Singing

Knew a lady dressed in red
Made her living in her bed

Knew a lady dressed in black
Made her living on her back

Of all the songs we sang while running in a bus, this is the only one I really remember. Strange that. Oh, and there’s a corny one that Richard Savage wrote about
Bossiespruit, still have it written down somewhere.

Bossiespruit is where we train
In the heat and in the rain…..

About the only time we seemed to sing was running in the bus on the way to the parade ground, away from the parade ground or just to prove to the fucking corporal that fucking us around wasn’t really working. Other people marched. We ran. And sang. And when the singing stopped someone would start stamping their right boot to keep the rhythm going. Other than that, there were some soutpiele who sang in the kaserne to amuse themselves and piss others off. And of course the strangled hymns at the daily kerkparade during basics. But church parade is a blog in itself.

Guard Duty

I googled guard duty today to find a suitable picture for my blog. Shit, they do try to make guard duty look like a noble duty don’t they?

Remember we were in the middle of a war. Expected insurgents in red t-shirts were going to overrun every base every night so everyone had to be paraat! (I’m not sure if there’s a suitable English word for paraat). To make sure that that guard duty is done right, procedures were instigated, and troepe were trained for all possible incidents.

Danie may be able to help me (he still has all his notes from basics), but here are the procedures to be followed when you’re on guard duty and you see someone infiltrate the base;
1. Shout. Loudly. “Who goes there?”
2. If no response, shout “Halt, or I will shoot!”
3. If still no response, take rifle magazine from pouch.
4. Tell insurgent. Loudly. “Please wait a bit!”
5. Find in one of your 20 pockets the three (yes, three!) rounds issued to you.
6. With teeth, try and tear off shrink wrapped plastic.
7. Put rifle down carefully, load three rounds into magazine.
8. Pick up rifle.
9. Put magazine into rifle.
10.Shout. Loudly “Thank you for waiting! Halt, or I’ll shoot”
11.Load round into chamber. Shout. Loudly. “Halt, or I’ll shoot”
12.In the likely event that the insurgent has pissed off by this stage, prepare for a bollocking by the sergeant on duty for tearing the plastic covering on your three rounds.