Never Forget

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow  

Between the crosses row on row,  

That mark our place; and in the sky  

The larks, still bravely singing, fly  

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago  

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,  

Loved and were loved, and now we lie  

In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:  

To you from failing hands we throw  

The torch; be yours to hold it high.  

If ye break faith with us who die  

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  

In Flanders fields. 

My war ended in 1989. It wasn't a "Great War". There are no monuments to celebrate its dead. It's a  quarter of a century later and only now are people are starting to write personal accounts about their experiences.  Poppy day is my day for remembering my friends.

2 Veld - early 1986

At Kroonstad and Bethlehem there wasn't much distinction made between junior officers. A one pip didn't salute a two pip, and everyone was on first name terms. I thought it was like that everywhere until a bokkop lieutenant walked into the duty room one morning and gave me a parade ground salute. Surprised the hell out  of me.

But I digress.Sort of. I'd just spent 3 weeks on holiday (I stretched it a bit with public holidays, and Major JJ van der Merwe being nice to me), and had arrived back in camp at about one in the morning. Just in time for about 3 hours of sleep. The place was swarming with new guys who had just gone through leadership training at Kroonstad. They must've arrived while I was on leave. Even worse, when I arrived in the mess for lunch they had taken over my favourite table. One of them, a young blonde haired pseudo-surfer whom I hadn't met yet, piped up at me over lunch "Hey Phil, while you were on leave I stood in for you at guard duty, it's your turn tonight!"  My first response was the standard "Fok U, luitenant". I think it's the only time I ever pulled rank on someone. But for some reason it really pissed me off.

I didn't make too many friends from that intake...

Google earth image of 2 Field Engineer Regiment

Remembrance Day - 11 November

HERE DEAD WE LIE

Here dead we lie 

Because we did not choose 

To live and shame the land 

From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,  

Is nothing much to lose, 

But young men think it is, 

And we were young.

A E Housman

The graves at El Alamein..

Bossiespruit se Bloubos

Bossiespruit is where we train

In the heat and in the rain..

Blou Bos. Its very simple really. 25kg. 10km. 1 hour. If all of you make it, you don't get fucked up. If you didn't? Day became night. Bossiespruit was like that. Black or White. You made it. Or you didn't. Most of the time they fucked you up.

The instructors knew to the last second how long it took a fit person to get anywhere at Bossiespruit. And they gave you one second less than that. So you ran like hell. And when you didn't make it, they fucked you up some more.

Blou Bos was the yardstick. It measured everything. If you were fit enough. If you mind was right. If you helped your buddies. If you could ignore the taunting of the instructors.

We were sitting in the menasie just after lunch doing a course on the rules of driving military vehicles. I still remember rooimoer talking about how long you have your indicator going before you change lanes. And whether dogs tend to change their minds halfway across a road. And then his voice tailed off, and he stared aimlessly outside.

Fullkitgeweerbakstenetreeandrieminutefokkenbloubos! Mad scramble for kit and geweer. Treen aan. Not enough time to fix everything tightly so your sleeping bag is hanging lopsided over your neck. Fuckity fuck, you'll just have to run like that. "Julle vier? Daai fokken tyre? Kry vir julle!" So it's fullkit geweer and tyre today... Fokkoffdaagaatdjulle!

The first time we did bloubos the last guys came in 6 minutes too late. The retraining stopped after ten that night. We made it a week later. By 15 seconds.

Bloubos was a small copse of Australian bluegum trees 5km away from Bossiespruit. Groot bloubos was further away. We never ran that one - althought the implied threat was always there. The pic of Bossiespruit was taken in 2005/6 by Danie.

Die groot dag the big day

What do you take with when you go to the army? Sports clothes. So I packet my tennis kit, including racket. Tennis shoes. Running shoes. The ones supplied by the army were World War 2 era technology. A swiss army knife. Underpants. The SADF ones were legendary. Rugby shorts and 2 tshirts. Brasso, polishing lappies, Kiwi boot polish. NOT Nugget. Only moffies used nugget. Shaving kit. Toiletries. Omo washing powder. Writing paper, envelopes, stamps. I can’t remember writing any letters, although I must’ve. Locks. I took the 3-pack of locks that used the same key. I remember they cost about 5 times the price of 3 separate locks. I also took a high tech lock with a keyless magnetic unlocking mechanism. It lasted two days. A chain to keep your washing from being stolen off the line. I never used it, never lost any washing either. Money - I seem to remember an amount of thirty rand was suggested. I took a hundred. Just in case. I spent most of that on chocolate and coke. And a camera - bought a relatively cheap 35mm. I know the boekie said no, but if it was confiscated it wasn’t a Hasselblad.

The amptelike information booklet also said that once we got there, we would get the opportunity to send our civvie clothes and bags back to our parents. This sounded like too much trouble, so I bought a really cheap plastic togbag from Mr Price in Empangeni, and decided to wear old clothes that I could throw away instead of mailing home. Then of course Moeder insists on a 1st aid kit the size of Alaska. I think the only things I ever used from that were the Disprins. I never got blisters in the army - I must’ve had perfectly average feet.

I have to pack all of this into one bag. After the third re-pack I throw out half of Alaska, and force the zip closed. Bag in the car, off to Durban. The groot good-bye. Mom is teary eyed, Dad gives me a stewige handruk. And a hug. Then all the new guys get herded to the train. The handle of my Mr Price bag breaks off. Fuckity. I carry it the rest of the way hugged to my chest. Find a compartment, put the bag down to introduce myself. The zip tears off the plastic material of Mr Price. Fuckity fuck.

In the compartment with me were Tony Barnes and Wimpie le Roux and John (Sorry, CRAFT disease, can’t remember his surname). John got sick at the start of JL’s and he got thrown off the course. Not sure what happened to him. Tony and I were in Echo Troop for basics and JL’s. Wimpie was in the same bungalow for JL’s.

The train took almost 24 hours to get to Kroonstad. I seem to remember we overnighted on the train at Harrismith station. No roofie ride, no rush. A very polite reception. It seems we had arrived at least five days before the rest of the diensplig inname, and they weren’t interested in us. Yet.

Herman

Why JL troepe were bussed all the way from Bossiespruit to look after Vegkop was never explained to us... or if they did explain it was something like fokkofkliminnielorriejullefokkenetters! Vegkop was where everyone did officers course – we never did, and for some odd reason I always felt a bit cheated for not having stayed in the old convent..

Albertus Erasmus and I were swerfwagte at Vegkop one evening. It must’ve been summer because we had our sleeping bags arranged on the top storey stoep that ran round most of the building. During our four-hour stint Bertus and I wandered up and down the garden area in front of the main building, talking quietly of politics and philosophy and music and the fact that we were outside in the middle of the night and didn’t have to wear jerseys. Both of us had Walkman’s – the old battery operated ones that played tapes and absolutely chewed batteries. Highly illegal of course, so they were cunningly concealed, with earpieces arranged that Rooimoer wouldn’t notice if he came and checked on us..

But that isn’t what I want to talk about. Bertus lent me a Koos du Plessis tape that night. The song that really stuck with me, lying on the stoep with a night breeze rustling through the tall bloekomboom next to the building was Herman...

Herman, jou skepe

le weer in die baai

hulle kom van ou oorde

waar ver winde waai

van Java en Malta

Beiroet en Bombaai

maar waar jy vanaand is

kan ons maar net raai

ons wou nog praat oor Leningrad

Khartoem en Zanzibar

toe laat jy vir my

alleen agterbly

met 'n droom en 'n gebreekte kitaar

A quarter of a century later I’ve been to most of those places. I learned my Swahili in Zanzibar. I can comfortably distinguish between the Arabic of Beirut and that of Khartoum. But when I hear the song, I think of the stoep at Vegkop, and the wind in the bloekomboom.

The pic was taken in Oman, in 2005

Diensplig - the preparation

My callup was for 1 July 1984. University had finished in December, so I managed to get a job at the University of Zululand, helping with rainfall research at the Dept of Hydrology. I lived in Mtunzini, a sleepy little village on the Zululand coast.

I had this little booklet on how to prepare yourself for diensplig. I cannot remember if it was sent with my oproep papers or whether it was a CNA special that my mother bought (mom’s did things like that).

One of the articles stressed that you needed to get fit before you went to the army, and gave a whole set of exercises that one needed to do. Having grown up with all the horrible stories of what happened in basics, I decided I’d better do something about this. What they didn’t tell you was that you only needed to be fitter than the fattest guy in your bungalow – but that of course you only find out in basics.
Every afternoon after work I’d head to the beach. I’d do about 30 pushups, 30 situps, and run up the tallest dune 10 times. Then I’d sit down and drink a 6-pack before going home. All pretty useless.