I Am Soldier of Fortune

by Brown, Robert, Spencer, Vann

  I figured we needed a sizable presence during the elections since all of our contacts and sources warned that after the elections the whole country would go up in flames. If the inevitable occurred, we knew that no stuffy Rhodesian bureaucrat would be in any position to prevent us from linking up with a unit not choosy about where a few extra guns came from. Former U.S. Army Major Darrell Winkler, commander of the elite Rhodesian Armored Car Regiment, a rugged, fearless and seasoned Vietnam vet and warrior, had come to Rhodesia a couple years earlier. I had heard about him through the merc underground in the United States and met up with him on previous trips to Rhodesia. His story was typical of those Vietnam vets who came back after the war disillusioned with the U.S. Army, and for a time floundered around, searching for somewhere to fit in.

  “I was in New York and I met a Rhodesian,” Winkler said. “He asked me if I wanted to go to Africa and fight for Rhodesia. I said, ‘not really.’ I had spent two and a half years in Vietnam, first with the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRPs) until my unit changed to the 75th Rangers. We spent most of the time in the Mekong Delta. I was injured three times.

  “But after the war ended and I came back, the Army had changed, so I decided to get out and find some law enforcement job. That is when I ran into the Rhodesian. Anyhow, he gave me a number to call in London. I did out of curiosity. They were looking for officers with mechanized or armor background. I was in an armor unit in Germany, so I fit the bill.

  “‘Come to Salisbury,’ they told me, ‘just for a visit. If you go to Toronto there will be a ticket waiting for you.’ So I went and they offered me a position as commander in the armored car regiment.”

  I had met Winkler in ‘78 in Rhodesia while researching an article on the Rhodesian armor regiment. He made it a point that he was actually a member of the Rhodesian Army and that he was a Foreign Volunteer, not a merc. He and other volunteers from France, Belgium, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand received the identical salary and benefits as the regular Rhodesian soldier.

  SOF, MERCS AND THE RHODESIAN AFRICAN RIFLES REGIMENT

  The first priority when we got to Rhodesia was to link up with Winkler, since we felt he would be in the best position to conceal our presence from the Rhodesian Combined Ops which had prevented me from accompanying any Rhodesian unit on combat ops. This proved to be the case, even though Winkler had been transferred to the Rhodesian African Rifles.

  After joining Winkler, we contacted an old Rhodesian friend who just happened to be a quartermaster of a large unit. We traded Johnny Walker Black and SOF t-shirts for Rhodesian cammies and kit. The next morning we were on our way.

  Winkler took us in to meet up with O’Brien and Reb, the MAG machine gunner, who we had not met before, in Salisbury on a Monday morning just before the elections. I had brought SOFers Art Director Craig Nunn, Associate Editor N.E. MacDougald, and Tom Wilkenson. We hooked up with Yves Debay, a French Foreign Legion veteran from Belgium and “the Mechanic,” the only white Rhodesian. The remaining members of the 14-member outfit were all black troopers of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR).

  British merc Jerry O’Brien was one of the regiment members who had come to Rhodesia the previous year. Around 5’8”, he was muscular, with strong, full features, cautious smoky blue eyes always on guard, and a loud contagious laugh to match his keen sense of humor. After completing his five-and-a-half-year tour in the Legion, serving his time in Corsica and Djibouti, he wanted to kick some butt, see some combat. So he and a Legionnaire friend hatched a plan to go find some action in Rhodesia. Jerry tried to join up with the RLI (the Incredibles), a regiment of professionals including many RAR foreigners, but they rejected him. “All I could figure was that they didn’t want former Legionnaires,” Jerry said.

  Acting on a lead from the local who was driving them around in search of a regiment, the two met up with Winkler and joined his Armored Car Regiment. Later they followed him to the Rhodesian African Rifles.

  Meanwhile, back in the States, another American—frustrated crusader Michael Pierce, aka “Reb”—had been hell bent on joining some military and fighting some commies somewhere. He had not had a chance to fight the evil empire as an American soldier. He was sharp, nimble, good looking, and full of piss and vinegar. He looked like a musician, and he was, but he was there on a mission that was hatched after he read an article in SOF.

  “I was playing and writing music in Hollywood. The Yankee Army had turned me down (according to them, blind in my left eye). I had pulled off some pretty cool stuff in LA and developed delusions of grandeur, de-ciding I could take some time off and go fight for people whom I thought were worth fighting for. I traded my guitar for a light machine gun,” Pierce told me.

  After reading an article in SOF, titled “The Black Devils of the Rhodesian Armored Car Regiment” in January 1979, Reb imagined that he heard the Black Devils calling him. He wrote to a Rhodesian Army recruiter who told him to get lost because he had no combat experience. Undaunted, Reb sold his belongings and bought a one-way ticket to Rhodesia. Just as Jerry had interpreted the rejection letter he had received from the recruiters in London as a “get your ass down there” invitation, Reb interpreted the negative response his own way, as “come on over.”

  As soon as Reb landed in Salisbury, he made inquiries about the American commander he had heard about, figuring he could not turn a fellow American down. The merc underground network was very active in the United States. He tracked down Major Winkler.

  “I gave Reb five minutes to convince me that I should accept him into my regiment. Whatever the dogged ‘I won’t take no for an answer’ Rebel told me, which I cannot even remember, it worked,” Winkler said.

  For the next year, the two Brit former Legionnaires and the two Americans, one a seasoned veteran and one a volunteer, fought terrorists together in the ferocious Bush War in Winkler’s Armored Car Regiment.

  The members of the regiment filled us in, trying to make sense of the impending disaster.

  The West, they told us, in all its witless glory, in a pattern of familiar missteps that conjured up memories of the murderous Pol Pot in Cambodia, had sided with Robert Mugabe and his terrorists, never mind their brutal, vicious tactics.

  “The terrorists were relaxed in comfortable assembly areas tended by the commonwealth monitoring force, and were fed and supplied by the British and American governments. Thousands more roamed the countryside, intimidating the local populace and laying the groundwork for an overwhelming political victory,” Reb said.

  “We even did a raid into Mozambique to take out a terrorist base camp. Terrorists were coming in from Mozambique and Zambia. Mugabe’s terror campaign was communist-backed. A lot of Cuban fighters were with him,” Jerry said.

  “The country was about to crash, I was still in the Armored Car Regiment with Winkler.” When he got seconded to the RAR demonstration company, he planned to train them to take out Camp Romeo, one of the camps where all the terrorists were going to turn in their weapons. Winkler took me, Reb and the Belgian, Yves Debay, with him. But although we trained to take out the camp, they never did and I still don’t know why,” Jerry said.

  “We weren’t told why Winkler was seconded to the RAR, but it was very obvious the government didn’t want an American in command of the most powerful regiment in the army at a delicate time politically,” Pierce added.

  Anyhow, here we were with the British merc, the two Americans and the well-known Belgian war correspondent Debay.

  “The war has to end somewhere. That kind of guerrilla warfare could not go on forever, and I heard that Ian Smith could no longer afford to continue the war with the United States and United Kingdom imposing sanctions. All the terrorists from the Mugabe and Nkomo camps were going to come in to rendezvous points and hand in their weapons. The British Army would monitor the elections. What the Rhodesians decided to do if Nkomo won was to deal with him, since he was sensible. If Mugabe, a nutter, won, they were going to storm the government bui
ldings and take out the rendezvous points where the terrorists were hiding their weapons,” Jerry said.

  Rumor had it that the terror chief Mugabe was going to steal the upcoming elections. We were warned that Mugabe and his savage followers were going to win no matter how much violence and mayhem would occur. The terrorist attacks against the white Rhodesians were escalating as they gained confidence, with the backing of both sides in the Cold War, East and West.

  Together, our unconventional group ran into terrorists in what was the Regiment’s umpteenth firefight and SOF’s first and last firefight in Rhodesia.

  We were piled up in two cars and headed to the RAR to patrol with the regiment. A few days passed, and then one day when we were out on patrol we saw smoke from a campfire. Winkler split us up. Reb, O’Brien, Craig Nunn and I went with him. N.E. MacDougal had gone on a patrol with someone else.

  The Demo Company had been assigned a task for the anticipated election punch-up. They were to make an assault crossing over a river, and together with Tenth Battalion, Rhodesian Rifles, take out Assembly Point Foxtrot. A last minute re-evaluation of pre-election security priorities prompted a hurried transfer of our company from the Sanyati Tribal Trust Lands (TTL) to the Que Que Silobella area.

  Screw the disapproving politically correct, publicity shy senior army officials with cameras and weaponry—we were all geared up for action. That night the major hosted a get together for the officers, senior NCOs and SOFers.

  We were showing off our high quality equipment and webbing. The kit and equipment—starved European members of the regiment lusted after the lightweight American assault rifles.

  “The Africans viewed them as interesting novelties, preferring the aging

  but lethal FN FAL,” Reb recalled.

  We were in one of the Tribal Trust Lands, Silobela, which contained about 70 or so terrs. After about 12 to 14 clicks from the base camp, security was posted around the seven-fives and last-minute instructions were quickly given. Drivers were given pick-up points, time frames were checked, and off we were.

  Just before the firefight we awoke as the sun came up. We loaded the seven-fives armored vehicles and rode to the operations area. The machine gunner, Reb, informed us that Winkler had found terrs on more than 70 percent of his operations. This looked real promising.

  “When we deployed there the cops told us there would be no terror activity for a number of months. But the major said he smelled gooks (terrs). I tended to believe the major, whose instincts were good,” Reb said.

  In silence, we neared one of the branches of the Gwelo River, heading southwest. In each village the RAR sergeant questioned the locals about the terrs. They told us where the terrs camped overnight. Winkler decided to split the group of 14. His section would delay and head straight for the terr camp. We were to cut a big arc behind and set up an ambush.

  A little over two kilometers from the branch of the Gwelo, the Damba River dip, we were to intercept with the terrs. As soon as we hit the village, we realized that the terrs were already there, judging by the look of fear in the villagers’ eyes. They had been intimidated by the terrs the past November. Another five kilometers after crossing the Totololo River, we heard the contact about one klick north of us. Craig Nunn and O’Brien went right flank, walking through an empty village, and Winkler and Reb and I went forward and the others went to the left.

  Craig Nunn and O’Brien went right flank, walking through an empty village, and Winkler and Reb and I went forward and the others went to the left.

  “It’s the terrorists, we have contact with the terrs,” I shouted and began shooting. Craig and O’Brien came in from the right. O’Brien fired two rifle grenades. A terr shot a grenade at us that went off right behind us.

  Reb sprayed a short burst with his MAG 58, then rifle grenades; AK-47s and the Remington 870 shotgun Craig was carrying burst fire. We ran about 700 meters up to a tree line. Debay wanted to charge into the contact, but we had no radio and the major could not know from which direction we were coming. Friendly fire is not what we came to Rhodesia for.

  As Reb recalled, “We got out in the bush looking for trouble and walked and walked (as always). At 1500 hours my own instincts kicked in and I sprayed the bush with my MAG just across a minor stream. Two rifle grenades came flying back at us. I went prone and fired again, watching a tracer ricochet back at me, seeming to come right at me. I knew the physics of it—it couldn’t hit me; but for a few seconds I was hypnotized.

  “I looked to my left and Brown was standing up firing a Ruger Mini-14 with one hand and snapping pics with the other. In the background I heard the loud bang of a shotgun, which was coming from Craig Nunn’s Remington 870, who was with our other team blasting away—not sure what at,” Reb recalled.

  “I fired another burst and then my MAG jammed. I couldn’t clear it, so I reached for my pistol and it was gone. The cheap shit Rhodie holster had torn off my belt when the scrap started. Luckily for me, the bad guys gapped it and ultimately ran into our stop group, where they were taken prisoner. The Rhodesian Army worked close to the bone,” Reb said.

  “The Rhodies were broke. We ate 1939 British rations, and our weap -ons, while adequate, had been around. The AK I used for a while still had blood stains on it, which I didn’t really mind, in an Apache sort of way. I was annoyed with the mercs’ equipment failures. Brown has brass balls. That was real ordnance flying at us that day and you’d have never known it by his reaction,” Reb said.

  WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? I’M NOT EVEN GETTING COMBAT PAY

  The way I recall it, a few kilometers out from the base we prepped our weapons and started watching the bush. We were told that the Rhodesian armored vehicles we were convoying in were mine-proof except from the larger Soviet tank mines, so we were not to worry about moving through mine fields.

  As the first AK rounds cracked overhead, I come to a micro-second conclusion: corn stubble makes lousy cover. I peered through, around and over the stalks. Looking for a target, preferably one of the terrorists who were trying to ventilate me.

  Reb, on my right, triggers short bursts on his MAG light machine gun. Where are the bastards? Will they fight? Or will they shoot and run as usual? Blam! Blam! Two terr rifle grenades explode on a line 10 meters to the right of the MAG. Right range, wrong windage. A hell of a way to shuck corn. Major Winkler yells out above the fire, “Cover us. We’ll move up on their flank.”

  Winkler and I are on our feet, green and brown Rhodesian camouflage uniforms patched with sweat. . . Ruger Mini-i4s bucking . . . sprinting . . . to where? Nothing but more damned corn stalks . . . might as well hit the dirt here . . . breathing hard . . . providing covering fire as Reb moves his MAG another 30 meters . . . rest of the stick to the right of the MAG also on the money . . . on the double, bent over . . . jerking heads left and right . . . searching . . . firing into ant hills, bushes, trees.

  The MAG jams . . . I run over to the gunner. . . can’t eliminate the malfunction . . . well, no incoming.

  On our feet now, sweeping forward line . . . searching for spoor . . . (movement. . . reflection from an AK 10 to 15 meters apart. . . no incoming fire . . . then, blam! A terr rifle grenade explodes 10 meters directly to my rear.

  This time the terr windage was right on but the range was 10 meters off. It’s probably just as well they didn’t try a third time. I remember thinking, what the hell am I doing here? I’m not even getting combat pay!

  We obtained fire superiority and they ran. We radioed to the other patrol and they captured three of them, who dropped their weapons. The three were handed over to the police and the next day they won the elections. Taking out the rendezvous point never happened because the British Army was there.

  IT HITS HOME: THE TERRORIST MUGABE HAD STOLEN THE ELECTIONS

  That evening, we partied with Demo Company. Reb was checking out my weapons and we were getting well into our cups, which was probably good because it numbed the news that blared over the radio that the thug c
ommunist-backed Mugabe had been elected as prime minister.

  Winkler issued all the ammunition and grenades his team could carry and they eagerly awaited the order to march on Salisbury. Rumor had it that General Walls, commander of the Rhodesian Army from 1977, had sold out. (Suspicions were especially raised when Mugabe appointed him in 1980 to oversee the transition from white to majority rule. But Mugabe later accused Walls of planning to assassinate him while he commanded the Rhodesian Army.)

  As Reb recalled, “On the way to Salisbury we stopped at Que Que South African Police station. The Major, Jerry and I did anti-riot duty in Que Que. We patrolled the streets with evil in our hearts, then planned the great escape.” It hit home that Mugabe and the terrs that escaped from the firefight had won. In Salisbury, we heard rumors—plans to burn the city. That is when we heard of a hit list Mugabe’s people had of military and civilians; that included all SOFmembers.”

  We had previously reconned the Rhodesian Art Museum, intending to liberate the more prestigious pieces of art when the city started to burn. The problem was that none of us were art experts. The only name I was familiar with was Picasso’s name on some drawings.

  According to some, the whites and even many of the blacks were to join up in a massive column and fight their way to Beit Bridge on the South African border, where they would be welcomed by South Africa.

  But all the carefully laid plans to take the country back went nowhere. Instead, the Salisbury streets were bloodied as Mugabe supporters swarmed the streets, stoning and beating anyone who had opposed him. A Special Branch guy came and warned the Major that he was on a “war crimes” list because he’d killed a lot of gooks.

  We all hung out at O’Brien’s apartment for a couple of weeks, figuring that staying in a hotel would be a bit risky considering that we were on Mugabe’s hit list. Meantime, Winkler discharged O’Brien and Reb. O’Brien is currently working security in London and spending what he saves in between gigs on his next adventure. Still going strong, he regularly meets up with his former Legionnaire buddies in Corsica at the annual FFL reunion. He and Reb, back in the United States are still in touch and he visits Win-kler in the States often.