Where there's a will, there's a way

Indian territory

My/our first foray into Indian territory proper, as an infantry foot soldier, was scary f**king s**t. First things first, was to get over the barbed wire barricades. I’d lost count of how many times we’d trained for this.

However, when faced with bright moonlight and a completely barren landscape, with gun towers in the distance, I didn’t feel very f**king safe or brave. It was my job though and I had to get on with it, didn’t matter how or what I felt. Standard practice was to build a bridge over the wire by using our backpacks and then retracting said backpacks once we got to the other side of the wire. In theory, this works perfectly, as long as one of you doesn’t slip and then follow it up by doing an impersonation of a upside-down f**king turtle.

When someone’s lying on their back, flailing in the air with their arms and legs, while desperately trying to get back on their feet, it doesn’t really help. It also puts us all in a dangerous situation. We made it through, of course, but to add to our woes, as soon as we’d dug in on the other side, completely out of our comfort zone, the heavens opened up and drenched all of us to the bone. Welcome to Angola.

It was early morning and almost impossible to see through the ground mist which covered everything, and as we were preparing to move on, three or four ghosts appeared out of nowhere. What the f**k, but fortunately for us, it was one of our Recce teams (Reconnaissance Commandos), our special forces and scary f**kers they were. Their mission was to take us to meet our new guide, a UNITA guerrilla - rebel -freedom fighter - soldier. It was anyone’s guess.

He was wearing a standard issue SADF brown t-shirt, black shorts, an old pair of trainers, and a Chinese issue bush hat. His weaponry consisted of a Cuban issued web-belt, a bandolier with seven bullets and a Russian issue AK-47. The norm for each of us, was at least one weapon, usually an R- 4 assault rifle, with a minimum of 150 rounds each, and they sent this guy to keep us safe?

Our first contact happened in an instant and was over just as quickly, when we accidently stumbled across a group of nasties sitting around a gorra (shallow water hole). As soon as they saw us, they just took off, scattering in every direction, leaving their weapons behind.

The UNITA guy tried to take a shot at one of them, but his rifle jammed, so he snatched up one of the abandoned rifles, took a pot shot, and blew the back of someone’s head away, while we just stood there, scratching our f**king heads in disbelief. What a bummer. Imagine being killed by your own weapon.

Effectively, we were mechanised infantry, and our babies were ‘Ratels.’(Afrikaans for honey badger), the first wheeled infantry vehicles to be used in modern bush warfare. Built on a modified MAN truck chassis and the best of their kind, with six-wheel drive, all-axle independent sprung, easy to drive, power steering, automatic gearbox, and easy maintenance.

These beauties, the main variant being the Ratel 20, were armed with a French giant cannon in a two-man turret, plus two browning M1919 coaxials, one over the turret and one on a pintle mounting plate over a hatch in the rear hull. Firing ports and vision devices were built-in for the occupants and crew compartments, which were entered through side doors or one at the back. The crew was made up of a vehicle commander, a driver, a gunner, and eight infantrymen.

Weighing in at 18.5 tons, they could reach speeds of 100 km’s plus per hour, with a range of 600kms, massive wheels and their bush breaking ability, made Ratels the perfect vehicles for this pancake flat terrain, where thick sand and dense bush were a daily grind.

Good gravel roads, never mind tar-roads, were scarce. The existing dirt roads, bush paths and joke for a main road to Cuvelai, were especially scary, with lots of landmines and ambushes on offer. So the safest way to get anywhere was by ‘Bundu-Bashing,’ That way, we could avoid ambushes, but you could hear us from miles away.

FAPLA, however, seemed intent on walking into our ambushes along the road to Cuvelai on a regular basis, which never made any sense. Were they really that stupid? F**k knows why and, much to our dis-belief, these f**k-wits always used the same roads, practically begging us to ambush them. So, that’s exactly what we did. The 32 Battalion showed off their abilities by ambushing them on several occasions, while on the same stretch of road, one of our infantry platoons destroyed an entire FAPLA mobile column.

We used the terrain to our advantage and made our own trails by smashing our way through the thickest bush you ever saw. And it took time, it took a lot of f**king time, but it was much easier at night. For starters, it was cooler, with fewer flies and less chance of any air attacks. Navigating by the stars was also preferable, rather than trying to find vantage points during the daytime. The bush was so thick, we couldn’t see a f**king thing at ground level. The sandy ground made digging in at night easy and quick. This was to give us some protection, although not much. The dense bush did the rest, making it relatively easy for us to hide by using camouflage nets.

We were relentlessly tormented by flies, day in and day out, as in whole f**king swarms of flies settling on our backs or trying to crawl into our nostrils, ears, and eyes. At night, we had to settle for mosquitoes instead. Their sole purpose in life being to mercilessly harass us.

A perverse few of us took revenge on these f**king flies. We created a series of ingenious fly traps by using our condoms (plastic bags to mix food or drink in) A condom full of flies would then be pissed in, drowning the little bastards, and turning their eyes bright red. We’d leave these piss and fly-filled condoms, hanging from trees, just to f**k with the minds of anyone tracking us.

Sometimes, we’d pull their wings off, impale them on match sticks and burn them alive at the stake (I know!)

When things got down and dirty, our endless daily training made it easy for us to out-think and outsmart the dumb f**k’s. We’d attack them from positions of strength, and only if we were sure we had the upper hand, and then we’d kick them in the balls when they least expected it. Supported by UNITA rebels, we’d surround the enemy, expose their rear guard, and take them out. We weren’t there to capture them or hold onto any ground.

During the lengthy international peace talks in Washington, we simply denied being there, much to the amusement of our friends and families, not to mention the local populace, who’d witnessed us streaming northwards into Angola with little to no returning traffic.

We were laid up deep in Angola with more than twelve hundred “61”, combat troops, (I’m not sure if or how many other troops might have been there) waiting for our final orders, while at the same, our government, adamantly, and in good faith, assured everyone involved that there wasn’t a single, living South African soldier, to be found anywhere on Angolan soil.