Gunship Over Angola

I felt the need to watch my back more and more as my disdain for the apartheid government and its addicts became increasingly apparent and impossible to conceal. This is not a good thing when you are dependent on others, as occurs in combat.

*

Towards the end of 1981, I was sitting at a table in a crowded Durban restaurant having dinner with a very dear aunt when she asked me how I was coping with the death of my mom. I replied that I was still angry with my dad, whose behaviour in the years prior to Mom’s stroke had, I felt, placed her under the extreme pressure that had led to the fatal crisis.

My aunt stared at me contemptuously for a few seconds, and then she leant across the table and slapped me hard across the face.

‘You arrogant little bastard,’ she hissed. ‘Do you not know that your mother never slept a wink while you were in the bush? How do you think that affected her health?’

Up to that point, I’d never considered that I could have played any role in contributing to the rocketing blood pressure that had so cruelly taken my mom’s life. My aunt’s words and actions sent my mind into sudden shock. When I look back now, that incident in the restaurant opened the first tiny breach in my carefully constructed emotional defences and gave rise to a growing consciousness that ultimately put me on the path to leaving the SAAF.

But, mostly, I think I wanted out because at heart I sensed that I was and am a creator, a builder, perhaps even an idealist.

But I am not a soldier.

As I have got older, I have become a greater and greater pacifist and an avid supporter of conversation instead of confrontation. Yet, ironically, I am prepared to fight to the death, if necessary, to ensure that none of my children or grandchildren will ever have to experience the true horror of war.

Epilogue

I am now 60 years old. After leaving the SAAF in 1985, I abandoned aviation as a career and focused on building businesses instead.

The events described in this book happened almost four decades ago and, naturally, had a profound effect on my life. If I bear any grudge at all, it is against the military establishment, not for moulding me into the fighting man that I became for ten years by intentionally placing me in situations that required me to close down emotionally, in order to survive the experience, but rather because they blatantly shirked their responsibility to switch me back into a balanced, considerate and compassionate human being when my fighting days were over.

It would have taken little for them to have done so. Even if they had only acknowledged the possibility that so many of us young men (and a handful of women) had witnessed such untold horror that we required committed professional intervention to curtail further damage to ourselves and those close to us, in the ensuing years.

For example, my first marriage ended in an acrimonious divorce within five years of my leaving the SAAF. Also on the casualty list were most of the close relationships I’d forged over many years with friends and even family members, none of whom could understand or accept the random cold rage and overt callousness that seemed to underpin far too many of my actions, interactions and words.

Looking back now, I think I was hell-bent on trying to escape the claustrophobia of normal life with the legal means at my disposal. It is highly destructive to live your life in a state of permanent escapism, a state in which one establishes only tenuous bonds with those around you, never extending those bonds to an emotional level or even to partial intimacy. Keep things on the surface and it’s unlikely that anyone will see the ugliness below, perhaps?

The worst of it all is that, at the time, I felt I was the only person around who was struggling to readjust, which just worsened the situation and made my withdrawal from those around me all the more complete. Knowing that something was very wrong and needed expert attention is one thing, but being legally barred from even approaching such experts was just plain cruelty. Even today, I know countless people who have really battled to adjust to life in South Africa after leaving the military, and many who are still in the fight. None of them sought the help they all so desperately needed but were barred from seeking.