Stories!

[Ray]

That is really gruesome.

Can't believe anybody could be such animals!

[Officer of Engineers]

Rwanda, Sir.

[Ray]

BLuesman's narration of the activities does revolt sensibility.

When looking at events, I reckon the Education and Cultural background should also be taken into account.

Africa still runs on tribal lines and is said to be very lax on what one would expect of a organised country i.e. institutionalised norms.

In comparison, the western civilisation ethics and other issues that make humanity more humane is said to be quite well founded and as is said to be better compared to others where the same is lacking in the other parts of the world!

Therefore, Rwanda does not surprise to that extent as western soldiers running amok and being so cruel.

[Parihaka]

Therefore, Rwanda does not surprise to that extent as western soldiers running amok and being so cruel.

SS.

[soutie]

africa is an extremly cruel continent ,Koevet in namibia used tie captured terrorists to the front of their casspirs and go bundu bashing at the end he was pretty torn up and would talk easily ,during the rhodesian civil war the zanu pf Mugabie boys used to go into villages acuse the locals of being sell outs then cut off their lips and ears and force their children to eat them raw.

Any small war in africa have their atrocities all the time ,during ops modular before the attack on 47 brigade on the lombar river our 2IC of our company told us prisoners during the attack where not an option ,most of us where 18 or 19 year old conscripts ,some of the prisoners who tried to surrender where 14 15 year old boy soldiers drafted in the FAPLA army.The T55 tanks that where knocked out some of them had their tank crews chained to their tanks to prevent them from running away ,there where some very cruel deeds done that day ,laughing at torn up bodies ,urinating on them taking photo,s stripping them of uniforms and personel belongings,some severly wounded men from fapla where shot on the spot.Even in todays professional armies there are levels of cruelty that is to terrible british american ,yes you are right they still got prosecuted to the military lawDuring the TRC hearing these generals denied we excisted ,denied giving out orders to shoot surrendering men during combat,they basically denied our excistance,one day when my time is up there will be one judge and he will judge me accordingly same to every ex soldier out there,as we get older the fire in our hearts burns lower and we remember what we did in our youth ,

[glyn]

africa is an extremly cruel continent ,Koevet in namibia used tie captured terrorists to the front of their casspirs and go bundu bashing at the end he was pretty torn up and would talk easily ,during the rhodesian civil war the zanu pf Mugabie boys used to go into villages acuse the locals of being sell outs then cut off their lips and ears and force their children to eat them raw.

Any small war in africa have their atrocities all the time ,during ops modular before the attack on 47 brigade on the lombar river our 2IC of our company told us prisoners during the attack where not an option ,most of us where 18 or 19 year old conscripts ,some of the prisoners who tried to surrender where 14 15 year old boy soldiers drafted in the FAPLA army.The T55 tanks that where knocked out some of them had their tank crews chained to their tanks to prevent them from running away ,there where some very cruel deeds done that day ,laughing at torn up bodies ,urinating on them taking photo,s stripping them of uniforms and personel belongings,some severly wounded men from fapla where shot on the spot.Even in todays professional armies there are levels of cruelty that is to terrible british american ,yes you are right they still got prosecuted to the military lawDuring the TRC hearing these generals denied we excisted ,denied giving out orders to shoot surrendering men during combat,they basically denied our excistance,one day when my time is up there will be one judge and he will judge me accordingly same to every ex soldier out there,as we get older the fire in our hearts burns lower and we remember what we did in our youth ,

Quite right. The British had the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Boer War. After a court martial 2 officers from that unit were executed for shooting prisoners. In fact the order not to take prisoners came from much higher up the chain of command, but that inconvenient fact was ignored during the court martial, and political expediency was put before justice.

[soutie]

yeah that was handcock and breaker morant 3 bits of info breakers last words where shot straight you bastards do not make a miss of it,also when kitchener vivited the boer war memorial in bathurst he saw handcocks name on the memorial ,he ordered it off,later someone put it back on,i think someone on wab showed a photo of the memorial in bathurst and if you look very closly you will see handcocks name there ,and handcock was the last aussie to be excuted by a british firing squad.During ww1 aussie soldiers who where suffering from Shell shock who refused to go and fight who where court marshalled and sentenced to death ,apparently the sentance was never passed because the order had to be counter signed by the aussie govenor never was hence no execution.Breaker morant was good poet read his poem me and friend bobby mcgee

[entropy]

That was probably their only option, their own country wouldn't have them, couldn't get papers for anywhere else without a lot of money. The dubious safety of 32 Bn with a conditional promise of residency might have seemed their only choice. I know it sure wasn't the money, nobody ever got rich on SADF pay. They probably fought until they eventually got killed, never rising above Lance Corporal and hoping for papers that never came.

That is a horrible fate, even for a war criminal.

[sappersgt]

africa is an extremly cruel continent ,Koevet in namibia used tie captured terrorists to the front of their casspirs and go bundu bashing at the end he was pretty torn up and would talk easily ,during the rhodesian civil war the zanu pf Mugabie boys used to go into villages acuse the locals of being sell outs then cut off their lips and ears and force their children to eat them raw.

Any small war in africa have their atrocities all the time ,during ops modular before the attack on 47 brigade on the lombar river our 2IC of our company told us prisoners during the attack where not an option ,most of us where 18 or 19 year old conscripts ,some of the prisoners who tried to surrender where 14 15 year old boy soldiers drafted in the FAPLA army.The T55 tanks that where knocked out some of them had their tank crews chained to their tanks to prevent them from running away ,there where some very cruel deeds done that day ,laughing at torn up bodies ,urinating on them taking photo,s stripping them of uniforms and personel belongings,some severly wounded men from fapla where shot on the spot.Even in todays professional armies there are levels of cruelty that is to terrible british american ,yes you are right they still got prosecuted to the military lawDuring the TRC hearing these generals denied we excisted ,denied giving out orders to shoot surrendering men during combat,they basically denied our excistance,one day when my time is up there will be one judge and he will judge me accordingly same to every ex soldier out there,as we get older the fire in our hearts burns lower and we remember what we did in our youth ,

Enemy prisoners always professed surprise when they weren't killed. They believed that Sturmpioneers never took prisoners. I believe this resulted from our SOP of always putting a bullet in the head of every corpse left on the battlefield. This was the job of section and platoon leaders. Viewed from a distance this could look like the execution of prisoners.

The reasons are twofold. There are too many weapons left around on a battlefield (and not enough men to police them) to leave a "sleeper" in your rear when you move on. It's also not recommended to disturb corpses on the battlefield as they are often booby trapped. Both sides regularly set booby traps.

I myself always carried some "doctored" enemy ammunition with me to place in weapons or ammunition we didn't have time to destroy. These were rounds that had the gunpowder removed and replaced with a small bit of plastique. Definitely would ruin your day when fired. Good for morale!

This belief that no prisoners would be taken affected troops on both sides. The enemy would usually fight well until the battle was perceived to be going our way. Confronted with their eminent demise enemy forces would lose cohesion and begin to break up and run for the questionable safety of the bush. In reality these small groups of individuals were easier to hunt down piecemeal with our (now) superior numbers and firepower.

Being usually outnumbered and often deep inside enemy territory meant we often had nowhere to retreat to. Captured Sappers never survived and usually died badly. This caused our troops to fight with a determination (sometimes desperation) that our enemies lacked. One of the reasons we did well on the battlefield.

Prisoners that we turned over to Military Intelligence seemed to have a better chance of survival than those remanded to the (civilian) Security Service. I tracked one officer captured in Namibia through his imprisonment and release. He eventually immigrated to the US and I visited him in Kansas City while I was on leave!

[entropy]

I myself always carried some "doctored" enemy ammunition with me to place in weapons or ammunition we didn't have time to destroy. These were rounds that had the gunpowder removed and replaced with a small bit of plastique. Definitely would ruin your day when fired. Good for morale!

Can I ask you for more explanation?

[sappersgt]

Can I ask you for more explanation?

The plastique being an order of magnitude more powerful than gunpowder causes the weapon to explode in a spectacular fashion. It is not good for morale when your weapons explode.

[Albany Rifles]

A Few on Myself

When I was a 2LT at FT Benning back in the day, in order to graduate from the US Army Infantry Officer Basic Course one had to do a 5 mile run in combat boots in 42 minutes or less. Not too hard but you had to move. Oh, did I tell you that we used to wear these little, cotton tiny blue PT Shorts (think NBA 1970s)? So as we are getting ready to start I feel my breakfast working on me and go to "pass gas"....and as the whistle blows, I discover to my horror that it is not gas but instead the previous evenings pizza and beer dinner...in noxious liquid form!!! I did the run in about 38 minutes....and then had to beg a ride back to the BOQ in the back of a buddy's pick up truck. My backside looked (and felt) like a baboons. I got a new nickname for that!


While a company commander on a rotation to the National Training Center up in the live fire area we were conducting the battalion task force live fore defense. The artillery has fired its opening shots but now comes TWA (or teeny weenie airlines) the radio controlled airial targets are coming in to "attack" us. These were 12 foot long styrofoam models which looked like MiG 23s and we would shoot machine guns, STNGER simulators, etc. They flown by radio control by some Air Force guys. We knocked down one quickly but there second one flew around and around for about 15 minutes really annoying us. Apparently someone knicked af uel line or it ran out of fuel...anyway it started to drift back towards our lines so the AF guys could recover it. As it is drifting down we are all ordered to cease fire. Everyone safes their weapons and the aircraft comes to a gliding landing about 150 meters infrom of the comany beside mine. It is quiet for about 15 seconds when we could hear a battle scream coming from the flank unit. One of the infantrymen had jumped up from his fighting position and charges out to the faux MiG 23...which he then procedds to bayonet to death! He got a standing ovation from the rest of the battalion...and those Air FOrce guys were ticked!!!

[dave lukins]

A Purple Heart and a standing ovation..what more can a guy ask for!!

[soutie]

my wife often asks me what was the beginning of my training like,fromthe day i got on the train ,i remeber my mum and stepfather driving me th Wingfield airbase in Cape Town ,they had trains waiting for us ,There were hundreds of us t ,JAN 13 1986 the day i will never forget ,anyway i had my tog bag my mum fussing over me and my step father telling me when in training keep your damn mouth shut .Funny i never listened to him first thing they told us was that no weed and no alcohol on the trains ,then they had some general give us a speech about how good the army was for us and we where doing a good thing and that we will return as men blah blah blah ,anyway after tears ans snot ,mainly from my part :) i want my mommie waaaaahhhhhhhhh,was going through my mind ,i was thinking what r u doing you dumb tit you do not have to do this .Cannot back out now ,my first brush with the RANK as it were was with a NCO ,as i was getting on the train i said HOWZIT MY CHINA ,south african slang for hullo my friend ,well he went from white to a shade of purple to a dark blue colour.He screamed at me I AM A SARGEANT NOT YOUR CHINA ,okay sarge no worries ,well i should,have known i was already in trouble man that NCO had it in for me ,was it my long hair my carefree attitude to life my mouth prehaps i will never know In my compartment i shared with 5 other recruits ,a guy called PUMA another bloke called Kruger who later became one my closest friends , i used to have a few beers with after the army ,a another fella called peters who became a officer out of infantry school,Jardim who was about 5 foot one one of the smallest guys i knew but who had short person syndrome ,had prove he was tougher than anyone by picking on the biggest person there was,the other 3 i cannot remember ,afrikaans guys i think they where upset to be in a compartment with rooineks our first meal of the day was soup in a plastic cup ,i stuck my fork in it turned it upside down it stayed there ,first time i had soup with a fork ,There was a little voice that said to me WELCOME TO THE ARMY,i thought this should be a breeze 3 years at boarding school ,how little did i realize the army is very different.

[soutie]

thetrain trip up was boring at best ,meal times was joke shunted from one end of the train to another ,hurry up and wait,we arrived at Bloemfontein early in the morning ,we debarssed from the train onto a platform of screaming corporals and sarges ,a certain sarge was still giving me the evil eye,we jumped on the samil 50,s and expieranced our first roofie ride ,roofie is what we raw recruits where called ,it means robber ,a good for nothing **** all,they took us to a sports field and we waited and waited and waited ,the kommandant of the camp greeted us and left he informed us out training would be hard and intense,that is the last thing i wanted to here ,anyway we then were marched or walked up tp our unit IST SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY BATTALION TEMPE ,we where then sorted into pakkies ,or loose platoons and then given our bungalows,Our first task was to wash and polish the floors of our bungalow,that was a test to see if we could work as a team ,which we could,nt thats what N CO are paid for Our first meal that night was quite an expierance ,we were issued with varkpanne ,or pig pans to eat of ,i was last in the line ,we got pasta with mince ,when i got to the food there was only pasta left so i ate that ,i was the only one who did,nt get food poisoning ,out of 33 of us 32 where in hospital that night,3 where sent home because of severe sickness i think they had salmonella .
In the morning it was quite funny PLAAAAAAAAAATOOOOOOOOOOON 333333333333333333 FAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN,
There is me on the parade ground all alone ,Why r u not sick in very broken English.(You must understand Bloemfontein is in Afrikaaner heartland English is not really spoken)i will be if you want me to came the reply ,That was my first lap around the parade ground "Soutie u think you is funny ",go for your medical with paltoon 2 you better hope u fail because when i am finished with you you will need a doctor.