by J H Thompson
– Anonymous
They caught this one guy in the township with some dagga on him. Some cops and some gung-ho army guys started torturing him by holding his head underwater in a bucket of water and demanding he take them to his supplier! I mean, really, he’s an oldish guy who smokes it as part of his culture, and these guys are hoping to get information so they can run off and bring down this massive drug syndicate. Please, man.
– Nick, age 20
I was only 50 metres away when a toyi-toying crowd of a few hundred people passed me. I never realised they were murdering someone. When they moved off down Khumalo Street, I saw this little boy playing right next to the body. The wire around the wrists had cut into the flesh and there was a pool of blood. The boy didn’t seem at all bothered. I could not believe I hadn’t known what was happening. The boy looked at me and held up a stick for me to play with. I didn’t take it. I stepped over the body and walked to the nearest house, where a woman stood in the garden. She frantically waved me away, and I realised that if I spoke to her, she could be the next victim. I walked back to the corpse, where one of the white paratroopers was taking a trophy picture. ‘What a fucking waste of time,’ I said to a mate of mine. ‘This whole place is sick and fucked up, including the doos taking the pictures, like he was on some game drive somewhere.’ I was hijacked in February 2000, and when the guy stuck a 9-mm pistol in my temple, he had the same look in his eye as the little boy.
– John, age 27
We were camped somewhere near Swartruggens. Our lieutenant, who was as effective as a chocolate fire engine, heard there was a weapon in the nearby township. He’d heard this from the black guy who managed his horses. There were 42 guys – only four were English and there was this one black guy. Even though he was regular army, he was treated very differently because he was black. One day we were the only two in camp, so I invited him to eat with me. When everyone was back on the Monday, I mentioned something about him being in camp eating with me, and I got it in the neck. ‘How could you let him eat here?’ All that kind of thing. I got punished and had to run and carry sandbags. Some of the guys refused to eat off the table the black guy had eaten at.
Next thing we hear someone has a gun in this local township. Whoop-de-doo. Our lieutenant decides that night we are all going to get on our horses and go out on patrol to find it. He asked for volunteers, and I thought, actually, y’know what? Hold on here, something could happen, and I’m not under orders to do this, so why should I go and do this just for the sake of it? I stood up and said I wasn’t going. I wasn’t going to volunteer to go and get killed. I thought, what am I going to gain? I could lose the rest of my life for something like this. As it happened, nothing happened. The guys came back. They hadn’t found anything, but they all thought they were heroes. I didn’t care; I was sleeping. A snuffel tiffie, quite an attractive girl, arrived shortly after this. We used to send in daily reports, and she’d obviously read those and picked up on this particular event. She was trying to find out if it was a real incident or if the lieutenant was just causing trouble. Tensions were high. Mandela’s release was imminent, and there we were, marching up and down past this little township for no reason. Maybe that’s why a day later we were shipped out.
– Martin, age 23
Lying in a ditch, I could see a crooked sign on which somebody had hand-painted: ‘The Road to Hell’. It hung from a rusted pole on the road between Thokoza and Kathlehong. Very appropriate. I got up and ran past a row of abandoned houses and mountains of rubbish and through sewage to get to the shacks beyond. My flak jacket was so heavy and kept sliding forwards, making it difficult to keep my R4 pointed in the direction of the houses. The officer in charge of the patrol and in front of me kicked a small dog with his boot. The dog howled and rolled away with a broken back leg. A former Angolan soldier behind me didn’t even look at the injured dog. He just stepped over it. It was October 1993 and the officers and NCOs in my Citizen Force Unit, 2 Parachute Battalion, were being called up to Katoerus, the collective name for Kathlehong, Thokoza and Vosloosrus on the East Rand. It was expected that the situation would get worse as the fighting between ANC and Inkatha supporters escalated in the period leading up to South Africa’s first democratic election. We were to be placed in the field with PF paratroopers from 1 Parachute Battalion, a dress rehearsal if the situation spiralled out of control around election time. When we arrived in Katoerus, our briefing was simple: keep the peace between the warring Inkatha and ANC militia, and learn from the troops who had been there for weeks trying to achieve this. Most of these troops were former members of 32 Battalion, the unit made up of Angolan soldiers who had fought on the side of the SADF.
We were out on patrol once, on foot, when we heard AKs firing and then the rattle of a machine gun. I shouted, ‘Fuck! They’ve got an LMG!’ Boutros corrected me: ‘RPD.’ He and I jokingly called each other Boutros and Boutros after the Secretary General of the UN. But it wasn’t funny: we were too lightly armed to take on a Russian 7,62mm RPD light machine gun. I so badly wanted to go home, away from the smoke, the AKs, the rubbish and the shit stuck to my boots. Home wasn’t even far … only 30 kilometres as the crow flies. But no. The next day we were checking vehicles. These two youths looked nervous when I examined their vehicle closely, but I was just impressed by their primitive engineering skills. They’d taken an old car, removed the roof and bodywork, fixed the engine, and were driving around Thokoza on a chassis they’d painted bright pink. I waved them on. Later that night, back at the base, a patrol arrived with the same two youths, their hands tied behind their backs and both bleeding from head wounds. A soldier drove their pink chassis into the base. I asked a corporal what had happened. They had found an RPD hidden on the chassis. I went cold. The vehicle was a gun platform for the light machine gun we had heard the night before. Boutros walked up to me and punched me on the back of the flack jacket. I felt the blow – there was no ceramic bulletproof plate in the jacket. I might as well have been wearing nothing. That night when we set off, I had a ceramic plate in my jacket: my curiosity in township engineering was gone.
– John, age 27
Changes Coming
In the SADF they always had these officers’ mess functions, where everyone dons their dress suits and has this big fancy dinner before klaaring out. I think my officer’s dinner was the 12th of December ’89. We were in full officer’s kit, pips, everything, and it was very, very formal, based on those old English traditions. After the starters there was port, which you had to pass with your left hand and pour with your right. You could only have a cigar after the main meal. This was based on the English tradition, where one could only light up after toasting the Queen. It was a very elaborate and formal ceremony – all that traditional stuff, port and cigars, coloured guys serving us – and everyone got very pissed. About half of the 120 officers were PF and the other half NDPs. It was a ‘thank you’, a ‘cheers lieuties, thank you for all you’ve done’ kinda thing. There were lots of elaborate stories: about how many muntus they’d killed and the action they’d seen on the Border. Colonel Ströebel stands up to give his end-of-year speech and address us. He began with ‘Manne …’ and then told us that South Africa as we knew it was going to change and we had better prepare ourselves. His speech was met with complete silence. I’ve never known such silence. PW had just resigned and FW had just been sworn in, and I reckon those colonels had been told, ‘Listen okes, you’d better get all your troops and things ready for the change.’ To put it in context: some of the senior guys had just got back from the Border, some of the guys would be remaining in the SADF and others would be on civvy street. This was about two months before the ANC was unbanned. No one had an inkling that was gonna happen. I tell you, it was pretty weird. I remember walking out of that room knowing that, ja, there were some major changes about to happen.
– Stof, age 25
After Mandela was released, the role of the navy changed. We embarked on more of a PR campaign, as if
to show taxpayers that their money was being put to positive use. We were also fortunate in that the navy did not have any stigma attached to it like the other branches of the Defence Force did. We were racially integrated long before any of them. Sometimes we went on fun trips, like to Knysna, but we knew we had to prove our capabilities to the public, like apprehending gill net fishers, stopping drug smugglers, etc. Once we were asked to help raise a plane from False Bay. The insurers wanted us to lift it from the sea floor without a scratch so they could examine it carefully. I think they had their suspicions that it had been ditched by the owner and pilot, because it had landed in shallow water and both men had waded ashore from the crash site. We had to put all our mattresses out on the deck so that when the plane was lifted and laid on board, there was no additional damage. It was very successful, and they found that there was no fault with the aircraft at all. It was a deliberate ditching. Another time we received a Mayday call from a yacht. This idiot had bought a yacht and decided to sail from Cape Town to Durban with two girls he was trying to impress. He had no Master’s Certificate and he thought he could simply motor all the way along the coast. He’d got into difficulty, and the yacht was drifting towards rocks. We couldn’t get in too close, because it was shallow, so the divers went over in a DSB to fetch them. The two girls jumped into the DSB immediately, but the owner was arguing with the divers, wanting to know what they were going to do about his boat! We did nothing, and it ran aground on the rocks. People do such stupid things at sea. The girls were absolutely livid, as this guy clearly had no idea what he was doing. They were freezing, ’cause they’d packed inadequate clothing and insufficient food and had been at sea for over a week. They were so angry at this guy. They got the captain’s cabin, while the guy moped in a corner and the girls shot him venomous looks for the two days it took to get them back to a harbour. We were very happy to have girls on board!
– Louis, age 17
I was a lieutenant in 1994 when compulsory National Service ended, and instead of the usual white troops, the intake consisted solely of black volunteers. Trying to instil any remote sense of discipline or make any attempt to discipline them in the manner in which we’d been disciplined was impossible. They’d gang up and say, ‘No.’ And you could do nothing about it. ‘You a racist,’ they would say, because most of the instructors were white. They just didn’t get it. If you wanted the floor polished – and part of the military training was to make them do it repeatedly until it was 100 percent – tough luck. They’d clean it once, and that was it. They were not going to listen to you and would just ignore you. There was a shortage of beds and trommels, and we had to send these black troops to fetch them. It took them an entire day to go and collect their beds and mattresses. When I did Basics, we had to get everything from the army stores. What we did in a couple of hours took them an entire day! Trying to get them back after mealtimes? Forget it! I felt extremely resentful. We were stuffed around, and now we could do nothing to bring them into line. The annoying part was that they were volunteers, so they could leave at any stage. For us, there was no such luck: it was compulsory, we had to be there and they knew it. They got free housing, free clothing and free food, and got paid, admittedly only about R300. So they’d sign up and they’d get issued with all the military gear – crockery, cutlery, three sets of overalls, browns, cap – and a week later they’d disappear. With all the kit! It was like the guys who came in on the last compulsory intake, July ’92. When word got out that this was the last intake, many of them just left! They just ducked. I mean, what was anyone going to do?
– Paul, age 18
Klaaring Out
When it came time to leave Berede, we had a problem. We were short of our stable kit, which meant we would have to pay a lot of money to replace the missing kit. It’s the first and last time I’ve ever stolen, but we wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the army unless we handed in everything. When the new guys came in, they were issued with full kit, so we went into their bungalows and ‘borrowed’ their kit and handed that in. I felt sorry for the very last intake. Whoever those last kids were … good luck to them.
– Martin, age 23
I will never forget my final parade on the day I klaared out. It was such a great, great day for me! Not for everyone, though. Some guys had extra days to do for going AWOL and things like that, and it must have been so kak for them to stay on. The Unit’s 2IC read out their names and the number of extra days that they had to stay in. We were dressed in our step-outs and we received our skietbalkies, which had come very late, and medals. There was no drilling or anything. We assembled on the road just off the parade ground and formed up into battalion formation and marched past the Battalion HQ. The parade ground at Phalaborwa was hot. It was so hot that day, the polish from boning our shoes was melting off. After the final ‘dismiss’, we threw our berets in the air. Just like in the movies. We were ou manne ! We had klaared out! Myself and three friends squashed into a tiny Fiat for the long drive back to Joburg. There was hardly room for us because of all the crates of beer we bought. We’d stopped at a bottle store in Nylstroom, where I was kakked on by a staunch Dutchman for wearing my beret backwards. I didn’t care and told him I had just klaared out. He said it didn’t matter, as I still owed the army 720 days for camps. But neither he, nor getting pulled over by a speed cop in Pietersburg, affected us for long. Now that was a funny incident. It was such a lengthy process when the speed cop asked my friend, who was the driver, for his name. The cop never did get the spelling right, and when he asked us where we were from and we told him, 7 SAI, and he asked us to spell that, we collapsed laughing. He got the moer in and told us, ‘You Joburg people must just go back to where yous comes from.’ We drove back with reggae music pumping, the sunroof removed, and us hanging out the roof singing Bob Marley songs. It was great. There is a point midway as you come over a rise between Pretoria and Joburg, where you can see the whole of the Joburg city skyline. That was awesome. When I was dropped at my house, my whole family came out when they heard the car door slam. My sisters were there and it is still the one time I can remember being closest to my family. I had my balsak over my left shoulder and I just walked into the swimming pool, down the steps and all the way to the deep end, in my step-outs and with my balsak still on my shoulder.
– Clint, age 18
I don’t remember much detail about klaaring out. I remember lying on my balsak at the terminal at Ondangwa airport. But I thought it might be difficult adjusting to life after the military. We came up with an idea, and I’m glad to say it was successful. The plan was for seven of us to meet up on the South Coast and just have a jol for ten days. We would rehab ourselves as a group. I mean, we were scared to even make eye contact with a girl, but as a group it was easier. If we hadn’t done that, we would have had inferiority complexes, so I think the plan worked. I am still pissed off that there was no help from the army to move back into civvy life. Such different worlds. Back there we were killing black people. They were the enemy. It was difficult seeing black people and not getting tense. We calmed one another down. ‘Chill out, dude, you’re not up there any more.’ Ja, we were down here now.
– Andy, age 18
The worst thing about getting out of the army was the fashion. There you were – no fashion sense, lekker short hair and a suntan in winter. Everyone was wearing baby pink T-shirts and Instinct pants with a lace-up front, and you’d never seen any of this stuff before!
– Anthony, age 18
I think it was American Gigolo. It was some cinema in Norwood, and I was with my mom. This guy – they were all white in those days – says I can’t go in: no under-21s! I think I felt more disbelief than anger. I mean, I’d been in Angola, burnt bodies, but I couldn’t see this movie! He said he was just doing his job and if he let me in, he could lose it. I said I understood and we just left, which I thought was very civil of me.
– Andy, age 18
I was really pissed off about who got the Pro Patria
medal and why. About a month after I had completed my National Service, I got a letter in the post saying I could attend a medal ceremony where they would pin the medal on my chest. Alternatively I could have it posted to me. I went for the postal option, because I was disgusted that some clown who had done nothing on the Border other than spend the minimum amount of days required to be eligible for a medal would be at the parade. The medal was awarded to anyone who had spent 55 days’ continuous service on the Border. What a fucking joke. It seemed ridiculous and unjust that someone who had spent the entire time drinking spook en diesel and gathering details about other people’s war stories so he could impress his buddies, and just clocking up the days, could qualify for the same medal. These were the type of guys who always went for the parade, so they could have the medal pinned on their self-inflated chests. I spent months in Angola and got the same medal. It didn’t seem fair. Was that it? Was that all there was?
– Chris, age 18
I had a massive shiny radio/tape player that I had bought in the SAWI store in Oshakati. It had a recording function and I used those C120 tapes. You know, those long motherfuckers with 60 minutes of recording time on each side. That night I had it in the dugout, in our ‘lounge’, which had mud and sandbag walls. We were partying and decided to record ourselves. We passed out just before SWAPO attacked. It pissed mortars all around us and we woke to that. You could hear the faraway whump as they were launched … So, many years later, I’m living in a flat in Hillbrow – this was back in the days when whites did live in Hillbrow – corner of Tudhope and O’Reilly Avenue, and I had recorded Pink Floyd’s The Wall double album onto the same cassette that this piss-up had been recorded on. I set it up and I’m listening to the album and fall asleep. As the album ends, the previous original recording on the cassette comes on. The room fills with the sounds of a mortar attack. I shat myself. Nothing sounds like a mortar attack: it’s such a distinctive sound. It’s the middle of the night and I wake up to the sounds of this SWAPO mortar attack on the Border, now playing in my Hillbrow flat.