneath him struck his head against his rifle sight and tore open his nostril.
– Louis, age 17
I had two horses. The first horse I rode was beautiful, but one day in training, she stepped in a hole and broke her leg. The horse medics came out and they looked at her but said she had to be put down. Then it was my right, my privilege and my duty as a soldier to shoot my own horse in the head. I used the lieutenant’s revolver and they showed me exactly where to shoot her. It was horrific. It haunted me for quite a long time afterwards. I tell you, I could have done without that privilege, honour and right. You get very close to the animal. I mean, we lived with our horses. We ate our food with them, slept next to them, and when you
spend so much time with them you learn that they are very intelligent and a lot like dogs. People normally only see their horse when they ride it, but we lived with ours, and you get to see just how intelligent they are. My second horse was a beautiful black stallion called Blikkies, but with the most uncomfortable trot!
Our training sessions involved diving off our horses at full gallop when the instructors shouted ‘Kontak!’, or just started shooting. I’m sure they’ll say they used blank ammo, but when you see leaves and branches falling to the ground in front of you, you begin to wonder. We were in a rocky quartzite area, full of aloes, and we had to dive to the ground from a full gallop. You have no idea what that is like. I saw at least three guys bash their front teeth out. If you were clever, you learnt to dive and roll while holding the reins. That way you didn’t have to run and catch your horse later. But it wasn’t easy. You had a full pack on your back, a funny helmet that was always too big – nobody had the right size – and it kept falling down over your eyes so you couldn’t see anything, and you had your gun in your hand. Your gun was upright at a 45-degree angle, resting on your hip, and you controlled the horse with one hand. On patrol, forget it – our rifles were slung across our packs.
When we were out, we carried rations for 24 hours for ourselves. In the evenings, the truck would arrive with lucerne for the horses and our ration packs. But I would say about 80 percent of the time, even though we weren’t allowed to do it, we would end up at a farmer’s place at night and the farmer would put on a nice spread for us – kill a sheep or something. But they would also lock up their daughters! We went to some sokkiejols on the weekend. And the girls there? You have no idea! I remember this one girl danced once around the floor with me – langarm – then asked me to go outside with her. I agreed to go but told her I wasn’t going to do anything. She looked at me and said, ‘Are you sure?’ Halfway through the next circuit she’d gone on to someone else. After the sokkiejol the guys were comparing notes and were horrified to find that five of them had slept with that one girl.
– Martin, age 23
I had some of my guys doing exercises off the coast of northern Natal. We were going to practise Naval Gunfire Support and would fire from the ship to a naval firing range near Jozini. Some of the guys were going to deploy onto land from the smaller boats and call in the naval gunfire. It was a training exercise so that we could use that capability should we require it. I think these guys spent the entire journey, all the way from Durban to where we went ashore, hugging the heads. Another time I recall we were on a strike craft and heading out from Saldanha Bay northwards up the coast. As we turned out of the bay, the strike craft was lurching violently up and down. The sea was horrendous. We stayed out of the crew’s way and lay low in our bunks. During the night I had to take a piss. I went down to the heads and was holding on to a pole, trying to aim as accurately as possible. I saw this guy come running down the steps, obviously going to be as sick as a dog. I knyped [pinched] off and moved back. He hurled, then I pissed, then he hurled, then I pissed again, and so we each took our turn at the heads. How’s that for collaboration!
I used to run some of the sailing courses at 4 Recce Langebaan, and we had this 64-foot gaff-rigged schooner. The planned trip was from Langebaan, stopping in at Cape Town, Gordon’s Bay and Hermanus, and then one shot back. On the course we had some Angolan blacks, and there was one guy who was a very famous black guy in Special Forces. It was around the time that Bertie Reed was sailing Stabilo Boss. And this guy says to me, ‘Me and you are going to sail around the world together.’ As we went out that night, we hit heavy seas. In ten minutes, everyone was hanging over the side. This went on the whole night. There were 11 on the yacht and only three men weren’t sick. I knew it wasn’t going to work, and the next morning I said we were going back. As he was getting off the yacht, this guy turned to me and joked, ‘This thing is for white people, not kaffirs.’
– Anonymous
We were on manoeuvres up the West Coast near Saldanha to test and be evaluated on these fancy new 35-mm twin-barrelled anti-aircraft guns connected to radar systems. The radar system could track and lock on to an aircraft and then the guns could follow and lock on to the aircraft. The chefs had not brought enough food, so we ran out after a few days and decided to shoot springbok. We pinched the spotlight off the top of an ambulance and smashed the protective coloured lens to fashion a spotlight. We set off and find them easily enough, because their eyes shine in the spotlight, and five of us (and I have to say there was rank there – two PF guys), we let off a volley with our R1s and 9-mills. But we never hit one Springbok. Next we tried to get a rabbit. Now, if you shine a light on a rabbit, it stays still. We pinned this one poor rabbit in our spotlight and the guys must have emptied about two magazines from their 9-mill pistols at it. It was sitting dead still and yet we missed it. Eventually one of the Bombardiers started up the Landie and hit the rabbit with the vehicle and killed it. Me, being the medic and the one with medical knowledge and sharp knives, had to skin it. I left it to hang overnight. The next day we bought geese from this coloured woman for about R2.50 each. She killed and plucked them and we cooked them and the rabbit. The rabbit was much better than the geese, which must have been old.
– Dave, age 19
I was so happy when I cleared out from the army’s School of Armour, to join the air force. Euphoria, that’s what I felt. The air force food was better and there was actually a choice. You didn’t eat off varkpanne. You ate off white plates and there was cutlery on the table. They served the food up to you, politely asking if you would like some of this or some of that. They didn’t just slop things onto your plate. We didn’t have to walk around with our pikstel. Cutlery and crockery were washed for you, so we didn’t have to wash our stuff in the 44-gallon drums outside the canteen, which, if you weren’t there quickly, became filled with a layer of grease from everybody else’s washing up. I suppose at some stage it must have been soapy water, but there was a lot of gippo guts going around. Major Mike Muller, we called him Major Triple M, called me in and said my signal had come in and I had to leave immediately. I was delighted. The downside was I didn’t get to say goodbye to the guys I’d gone through Basics with, and we were very close, ’cause you form a very close bond when you go through tough times together. I gave back my rifle and got on a train. The upside was, when I arrived, an air force officer, a colonel, spoke to me like a human being, the way one person normally talks to another. I was treated so differently, like someone important. It was only a five-minute discussion, but the treatment and the way I was talked to still stand out in my mind.
There the PTIs were meant to be these superfit guys. During the two weeks of integration from the army to the air force, they supposedly make things tough for us. But, please, we only stood inspection at 7 a.m., compared to 05h30 in the army. The beds didn’t have to be as square as they had to be in the army, so we became more relaxed. This one guy is sweeping out the bungalow, guiding the dust towards the door. As he sweeps it out, the corporal who was there to do the inspection appears at the base of the steps and the dust covers his boots! So this corporal decides he’s going to give us the opfok of our lives. He says, ‘Sien jy daardie boom [See that tree] … I’ll give you one minute.’ In the army it was ten seconds. We ran and were back with 45 seconds to spare. He wants 30 push-ups. In the army it would’ve been 120. So after 30 you stand up and you’re not even tired. He tells us to put on our PT kit, as now we’re gonna run the 2,4. In the army we ran the 2,4 in full kit, staaldak and poles, and we ran it in less than ten minutes. Now here we are in PT kit! Shame, he really tried so hard. To us it was a total jol.
– Tallies, age 17
To put it in a nutshell, becoming a JL meant you would become an instructor for the next intake. I’d had enough after Basics and thought I’d take the easy way out and become a chef. Chefs didn’t drill or march. I was so cross that my dad went over my head because he thought JL was the way for me to go. He hopped on
the phone and gave the colonel my background in Scouting and told me being a JL didn’t mean you would become one of those corporals giving troops shit. I hated the corporals; they were uneducated, whiny 16-year-old dropouts with nothing higher than a Standard 8. I didn’t want to become that. But JL could also get you to the position of lieutenant, which was attractive to me. My pay would go from R252 per month as a private to about R600. So off I went to Bourke’s Luck on this course that was three times harder than Basics. There was obviously a lot of theory too. And again, insufficient sleep. I fell asleep standing upright between two guys while we were being taught the phonetic alphabet. And again it was this stupid corporal, ‘Hey! Hey! Word wakker!’ He thought he’d nail me ’cause we were only just learning the phonetic alphabet, but I knew it from my Scouting days. He was pissed off that I was sleeping and even more pissed off because I could answer his questions. That’s what the corporals were like. They were not the brightest crayons in the box and hated you if you knew more than them.
– Paul, age 18
They had a very scientific approach to selecting people for Junior Leaders Course. Only two days into National Service you had to run across the rugby field with your kit to a certain group of officers and shout your number, rank and name, and by that they decided whether you went to do JLs, Officer’s Course or remained in ordinary National Service. I have to say there must have been something about it that worked because the RTU rate was very low.
– Tallies, age 17