They call me Trinity

Stalin's Organ

These were scary days, but perhaps the ‘thin shield of protective armour around my gentle soul’ that I’d been laying down since the start of my National Service almost two years before, had become a whole lot thicker in the past few days but despite this, fear and anger were the most palpable emotions I experienced in Angola, not hatred for the enemy. I knew the score up there. The enemy did what they had to in order to survive. They tried to kill me, whenever I was in range! So by now I’m completely unconcerned by thoughts of killing more enemy combatants, by now my psyche is altered. It’s clinical, I don’t even have to view the enemy as human-beings any longer, they're merely targets and might just as well have been made of cardboard.

The unfortunate bastard enemy were reed-thin, fed on just a cup of rice per day, their lives frequently described as miserable, rumours abounded of them being chained to the controls of their Tanks, (though I never saw any evidence of this) so it was easy to imagine they probably didn’t have homes to go, families and loved ones. Or, in fact, never even had to give it a moments’ thought, they weren’t human. We, on the other hand, we had warm civilised homes, loving families, girlfriends and Christmas presents to look forward to. Surely their lives didn’t count as highly as ours? Did they?

But, if we were unconcerned by the lives being lost on the FAPLA side of the conflict, it also felt that the South African Government and Generals co-ordinating the offensive were equally unconcerned about our boys on the front-line. I now realise that unacceptably high casualties were unpalatable to the powers-that-be, however the Generals were by necessity quite pragmatic about warfare and casualties, and that some death would be inevitable. On the front line, and in  your own team, just one death is unacceptably high, so two deaths and some serious casualties from 36 troopers, within the space of a week made us feel extremely isolated and vulnerable, it mattered not a bit that we had caused so many more to die on the other team. ‘Why don’t they let us go home now, we’ve done enough haven’t we?’

[SADF forces lost between 15 and 20 soldiers during my time in Angola, UNITA losses were greater but I cannot find a reliable source, whilst estimates of the enemy death-toll range from 1’500 to 2’000 FAPLA and Cuban soldiers in just over three months, and as with any violent death toll you’d expect an even greater number of long-term injuries, however it is very difficult to ascertain because of the disinformation, obfuscation and propaganda that politicians tend to employ in matters like these – hmmm, come to think of it, obfuscation is a word that reminds me of most politicians. I’m also reminded of the story that surfaced whilst we were in Angola - that 2nd Lieutenant Adrian Hind, who participated in the annihilation of 47 Brigade, and died on October 3rd was alleged to have died in a road traffic accident, or at least this is how we were told his death was reported in the press – imagine laying down your life for your country and the state then lying about it?!]

 So, estimates seem to suggest a potentially staggering statistic, that one hundred enemy combatants were killed for every single South African soldier lost during Moduler! Even if this only partially accurate I can’t even begin to imagine how it felt to be a FAPLA fighter, but it’s a basic human truth that we tend only to be affected by those things that we allow to directly ‘touch our lives’. For example, thousands of babies are born each day whilst almost as many people die, each emotional event bringing joy or sadness, but only for those people connected to newly born or deceased, and this is a very good thing otherwise we’d spend every day drunk, both in celebration and sorrow! Thus, the same can be said of warfare. In battle we are conditioned, intentionally or by circumstance, to have an almost callous disregard for those who get killed or injured on the other side, but remain deeply affected by the lives lost on the home team. So I can honestly say that once I became embroiled in the life and death struggle of warfare I never felt too affected by the injuries we might be inflicting, although I have with the benefit of hindsight, been able to recognise the incredible suffering we must have caused the families and friends of enemy combatants who died or were injured during operation Moduler. About ten years ago in London I stopped for a meal at my favourite restaurant Nando’s (I like it because you can eat with your hands, usually get a good sized portion of chicken and at a fairly reasonable price). As we walked in we were approached by a waitress, an attractive young black woman, and as is usual in London, where customer service is generally shit, it’s good to be friendly if you want reciprocal treatment so I engaged her in a little small talk as we wandered over to our table. Making the assumption that she was African, based on her accent and skin tone, I opened by saying ‘Ah, I can tell that you’re African, I’m also an African.’ ‘You!’ She exclaimed in that blunt manner us African’s are infamous for, ‘African?!’ Disbelieving, she was clearly baffled, but un-phased, ‘but you’re not black!’ ‘Well yeah that’s true but you’d be surprised to learn that there are quite a few white African’s, I’m from South Africa, what part of Africa are you from?’ she looked at me, uncertain, and then she dropped the bomb! ‘Angola, do you know of it?’ came the slightly wary reply, and before I could stop myself, I blurted ‘yeah, of course I know of it, in fact, I’ve been there’, and then it hit me like the recoil blast from a 90mm cannon, there was a good chance that this young person’s life had been deeply affected by the trauma of the decades long Civil War in which I had been so ruthlessly efficient, who knows, maybe even a family member or friend had been on the killing fields opposite me fifteen years ago and I would’ve ended their life without compunction, without a seconds hesitation, or a moments after-thought! In that instant I felt deeply ashamed and let the conversation die away, I wanted very much to apologise to her, but couldn’t find the words. Angola was a civil war, and so often in civil war, as in this case, it is almost impossible to distinguish one side from the other, so who knows, maybe I fought alongside a member of her family and he was grateful for our efforts! Nowadays, I make no excuses for my part in a war that I did not choose, start, nor propagate. If you were paying attention at the start you will know I was there by mistake, a series of actions, or inactions that culminated in my participation in the Angolan Bush War, so I did what I could, with everything I had, to survive, to live. That’s all it was. The boys on the other side, and some were even younger than I, killed as efficiently as they could, given the equipment, training and intelligence at their disposal! During the morning of the 8th October, the enemy’s equipment, training and intelligence was, unusually, superior to ours, their Cuban fighter pilots and Russian MIG’s scored a kill, no big deal for them, but we lost a friend and another was seriously wounded. So, by the time we departed that scene of total devastation on the evening of the 8th our morale was at an all-time low. My fellow Durbanite and friend Wayne Mills, 33 Charlie’s Crew Commander, had lost his entire crew and vehicle (I won’t even mention possessions) and would later be reassigned as a gunner for the Lieutenant on the vehicle brought in to replace Adrian Hind’s vehicle - call-sign 33. He was devastated and later admitted to me, ‘Dave, I just wanna get the fuck out of here, to go home. This is so fucked up man!’ Wayne should’ve died inside his vehicle that day were it not for a split second decision. He was dog tired that morning and fancied a quick nap during the lull in our movement but on a whim he decided rather to go have a cigarette and a natter with his mate Warren, a gunner in 33Alpha parked about 20 – 30 metres up-range. Who says smoking kills?! Had he chosen the other course of action his crew may not have been where they were at the moment of impact, and maybe the outcome would have been different. This must have haunted him then, and I suspect it possibly still does now, 25 years later.