Can you imagine being a soldier at war?

In 1989, I thought 17-year-old me was going to be on the run from call-up to the Apartheid Army, head into Zululand, and become an underground activist.

Some readers have been soldiers, and some have gone to war, but, most are uneducated, like me…

Was I born to be a soldier?

I battle with the stupidity of young adults believing war is manly, or as exciting as a video game. Obscene families, churches, schools, media, corporations and governments share responsibility for breeding them that way. But nobody escapes personal responsibility.

NO EXCUSE

There’s no pride in not knowing why your country has you killing strangers. No salary or university tuition is worth making widows. No social media video showing a soldier on leave surprising his son or daughter at school compensates for the children he’s killed, or the orphans he’s made. There’s no joy in being dead, crippled, drugged or homeless. There’s nothing sexy about a killer in uniform.

As casually evil are civilians uncaring that their government is waging death, in their name, and with their money, in a place they barely know exists; or don’t care about expect as a hate flag to wave against another hate flag in their own political system.

WHEN I WAS A BOY…

In my Matric year of 1989, I thought 17-year-old me was going to be on the run from call-up to the Apartheid Army. I planned to head into Zululand, and become an underground activist.

I possessed those poorly conceived notions after watching a white racist taunting a dying black man, and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s letter congratulating me on my forthcoming school project - I was going to be the first (white) child to write a long history essay on Apartheid (which was probably untrue, but sad if the education department were only referring to my province of Natal).

A year later, I delayed my fugitive status by studying. Mandela got released, I met Terror Lekota, and, suddenly, we were in a world of hope.

For several reasons, I dropped out after only three months, and volunteered for what was considered compulsory national service. I maneuvered myself into the air force, thinking I was going to be part of a new country.

I hated it more than anyone I knew, a severe struggle with authority, especially bullies and depression. Bad poetry became an outlet.

The alternate reality is that I had interesting experiences before doing easy time - mostly in an office, sometimes as the only non-permanent force member allowed in the bar, or doing a weekly run for movies for the base - never in a guard box, or desperately trying to dig a hole into undiggable sand because Russian jets had arrived.

Occasionally, the township of Umlazi, located on the hill next to our base, would fire shots, but I was unaware of anyone being hit. Outside of a run-in with crooked Intelligence, my biggest concern was the scourge of mosquitoes.

I was the only conscript on my base with staff (absurd), an 18-year-old replacing a middle-aged Flight Sergeant; my R198 stipend a big saving to the taxpayer; but a white boy with 5 African staff (doubly absurd). Nevertheless, I hope they remember me kindly.

I did favours for the trainee pilots who were all officers, such as organising new sheets if a girlfriend had been smuggled in. In their austere company, the guards waved us through on the way to their favourite club in town. However, I would occasionally risk trouble by climbing the fence at night, going AWOL just to be one of the suffering lads who I couldn’t fully relate to. Plus I had no love for L.A., the officer destination, but always lusted for a beer in a dingy rock bar called Monk’s Inn - it had steak, egg and strippers specials during the day, and at night we would sing along with Rob Evans, an exceptional one-man band, to ‘Party Girl’, ‘I Dig the Black Girls’, ‘A Forest’, How Soon is Now'?’ and more.

Other's were singing a different tune...

In my boys-only school, our first preparation to becoming “good South African soldiers”, I heard that a classmate's older brother had gone nuts because his "friend's head exploded like a watermelon". Thus, it’s understandable that stories of the war in Angola and South-West Africa (now Namibia) were rare. The irony is that more male children would willingly stand on Pink Floyd’s conveyor belt to the meatgrinder, as if it were a rite of manly passage.

In early training, there were suicides when we were told we were going to be sent to Hoedspruit (‘Hoednam’), and one guy tripped and broke his neck whilst we were running and jumping over a large gutter that edged the parade field - everyone kept running and jumping.

When a passenger airline flew over, a bar acquaintance dropped to the city pavement - he was a byproduct of the war I'd just missed. Outside of that, all I knew is that he was a good guy for giving me music tapes that he reviewed.

I forget their names, but the anecdotes are thorns in my head.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SURVIVE A WAR?

In Russia, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Mynanmar, Mozambique, the Congo and more, it's about the soldiers that survive, and how that will affect their families.

The mental condition may remain as long as severed limbs, not only for the amputees but for those, for example, watching 100,000 legless ‘pedestrians’ on the blue and yellow streets of Ukraine.

Nationalism kills. Those that know how to abuse nationalism for profit kill the most.

So many wars have been led or instigated by the USA. Their biggest cheerleaders are European; especially from Germany, France, Poland, the Baltic States, and the UK.

Most white people in my South Africa support them too - our childhood books taught us that the CIA and FBI are good, and Hollywood movies are doing the same for the new generation.

Isn’t it as funny as a flamethrower that the voters supporting the warmongers have comfortable lives, unable to imagine what it’s like to be impoverished and bombed, or a soldier with dead friends and fetanyl for company?

This post was prompted by a comment to me by Constantine Markides whose writing about his younger self joining the Greek army on Cyprus. You’ll enjoy his funny and educational series about a lesser known part of our world:

1. Why I Enlisted in the Cyprus Army

2. The Conscription Officer

3. The Equipment Officer