by Bob Mayer
Back then, though, in an even more shrewd move, South Africa had lined up with Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA against the communists in the MPLA government, who were supported by Cuban troops. This alignment left SWAPO out in the cold.
Then, just a few years back, everything had changed once again. With Mandela in power in South Africa, the policy shifted and now the MPLA government was in favor with both Pretoria and the international community. Even the Americans, who in their blinded anti-red vision had supported Savimbi against the MPLA and the Cubans, had shifted and now endorsed the elected MPLA government.
The cease-fire of ‘95 had brought hope that the long civil war would be over. Mandela had staked much of his international reputation on bringing Savimbi into the fold, and when Savimbi had broken his word and taken to the bush again the previous year, Nystroom had felt it would only be a matter of time before Mandela did something about the betrayal. Black or white, the leaders in Pretoria seemed to respond the same.
In Namibia, SWAPO, after decades in the desert, was brought into the fold and now SWAPO guerrillas sat in the desert next to their former enemies in the South African Defense Force. There were also troops representing other former enemies of South Africa present in the Pan-African Force (PAF): soldiers from Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), Mozambique, Tanzania, Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal, and smaller contingents from several other countries.
Namibia, now technically independent, was still heavily dependent on South Africa for everything. SWAPO had some representatives in the government in Windhoek, but there wasn’t much in Namibia to govern. The largest industry was diamond mining, and that was in private hands. There was talk among some of the right-wingers in South Africa of creating a white homeland by carving a chunk of land out of Namibia, and Nystroom wasn’t too sure whether Mandela would or would not let that happen if the right-wingers tried. So even though he was oriented northward, Nystroom still had to keep an eye looking over his shoulder to the south.
Nystroom knew the entire operation was a gamble politically. He felt confident that the PAF and Americans would defeat Savimbi’s UNITA rebels. The question was what would happen then? Would the country unite? Would it disintegrate into tribal warfare like Rwanda had? Could they hold on to the victory or would the pictures of dead and wounded cause the public to cry out for the troops to come home and give up what they had won? There was a good chance the Americans would leave, Nystroom felt. This was not their continent or their fight. But it was his.
Angola was to be the first test of a new African consciousness, a consciousness Mandela had forced upon the other heads of state on the continent because of the apathy of the outside world. The help of the Americans was necessary both militarily and politically, but the bottom line was that it was the PAF that was going to be left on the ground after the Americans withdrew.
Nystroom ran a hand through his thick beard. He looked more like a friendly grandfather—which he was—than a thirty-year soldier. He had a large belly and sharp blue eyes peering above the white of his beard. His portly presence tended to make others think less of his mental abilities, as if there were some correlation between weight and brainpower. But Nystroom was still in uniform and in command where the vast majority of his contemporaries had been sucked under by the sands of time and political change.
Nystroom considered himself a professional soldier first and foremost, and he had read the great writers of military strategy such as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. He knew there were factors other than pure military operations and political maneuvering involved here, of course. Mandela was not just concerned about the politics of nation building in Africa. There was the threat that the entire region could destabilize if all these civil wars were allowed to rage unchecked. Borders were lines drawn on maps. In Africa many of those lines had been drawn by the colonizing powers with little regard for tribal, geographic, or economic factors. The result was that civil wars in Africa often spilled over such borders. There was most definitely a self-preservation drive in Pretoria to keep such a war from coming south by going north first with peacemaking efforts.
Economics added into it also, Nystroom knew. That was an area that was very sensitive and one he tried to steer clear of. There were shadowy forces at work both in Pretoria and out here in the PAF, all involved in complex maneuvering. There were oil and diamonds in Angola, as there were diamonds here in Namibia. The right-wingers were just one of several factions with interests in this part of the world.
The South African government had publicly maintained for decades that its involvement in Namibia was for protection against incursions by terrorists and guerrillas, but what had not been so public was the vast amount of capital that was flowing out of the diamond mines in the southwest portion of the country. There were over a thousand square miles of coastal area near Luderitz that were a restricted area and highly policed with private armies—the backbone of the Van Wyks diamond empire. No one outside of the Van Wyks inner circle knew how many diamonds came out of that land, since the Van Wyks Corporation controlled over 80 percent of all diamond sales on the planet.
There was little doubt in General Nystroom’s mind that Pieter Van Wyks, the elder statesman of the family, had given more than a little nudge in support of this operation to stop the black market trade in diamonds by UNITA rebels and to try to bring the mines in Angola under his cartel’s control. How strong that push was, Nystroom preferred not to know.
He knew that the officer corps of the SADF under his command was riddled with men drawing more money from Van Wyks under the table than in their paychecks from Pretoria. Nystroom would prefer not to have to find out where their loyalties really lay. When Mandela had come to power, the country had held its breath, waiting to see which way the military would turn, which in reality meant which way Pieter Van Wyks ordered those he controlled to act. It was something of a surprise that Van Wyks had discreetly let it be known that the peaceful transition was to be supported.
Nystroom and many others did not know what to make of that. Perhaps there was some secret deal between Van Wyks and Mandela. Or perhaps Van Wyks had other plans. Whichever it was, Nystroom was not going to worry about what he did not control and did not know.
Nystroom grabbed the rim of the hatch and lowered himself down. He had enough to concern himself with simply keeping the military coalition together. It was the politicians’ job to worry about the other aspects. While the SADF had fought in the area for many years, this was by far the largest deployment of force ever made in this direction. The desolate terrain of Namibia and the Kalahari Desert to the east in Botswana were very effective natural defenses for the homeland, and the SADF had always oriented the bulk of its forces to the east and south.
Nystroom looked at the bank of radios that took up most of the room inside the carrier. They were his link not only with his forces here, but with his higher headquarters over a thousand miles to the south, in the underground communications complex at Silvermine near Cape Town, and the American commanders to the north, already on the ground in Angola. Nystroom had several American liaison officers assigned to his staff, and he had sent several of his men north to work there in coordinating actions.
The report of the downing of the MI-8 helicopter had cheered Nystroom. It meant the Americans were here to do business. At least their military was, he amended. He just hoped that the politicians kept their hands out of the action that was coming, or else they could end up with another fiasco like Desert Storm had turned out to be: a military victory cut short of achieving the strategic goal. While Nystroom tried to keep his own hands out of political affairs, he wished politicians would reciprocate and keep their nose out of the military’s once the die was cast.
Nystroom settled onto a stool and looked at the map of Angola. So much was going to happen in the next several weeks. The operations plan for the PAF movement into southern Angola was over three hundred pages long. And from his long military experience, Nystroom knew there was one truism he could count on:
Something they had not planned for would develop and have to be dealt with.
Airspace, Southeast Atlantic, 13 June
They had refueled in Cape Verde and were on the final leg of their long journey. Not only did they have to travel across the Adantic, but they also had to go from northern hemisphere to southern.
Riley walked along the thin pathway between soldiers and pallets. Men were spread out everywhere, huddled under poncho liners, trying to get a few hours of sleep before they arrived in Angola. He found Comsky snug as a bear in his cave in the slight space afforded between two pallets of duffel bags. Even above the roar of the jet engines, Comsky’s snores could be clearly heard.
“Hey. Hey,” Riley said, nudging the sergeant on the shoulder.
“What?” Comsky muttered, not bothering to remove the poncho liner over his face.
“It’s me, Dave.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Stop dicking around,” Riley said.
Comsky slid the liner down and sat up. “So you decided to come along anyway. Didn’t you get enough of this shit when you were active duty?”
“The pay’s better on this side,” Riley said.
“Really? They need a medic at SNN?”
“You know a good one?” Riley asked as he squeezed into the hole and sat next to Comsky.
“Very funny,” Comsky said.
“You still work under the proven medical theory that you’re only sick if you’re bleeding?” Riley asked. It had been a standing joke on the team they had both been on.
The smile left Comsky’s face. “Not on this trip. You got all your shots?”
Riley pulled out a yellow card from his pocket and handed it to his former teammate.
Comsky read down. “Yellow fever, anthrax, botulism, Q fever, tularemia. Yeah, they gave you the works. Have you had your hepadds series?”
“Yes.”
“Then they’ve given you everything they could give you.”
“You worried about something?” Riley asked.
“Every time I go to Africa, I get worried. Man, we’re just south of the Kinshasa highway. Know what they call that? The AIDS highway. And there’s no inoculation for that particular bug.”
“I’ll keep my dick in my pants,” Riley said.
“Yeah, well you’d also better watch whose sucking chest wound you try to bandage up, too, if there’s blood all over the place. And AIDS is a level three bio-agent. They’ve got shit over there that would make you wish you had AIDS.”
The first sentence brought to Riley’s mind the flight out of China years ago with Comsky desperately trying to stop both the air and the blood from flowing out of a wound in Riley’s torso. He rubbed a hand across the scars knotted on his chest. “I owe you.”
“It was my job. Still is. Besides, you were bleeding, so I knew you were really hurt, not like some of these wimps that are always complaining about something or other bothering them.”
“What else are you worried about, besides little bugs?” Riley asked.
Comsky wasn’t done with his warnings. He wouldn’t be a good medic if he stopped here. “Don’t drink the water if I or another medic haven’t specifically cleared it for consumption. And don’t eat any local meat. Anything that might have blood in it, human or animal, stay away from. Stay with MREs the entire time.”
Comsky shook his head. “First time I deployed to Africa I thought I knew my stuff. Hell, I’d been to the Far East and South America and seen some bad things. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening. I got told, but I didn’t quite believe it. It was a year and a half ago. I went to Liberia on a MEDCAP.”
Riley knew a MEDCAP was a peaceful mission where Special Forces medics worked with aid agencies on health problems in the country they were deployed to. It was SF’s way of waging peace.
“We went in there with big hearts,” Comsky said. “You know, save the children and all that. And we did save a whole bunch of people. But after a while, man, you just can’t take it anymore. Don’t shake hands.” Comsky didn’t smile at the sudden change in his speech. “I’m serious, Dave. You get to the point after watching all your buddies get the cruds that you don’t even want to shake hands anymore and catch something from that. I triple-gloved every time I had to give a shot or work around blood.
“It’s a fucking mess. And the people, I hate to say it, but they’re used to it. A lot of them don’t give a fuck. You teach them proper sanitation one day and walk down by the river the next and there they are letting their animals take dumps and urinate in the river while they’re drawing water to drink not ten feet away.”
Riley was quiet. He’d never seen Comsky so animated and emotional. That MEDCAP must have been a traumatic experience. It was one aspect of all these missions that the media hadn’t caught on to yet—the emotional toll on the peacekeepers who had to live among the death and dying that the rest of the folks back in the states got in thirty-second clips every night on the news. It was something he wanted to impress upon Conner. When they got on the ground, he needed to have her interview Comsky. Of course, they’d have to clean up his language and some of his slant. Riley had been around Washington and Atlanta enough to know what was politically acceptable and what wasn’t.
“I tell you,” Comsky continued, “it’s a damn mess. I can blame some of the adults, they should know better—at least after we teach them, they should—and choose not to, but it’s the kids that get to me. They didn’t ask to be there. And they’re the ones that get it worst. You know how many amputations from mines I had to do? Kids out playing and they blow themselves up? You know how many millions of mines are out there all over the world, just waiting to get tripped? Hell, I could go to work in any emergency room in the United States with my experience.” He lapsed into silence and Riley let it ride for a little while before pushing on.
“How do you feel about this mission? You shouldn’t have much contact with the natives.”
Comsky sighed. “Ah, I don’t know, Dave. Captain Dorrick’s been kissing everyone’s ass who outranks him. Lome just joined the team about three weeks before this mission. He was in training group with the Camp Mackall survival committee before this. He’s got a good rep but we don’t know him. We don’t have a warrant officer and our top two guys are question marks. Doesn’t it give you a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside, especially when you’re getting ready to go on a live mission?
“The recon mission looks pretty simple on the surface, but you and I know that simple on the surface gets pretty deep if you break through the ice,” Comsky continued.
“You’ll have air superiority,” Riley noted.
“Yeah,” Comsky said without much enthusiasm.
Riley waited, but there wasn’t any more forthcoming. “Listen, Ski, I haven’t had a lobotomy. That briefback was a bunch of bullshit. There was no mission there. You’re just going in to look at what specifically? And what are you going to do about what you’re looking at?”
Comsky looked at him. “Between you and me? No forwarding this info to the news lady?”
“You got my word.”
“Okay, the big thing is the first two days of this operation. These UNITA guys got armor and artillery. They have some air assets. Hell, they control a good portion of the country. We’re going in to put them on their knees before the infantry guys come in to do the cleanup.”
That confirmed what Riley had read in the classified operations plan that a friend of his had allowed him a brief look at. He had not told Conner what he knew because that would be violating the trust his friend had put in him. He had read it in order to be prepared for whatever might be coming. “The air force sold a bill of goods on this one, didn’t they? They’re still thinking Desert Storm and smart bombing.”
“I hope it’s a real bill of goods,” Comsky said, “because our butts are going to be hanging in the wind.”
“They can’t be totally counting on knocking out all that equipment from the air,” Riley said.
“Well,
actually, Dave, I think they do believe they can do it. You and I know better, but the people up in the big house—well, it’s a lot nicer to bomb from ten thousand feet than to have to send in the poor bloody infantry to dig the bastards out at the tip of a bayonet. But that’s the way it’s going to end up. We just hope the flyboys take out all the major stuff and break down the rebels’ infrastructure so the Eighty-second can take them down piecemeal.”
“And if some of the rebels’ armor survives?” Riley asked.
“You know that the Eighty-second with air assets from the Eigteenth Airborne Corps is doing the majority of the groundwork, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What you don’t know is that they got elements of the Twenty-fourth Infantry on a ro-ro off the coast with the carrier task force.”
Riley knew what a ro-ro was—a roll on, roll off cargo ship, capable of rapidly landing armor. And the 24th Infantry out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, was mechanized. “Bradleys?” he asked, referring to the army’s top-of-the-line armored personnel carrier.
“A mechanized battalion—two companies of Bradleys and one company of Abrams tanks.” Comsky shrugged. “It’s a nice thought— I guess the secdef doesn’t want to catch any shit after the stink about ignoring the armor request from Mogadishu. But the terrain isn’t favorable for cross-country movement to our AO. Maybe if they get into a firefight in Luanda, which ain’t likely.” He chuckled. “Maybe they could airdrop one of those Bradleys in our AO.
“What does make me feel good, though, is that they got a Ranger task force on the Abraham Lincoln. That’s real hush-hush, but they told us on the teams that in response to the overall feeling that our dicks were going to be hanging out in the wind until the Eighty-second landed. If the rebels get together in more than squad size, we could be in deep shit, but knowing those Rangers can fast-rope in makes it a bit better.”