Stories!

[astralis]

glyn,

let me get this straight. the senior ratings were selling away navy food and coming back with not only something better, but presumably something on the side for themselves as well????

[Ray]

Glyn,

How did they manage giving better food when they were selling the most prized ingredient - meat!

Here, the mutton days are the most looked forward event in the cookhouse for troops!

[soutie]

nah to be honest never heard of it ,however i had a fantastic bar in the southern suburbs in cape town called the pig and whistle,what a bar on mondays was happy hour buy 1 case get one free,big time army pub

[soutie]

Hey sapper sarge what was a nice american boy like you doining the sadf ,did you volunteer where your folks living in south africa or where you just looking for excitment

[glyn]

glyn,

let me get this straight. the senior ratings were selling away navy food and coming back with not only something better, but presumably something on the side for themselves as well????

You got it! They made a financial profit for themselves by selling off some stuff, swapping others, and doing convoluted deals behind the scenes. Come to think of it, there is something not dis-similar in Catch 22 . Milo Minderbinder, anyone?

[glyn]

Glyn,

How did they manage giving better food when they were selling the most prized ingredient - meat!

Here, the mutton days are the most looked forward event in the cookhouse for troops!

Sorry Ray, I was not privy to all their secrets! As for mutton, YUCK!

[sappersgt]

Best made plans...

Hey sapper sarge what was a nice american boy like you doining the sadf ,did you volunteer where your folks living in south africa or where you just looking for excitment

I was ORIGINALY in South Africa for a cousins wedding but circumstances overtook me. I volunteered for the army to get out of jail. As a tourist I was considered a flight risk so no bail. There was no such thing as a speedy trial, that meant guilty or not I was looking at sitting in jail five or six months until my case was even heard.

They offered (actually I had to ask) to drop the charges IF I joined the army. The "plan" was for me to get thirty days of refresher training and get discharged into the reserves. I thought that sure beat the hell out of sitting in jail. That was the plan anyways.

You know what they say about plans...

[bodie]

nah to be honest never heard of it ,however i had a fantastic bar in the southern suburbs in cape town called the pig and whistle,what a bar on mondays was happy hour buy 1 case get one free,big time army pub

Hey soutie:
the Pig WAS the best pub around .. that and Forries ... used to be my favourite hang outs in the very early 70's.

The Pig is long gone but Forries still around, just a lot more civilized now .. :-)

[soutie]

the early 70,s i was about 8 i remeber forries and the pig from the 80,s
man oh man what jol i met my wife in the sportmans bar in Newlands ,pissed as a fart ,i basically begged her to have lunch with me ,alot of slurring and grovelling was done that was 17 years ago,a mate of mine told me that the forries is some type of a yuppie bar,maybe they should have kept national service going just to keep bars like that from turning into those hoity toity places;)

[bodie]

the early 70,s i was about 8 i remeber forries and the pig from the 80,s
man oh man what jol i met my wife in the sportmans bar in Newlands ,pissed as a fart ,i basically begged her to have lunch with me ,alot of slurring and grovelling was done that was 17 years ago,a mate of mine told me that the forries is some type of a yuppie bar,maybe they should have kept national service going just to keep bars like that from turning into those hoity toity places;)

Yeppers .. Forries is a yuppie hang-out now.

Wot you up to in Spain?

Considering moving to Ireland in about 2 years...

btw .... first call up was in '74 .... hehehehehe

[soutie]

well i have been living here for about 3 years now i lived in londen for 3 and half years ,first 2 years was okay,did alot of travelling then decided to head for sunny spain,Ireland is okay if you do not mind shitty weather,it gets so cold there it goes right to the bones.Ru still in south africa

[bodie]

well i have been living here for about 3 years now i lived in londen for 3 and half years ,first 2 years was okay,did alot of travelling then decided to head for sunny spain,Ireland is okay if you do not mind shitty weather,it gets so cold there it goes right to the bones.Ru still in south africa

Yeppers,
still in sunny old South Africa.

Son finishing his studies soon then options can be reviewed.

You in the business in Spain ?

UNCP??

[Ironduke]

I apologised for my poor Afrikaans but he just waved his hand dismissively saying, "you'll learn". What a difference to when he thought I was English!

I've never heard spoken Afrikaans... I found that Dutch, however, is quite mutually intelligible from that start. With enough care, a Dutch-speaker and an English-speaker can have a basic conversation with no knowledge of each other's language. I think Afrikaans has vastly different pronunciations and different words for modern things that English and Dutch share, but where Afrikaans has diverged.

Heh, said it just a few minutes ago, but any Dutch, Afrikaans, or German speakers are free to converse with me on the forum in their native tongue. I'll reply in English to the first two, and German in kind.

[sappersgt]

English and Afrikaans

I've never heard spoken Afrikaans... I found that Dutch, however, is quite mutually intelligible from that start. With enough care, a Dutch-speaker and an English-speaker can have a basic conversation with no knowledge of each other's language. I think Afrikaans has vastly different pronunciations and different words for modern things that English and Dutch share, but where Afrikaans has diverged.

Heh, said it just a few minutes ago, but any Dutch, Afrikaans, or German speakers are free to converse with me on the forum in their native tongue. I'll reply in English to the first two, and German in kind.

For me it's the opposite regarding accents. I understand Afrikaans better than Dutch. I will have to agree on the amazing number of cognants between English and Afrikaans or Flemish (and Dutch). The linguistic roots of English show up quite readily. Have you ever heard Frisian? It is really close to what Old English must have sounded.

[Triple C]

My Taiwanese friend's peace time army war story:

Several days prior a group of US advisors conducted a mock invasion of their base. They commandeered a staff car, waved away the sentry, and drove straight into the base. By mid-night, smoke bombs are going off every where. The commander, incensed as he was, sent the soldier to the brig--"solitary confinement."

The sentry that replaced him was obviously on the edge when he saw a big weather balloon of some make flew overhead. He radioed in. The commander called higher up: "Hey, you got another unscheudaled excercise comin' here?" "No. Prepare for the wrost. Best of luck."

The whole base was put on highest alert. My friend, a clerk, grabbed his M-16 and they anxiously awaited the invasion of communist paratroopers. Finally the ballon crashed (whether there was a hail of gunfire was unknown). The soldiers moved up to the balloon, looked at it, and radioed in. "Threat eliminated sir." "What?" "Sir, it's a very dead balloon."