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Sarel Theron 1 SAI / 4 SAI / Citizen Force, Regiment de la Rey 13/02/08 Missing Voices Project Interviewed by Mike Cadman

TAPE ONE SIDE A Interviewer Tell me a bit about your background. Sarel We had a big family. I’ve got three sisters and one brother. Basically grew up in Phalaborwa. We moved around a lot, Pretoria, then we went to Free State, we stayed there. There I got called up, did my matric there and then got called up. Then I moved to Newcastle, after which I came here. Interviewer Did you move because of your dad’s work? Sarel Yes. Interviewer What did your dad do? Sarel He was a…well he’s still an electrician. He did a lot. Moved all over the place. Interviewer And then you said earlier that your family, your mom’s side was English, so you got brought up sort of half English, half Afrikaans. Sarel No, more Afrikaans because Afrikaners is nou ‘n bietjie van nonsense. They wanted…but anyway, yes…my mom’s family is totally English, came from Rhodesia. Actually my cousin that was in Rhodesia was in the Selous Scouts and he actually came down, he was five years older than me, and he came to visit us here in the seventies and always used to tell me, you must do your National army and you must do your National Service for your country. Interviewer And what did you think of him? Did you admire him? Sarel Yes, definitely did. I still do. He’s about seven years older, he’s 50 now. But I still admire him. I never saw in this…he actually got me into you must do things for your country. He never told me anything what happened. Just like you must do it for your country. Interviewer So he never spoke about operations or anything that he’d been on or what it was like fighting in the bush? Sarel Never, never. Interviewer After the war, when the war was finished, did he ever talk about it? Sarel No, but he’s got some serious problems. I don’t know who he talked to or whoever he spoke to, I never basically saw him again after that. Interviewer When you say problems, emotional problems from what he saw 2 and stuff like that? Sarel Yes. My mother keeps in contact with his mother, my auntie. And my mother tells me every now and again, he’s going again for some…third time divorced type of thing. Interviewer So he struggles. Sarel Mmm. He struggles a bit. Interviewer But at the time you thought he was something to admire. Sarel Yes, I was a boy. Interviewer Alright, and then like most young white South Africans when you were about 16 your call up papers arrive, you had to register for the military. Sarel Let me tell you a little secret, I wasn’t supposed to go, because I’ve got scoliosis in my back. Your spine grows skew. And I wasn’t supposed to do it, but I went to the doctor with my mother and she doesn’t want me to go, but anyway I went to the doctor with my mom, and this guy said, no, no, you can’t do National Service like this because you’ve got a very weak back. And I just took that little paper and as I went into the lift I just tore it up inside there, because I wanted to do it. I was very excited about doing it. 16, I got it, call up papers, but then I just told them…obviously I do another two years school, and after that they called me up. Interviewer Was your mom cross with you? Sarel No, I just told her, no I’m going. She didn’t want…I don’t know why. You know these English liberals. Laughs I always called her my soutpiel. Interviewer And your old man? Sarel No, no, he’s straightforward. The normal, yes you must go type. My mom is still, didn’t like army, and that type of thing. Interviewer Your favourite Soutpiel. Did she and your old man sort of argue about it? Sarel I actually call her my salpeterstruik, not soutpiel. It sounded a bit better. Interviewer For a woman, certainly. But did she never ever say to you, listen, what are you doing? Why do you want to do this? Sarel No. Never. Interviewer So she said it’s your will. Sarel Yes. Interviewer And what year did you finish school? Sarel ’83. 3

Interviewer And to what unit were you called up? Sarel 1 SAI in Bloemfontein. Interviewer Were you a January call up? Sarel January. Interviewer So you get on the train in Durban and you head off to Bloem? Sarel No. Geez, I first went for a haircut. Laughs My dad and my mom took me through to Kroonstad. And there I got on a plane. But my mom tried everything. No, my eyes. So I went for glasses. I got glasses. I’m still going to the army. But I was actually classified as…you must be classified as a G1K1. I was actually classified as G2 something, V8, we used to call it. But I just said, no ways, I’m going. So they dropped me off at Kroonstad, we climbed on the train there for Bloemfontein. Interviewer So finally you get to 1 SAI, what happens when you get there? Sarel Total abortion. Laughs I remember, you step off this flipping train, they throw you on a truck and everybody’s screaming, everybody tries to scream harder than the other one. A bunch of idiots because they want to show you now who’s in charge. But you’re like 17 years old, you just do whatever. We went for medicals, and there was this…I can never forget this…there was this sergeant major, and he was standing next to me, and he’s screaming, I don’t know what he was screaming. And I just say, ja oom. Laughs That’s what I can remember of that day. Interviewer You called a sergeant major ‘oom’. Sarel Yes. laughs And I think the doctors just started laughing. But then you…there’s cubicles and then you have to run from each cubicle to the other cubicle and you do a quick medical. Eyes, everywhere. So I told them – my eyes, I couldn’t see. And this guy said, have you got glasses? I said, yes. He said, ok fine, you can go. So they didn’t even test it properly you just go. Interviewer Then nobody asked you anything about your back or anything? Sarel Nothing, nothing. Interviewer So despite the fact that you could have actually avoided military conscription altogether, these guys didn’t even bother to check. Sarel No, they didn’t even look. Nothing, absolutely. Interviewer Did that surprise you? Sarel It did. Because everybody told me, if you want to go there you must be a hundred percent fit. I even joined in December, I even ran like say, 5kms a day or something, did some pull-ups and stuff. In the Free State, that platteland se dorpies, you just run. That wasn’t even necessary. Interviewer And you had heard from other guys about basics being tough, I’m 4 sure? Sarel Yes. Interviewer Were you apprehensive at all? Sarel No, totally disorientated yes. Then you get told you must go sit in a line like this, and you sit for three hours and you wait on this rugby field, everybody’s like waiting, and then this guy says, ok, you’re going to Alpha company, you’re going to Charlie company. Charlie company, Bravo company, Alpha company, everybody sit in a line and then you wait. And then this commander comes and he stands up there and he talks something about welcome or whatever and then that’s it. But you don’t know where you are. Interviewer And then they start to issue you your kit and all the rest and then your first few weeks are what, just straight PT, up early, to bed late, inspections, all that stuff? Sarel Yes. And they taught us how to iron and everything. But I was in Alpha company. Alpha company actually started…we were told that we are going to do a parade at the end of basics for the old Tempe guys. So we didn’t do so much basic, basic training. We did but we spent a whole lot of time doing drill. Drilling practice. Because we were supposed to do this huge…this whole thing, this whole Tempe military base. You know Tempe? It’s got infantry, it’s got the service battalions and everything. We’re supposed to do like a parade for them. So a lot of times they took us off and they drilled us. Interviewer And then when did you do that parade? Sarel Only just after basics. Interviewer Basics is what, three months. Sarel Yes. Interviewer What was that for? Was it a special event or something? Sarel Yes, it was a special event. We did everything other guys did. But where they like got extra PT and stuff, we just went to have drilling lessons and stuff. Interviewer And then after that period, then what happened? Sarel First pass, four days. Then I got chosen to do a leadership course at NLV. There’s no English word for it apparently. Interviewer That’s also in Bloem? Sarel Yes. Interviewer It’s like the JL course at Oudtshoorn. Sarel That’s it, yes. Now some of the guys got chosen to go to Oudtshoorn, those just infantry. If you want to do the Ratel training course with Ratels then you go there. That’s opposite the 5 Tempe Tigers base. School of Armour took over. Interviewer What did you do in your first pass? Sarel Nothing. Just parked off. Seriously didn’t want to go back. It took me like 5 years to look forward to the army, and then it took me 3 months not to go back. didn’t want to go back. Thought that was a big mistake. I didn’t want to go. Interviewer And what was the reason? Just because it was just too much messing around? Sarel Everybody is just screaming. I don’t like that. But I wasn’t in constant trouble all the time, it was just like…it’s really not necessary to scream like that. You can ask us decently, type of thing. Interviewer And actually when you got there, you wanted to go into the army because you thought it was a fun way of life, or did you want to defend your country or what did you want to do? Sarel No, no, I didn’t want to do any of that. I actually went to the army just for myself, to do it for myself that’s all. Interviewer Because your cousin had spoken to you about it, the Selous Scout guy. Sarel Yes, he spoke to me about it, I was in standard seven or something when he spoke to me. When I went to the army I decided no, I want to do it for myself. I want to be able to tell people I was in the army. It sounded like a totally different type of person. You know like you used to get the railway guys and the post office people, we always used to look down on them. So I had to do it. Interviewer I’d forgot that, when you were at school, the railways or the post office, you could actually get exempted from... Sarel Yes. And always, I used to know always the people used to say you can immediately see the difference between a person who did his army or not. Which is true. Interviewer So you go off to NLV, and then does it get serious? Sarel Seriously serious. It was bad news. That was a bit rough. But I did it. I actually got approved to go on. But I only did a section leader course. Section leader course is you’re only in charge of an infantry section. But I was anti tanks so it’s not an infantry section it’s just a Milan team in charge of a Ratel 90, you’ve got three people and they’ve got a missile that they shoot off basically. And I thought no, to be honest with you, I got chosen to do that, approved, everything, but I declined it. I said, no, I want to go back to the companies. Interviewer When you say Milan, that’s the anti tank missile. Sarel Yes. 6

Interviewer Was that fired out of the Ratel itself? Sarel No, no, no. Interviewer Because later at the end of Operation Hooper and Modular they had anti missile rifles, but very few of them. Sarel I never saw one of those. Interviewer Can you explain to me about the Milan, is that a shoulder launched missile? Sarel No, a Milan is a…it’s got a short base. It’s got two parts. It’s difficult to explain. You’ve got a shield here, basically just a shield to shield your ears from the blast. And then you connect it and it’s got a tripod. And then the missile…you don’t see the missile, the missile is in a fibre glass holder with wires and stuff. Interviewer Ok, so it’s a wire guided missile. Sarel Yes. Infra red type missile. You put it on, you click it on, and then if you shoot it, it sends out signals on this wire. There’s a wire running behind this. Interviewer So they taught you this sort of stuff. I presume there were lots of lectures about how to use all the equipment and then practicals using the equipment time and time again. Sarel Yes, we did a lot of practical shooting. They had a simulator as well. Interviewer What kind of simulator? Sarel Milan simulator. You’ve got this screen thing, a box, that you connect on top of this anti tank missile system, and then the instructor looks on the top, and then the guy shoots it. The guy shoots the missile and the instructor will tell you, ok, fine, do this, do that, do this, or you’re doing this wrong. You’re not holding it still enough or something. You shoot it and then the instructor can see a missile going, but it’s just simulation. Interviewer Sure. But you decided that this Milan anti tank missile wasn’t necessary for you. You’d rather go back to…? Sarel No, no, I was one. I was a trained instructor on that. After that I qualified to do the platoon sergeant and platoon commander, but I didn’t want to do it. So I only did my section leader course and after that I went back to the companies. I got dealt into O company, which is anti tank. And after that I went to 1 SSB. One Service Battalion. For my 90mm instruction course. And then after that I went to School of Armour. After that we went back to the companies. Then basically the year was finished. Interviewer And your 90mm was the 90mm Ratels? Sarel Yes. Interviewer And did you have any training on the 90mm Eland? 7

Sarel Yes. We went to School of Armour, they only use that, and 1 SSB as well. Well at that stage they only used… Interviewer So you went and did your 90mm training course and so on and so forth, and that was through 1 SSB? Sarel Yes. Interviewer And then that took almost a year. Sarel Yes. Interviewer So during that period there’s all this technical training in the weapons and the battle tactics. Obviously there is, I’m sure, there’s a lot of PT in between to make sure you’re fit. Sarel Oh yes! Interviewer Your instructors were they harsh, were they acceptable? Sarel No, no I was actually lucky. After I got back from 1 SSB, quite a few of us, we got a staff sergeant Wiese. Anton [a friend, Anton Oberholzer, also interviewed for Missing Voices] said to you he got a Staff Sergeant Smit. Everything he said to you about Killer Smit is true. I don’t even know what he said, but it’s true. Laughs I got a nice…a very strict guy but he was very nice. Staff Sergeant Wiese. Interviewer So he was more of a human being. Sarel Yes. He was a mother but he was a good guy. He looked like Obelisk, huge torso and these small little legs, but he was a good guy. Interviewer So you go through this whole period where they were teaching you how to use these weapons, was there any sort of discussion about what the war in Angola was about, or the war in South West Africa? Sarel Nothing. We never talked about it. Interviewer They didn’t give you any instructions…? Sarel Only when I did basics, just one corporal said they’re busy with some operation. I think ’83 was Askari, I’m not sure. Interviewer It could have been Askari, because Protea was ’84. Sarel Yes, you’re right, Protea! Because I did my matric in ’83, and ’84 they said they’re busy with it. What time of year was it? Interviewer It would have been in the winter just outside of the rainy season, July or August. So most of it was simply teaching you how to use the weapons and so on and so forth. Did they teach you about Soviet tanks and stuff like that? Sarel Yes, because I was in anti tank. Interviewer So you knew where to shoot at a T34, or a T54, T55. 8

Sarel Yes, we were trained to see exactly how far a tank is from here. if you can take him out with a 90mm or if you can take him out with a Milan. Interviewer And so after your first year, then what happened? Sarel Ok, then we got like a…it was fine, everything was done. So then we went to 4 SAI in January after the Christmas pass. Then we didn’t do any anti tank. We were just infantry. Interviewer Now 4 SAI is also in Bloem? Sarel No that’s in Middelburg. Transvaal. Interviewer Inaudible Sarel 1 SAI. 1 SAI is Bloem. Interviewer And then what did you do at 4 SAI. Sarel That was a horrible place. We got treated like we were just flipping rowes. We got treated like we’d just klaared in. Now that’s a kak place. But we immediately basically prepared to do border duty. After we got there we immediately prepared. Interviewer So give me an idea of what you did to prepare. Sarel We did quite a lot of exercise training as well. We got told that they were not gong to utilise the anti tank people. We’re not going to go to…there was talk that they were going to put us with 1 SSB or something, big thing, then it stopped. And they said, ok fine just go with the infantry. I wasn’t actually trained to do infantry work. I did it when I did my leader’s course, that was like 8 months before. So they just said, ok fine, there’s your section, go. next moment we know we were at Grootfontein. Interviewer Did you fly up? Sarel Yes. Interviewer And then you get to Grootfontein, then what happened? Sarel We went to Grootfontein we got there…no, Ondangwa, sorry. We went to Ondangwa when we got there. Then we started. Then we were at Ondangwa, we were there for about a couple of days or so, and then after that took us on a Wit Olifant, these big white trucks, just go to the border. Interviewer And when you got there did you think, what am I letting myself in for? Sarel No, no, I was actually looking forward to it. We did a lot of patrols, that’s all we did. We just did patrols. Interviewer But now you’re travelling in the Ratels? Sarel No, no, we were just infantry. Interviewer You’re just straight infantry. 9

Sarel There wasn’t any Ratels in my…we went to the border as plain infantry. Interviewer Despite all this year’s training… Sarel The whole year’s training when down the drain. And I did a crash course, infantry attack. Whatever, the section fire and movement type of thing, I did a crash course for a week…not even a week. Then I got given my own…they gave me a section. Jussie, this one guy was like 2 Greeks and 3 Lebanese. They were all like people who immigrated and they had to do their National Service before they can be accepted in this country. Now I’ve got to get all these blinking guys who can’t even talk English. Laughs So I get all these flipping… Interviewer Didn’t that make you a little bit concerned? Sarel Yes. The one guy was from Britain, he was a flipping atheist. That at that stage was a no-go. He was a good gunner, to be honest. After we went to the border later on, but he was a good…but that got me a bit…Greeks, the one’s surname was Coracha, we used to call him Cockaracha. The other one was de Freitas…I used to call him Stafendas. We’d get these Portuguese, Spanish and Lebanese people. Laughs Interviewer So this is a bit of a surprise, you spend a year learning how to use anti tank missiles and 90mm cannons and things like that, and you suddenly end up in the infantry with a bunch of guys who are trying to qualify for South African citizenship. Sarel Yes, yes, that’s what happened. Interviewer And whereabouts did you patrol? Sarel Jussie… Interviewer Mainly Ovamboland? Sarel Angola. We were doing Angola the whole time. Interviewer How far in southern Angola? Sarel About 5 or 10kms, not further than that. Because we were foot…we weren’t mechanized or had any vehicles. We just walked. Interviewer And what was a typical patrol like? Sarel Naafi. It was… laughs let me tell you, if anybody says he was very patriotic after that, he’s talking nonsense. I mean, it’s the biggest waste of time I ever saw in my life. Really! That border thing was a total waste of time. Never hit any contacts. We caught a commissar. And I saw 30 walk past me. But I never even reported that. I was too flipping scared. But otherwise I saw a lot of Koevoet and Three Two Battalion striking contact a lot, with gunships and stuff. They’d pick up a patrol…the one time we were standing staat parade. Staat parade is if you pack out 10 everything and they…it’s a parade, they come and do inspection, all your stuff is clean, you haven’t got foot disease or something like that. you take out your boots and the medic examines you and your stuff is clean. Your rifles, everything. Staat parade means everything must be clean. Interviewer So basically they inspect you, your physical health from your toes to your rifle to everything. Sarel Yes. At one time we were just getting ready for that [parade] and then we picked up…the guy said, ok, go, go, go. They picked up a trail. So I was totally operational. The next moment I just saw these Koevoet Casspirs going past, so they picked it up and they just like twah! Twah! twah! Carrying on about 5kms in front of us. These guys were all over the mud guards. Interviewer You mean the guys they had shot were draped over the mud guards. Sarel Draping over the mud guards and they also worked with 101 Battalion, Cape Corps. Interviewer 101, wasn’t that the Ovambo Battalion? Sarel 101, no they’re coloured. Interviewer I thought Cape Coloured Corps was separate. I thought 101 was the Ovambos. It doesn’t matter though, but they were working with a coloured battalion at that stage? Sarel Yes. Interviewer When they were going into contact they didn’t get you guys on the radio and say, this is what we’re doing, support us? Sarel No ways! No! Interviewer Why not? You’re on the same side. Sarel No! Geez, Koevoet and Three Two was on their own mission. Laughs If you’re in their way they’ll most probably shoot you too. Jy maak gat skoene. Just leave them. Go. Especially the Koevoet with the gunships. Hell, they just shoot. You just run. Now they picked up…there was a couple of incidents, and I know for a fact, that they listened to our radio conversations. And the next moment you’re just like lying there, waiting for the…ambush and the next moment you just check these Casspirs going past, and you see this big black guy sitting there with these huge dark glasses, with his 12.7 gun, you just…here they go. So it’s quite a scary sight. Interviewer It must be. There you are, at this stage, you’re quite a well trained infantry man, you’re trained to use a lot of stuff, yet these guys in your mind were different to you. Sarel I always used to…yes, definitely hey! I always used to, like, admire them. Because they had absolutely no discipline, they were always drunk. They had absolutely no discipline. You’re not 11 supposed to sit on top of an armoured car. They do. They just sit and they’re wearing vellies and they’re wearing shorts. And we were like just totally organised, we’re supposed to be organised and highly trained and very disciplined, but we never got close to them. When it comes to contacts and things like that. Interviewer What rank were you at that stage? Sarel Corporal. Interviewer Would you have thought about walking up to these guys and saying, hello, what are you guys doing here? Sarel No! No, you don’t talk to those people man! Laughs No, no. Interviewer But it’s astounding, you were fighting the same war. Sarel Totally different. You hear Three Two…ok Three Two was quite alright. Koevoet was bad news. Interviewer Were you scared of Koevoet? Sarel Geez, they will just shoot you or bliksem you. They don’t care. You know what happened the one time, we were in Ondangwa or Oshikati or one of those places, and I was there helping them out at the Grenspos, the border post. And I’m with my section, it was my turn to go help them out. Now what they do is they close off all the roads, certain time of night, I think it’s six, I’m not sure, I can’t remember. Interviewer Yes, there was a curfew. Sarel Curfew. From six to six or something. And then you just check all these trucks and cars and stuff, stop right there at the border and everybody got out and they sleep. Or whatever. They just didn’t move. Waiting for the Koevoet captain to come and say, ok, fine, you can go, or something like that. Geez and we waited and we waited, and it was six o’clock, and at seven o’clock and no Koevoet came, no nothing came, and I just opened the boom and said, go. Gee whiskers! Next moment this Koevoet captain came running around. So they were used to letting the guys wait there for like three or four hours before they even opened the boom. I just opened it. And there was big trouble. I never went back to that base again. Interviewer Did he yell at you? Did he threaten you? Sarel No, he just yelled at me. Interviewer But you’re a big guy, you’re intimidating. Sarel Malgat man. Laughs I was skinnier than Anton. Interviewer But it must have been a bit of a mind bend, I’m in the army now and these okes are just very different to us. Sarel Yes, we admired them. That’s all. Doesn’t matter what anybody says, all our troops admired the Koevoet and admired the Three 12 Two Battalion, actually we admired the Three Two Battalion more because we never saw them. We always saw Koevoet but they were always drunk. Three Two Battalion, the army heard about what they do, you don’t see them, you don’t hear them, you just heard ok they were there. Koevoet’s big mouth. They just bliksem them and do whatever and moer everybody. At a bar fight or something, no-one’s standing and then these three Koevoet guys came up and I heard that a whole platoon of army guys went down. Interviewer When you’re talking about the Koevoet and the gunships, you’re talking about helicopter gunships? Sarel Yes. Interviewer Because some of the Koevoet guys talk about their cars as gunships as well. The Wolf Turbo. But you’re talking about the Alouettes. Sarel No, no, not Alouettes, I’m talking about the big ones. Interviewer The Pumas? Sarel Pumas. I saw a couple of Koevoet…you see what happened was we actually…I saw a contact with Koevoet and they were using those Pumas. So I don’t know if it was a Koevoet Puma or if it was the airforce. But I know that these guys were talking and they knew each other because they were calling each other by their name. We listened to it on the radio. Interviewer And you weren’t drawn into that, you just sat and listened. Sarel Nothing. Interviewer You heard the guns being fired and all the rest. Sarel Yes, I reported it to my lieutenant and my lieutenant said, just stay there. Don’t do anything, just park off. Just be on your guard in case someone comes running around. Interviewer Earlier on you mentioned that you had 20 or 30 other guys walk past you. And you said you didn’t say anything, you were too scared. Sarel Yes, that was a bit rough. Interviewer What happened there? Sarel We were walking for a week. Then we were walking 10kms here, then they say you must go there. Then you walk 30kms there, and you’re getting a bit gatvol, you’re getting a bit moeg, tired. It was just after the rainy season, or just in the rainy season. There was a lot of water and there was this big shona. And we were on this side of the shona. The next moment all the guys are like lying, parking off and smoking and…and I look and I saw these guys walking there. And we counted, 1, 2…. 30. I radioed my lieutenant and I said, listen are there any Unita movements around here because we used to see a lot of Unita. The problem 13 is you couldn’t differ between the two. You can’t differ between Unita and them. They look the same. With their uniforms. Said to this lieutenant, any Unita movements around here or something? He said, no, no, not that I know of. Why? I said, no, nothing. Just put the phone down. I said to the guys we’re never going to say this, because we’re never going to say anything about this, because we were like 8 and they were like 30 or 40 or something. I can’t remember. But it was like a whole company, platoon. Interviewer Could it not have been Three Two? Sarel I don’t know. Mind you… Interviewer Did you see the weapons they were carrying? Sarel It was all AKs, G5s, RPGs. Interviewer But you actually had no idea who they were. Sarel No, no idea. I absolutely had no idea. Interviewer And that was inside Angola? Sarel Yes, inside. But they were walking north. They were going north. But that was it, I never heard anything about it. I mean, there was Koevoet so I really can’t say. Interviewer But you were just confused, you spoke to your guys… Sarel And they said, no, no. And I said, we’re not going to do anything, we’re just going to leave it. Interviewer When you were walking patrol in those areas, how many days would you walk for? Sarel They normally called us back and said ok fine come in. Before you go on patrol you get a grid that you must do. Or they give you a map to go and then when you go to that grid reference, and you tell them ok, I’m at that grid reference. Or they will phone you and say, right, go to that grid reference. You have to go because there’s something there lying and you must identify it and let the lieutenant know that you are there. So we will put most probably a tin or can, something there. Interviewer So that was just a little trick to make sure that you got there. Sarel Yes, just to make sure that we get there. You see if I look under the tree, what is there? Oh, it’s a packet of Lexington cigarettes. Fine, you’re there. Interviewer And you were just walking on compass plots. Nott just guessing? Sarel See the Yati was big road. We always used to stay close to the road. Interviewer The Yati was essentially just parallel to the cutline. Was the cutline. Sarel Yati is the cutline. Big open strip. Then you get beacons, every 14 ten kms you’ve got a beacon. Then they say, go to beacon 30 or 29 or something like that. Every 10 kms you get a beacon. Report, you’re at beacon number 26. A couple of hours later, ok, beacon number 27. Then they say, ok, walk for 5kms, there might be something there. Or intelligence said they picked up a spoor, or something like that. Go check it out. You go there, you check it out. Interviewer Were there any kraals or anything like that? Sarel Yes, lots! Interviewer And when you got there did the people sort of shout at you? Sarel They didn’t like us. No, we could see the Ovambos didn’t like us because of what the Koevoet done. This is serious. Genuine, genuine, genuine. No bullshit. But people didn’t like us, they… interruptions Interviewer You said the people in the kraals, the Ovambos, weren’t too keen on the SADF because of what Koevoet got up to. Sarel Yes. Basically we…the National Defence Force, we were told very strictly we’re here to do public relations and that’s our biggest thing. We don’t mess with these people, we help them, we give them our extra rations, stuff like that. There was a total disregard for that. Totally. Interviewer Did you ever see the Koevoet guys doing anything unpleasant? Sarel No. No. Yes, once…we were given a couple of Koevoet guys to go out with us on patrol. But not actually…they were rustig. You don’t mess with them. Interviewer Now Koevoet were mainly black guys with white officers. Sarel Yes. Interviewer And all the majority of the black guys were Ovambos themselves. Sarel Or ex terrs. Interviewer Guys who had been terrs. Did you ever have a chance to chat with them and say, howzit, how are you? ………Nothing, so they kept you separate all the time? Sarel Totally separate. You never used to integrate with these people, never used to talk to them. We saw them and howzit, but we never, howzit, come have a braai or something like that. Interviewer And then when you were either in Ondangwa or Oshikati or those places, did you ever run into the Recces or those guys? Sarel I did in ’88 when I did my… Interviewer Ok, so that was later but not as a National Serviceman. And the parabats? Sarel They were schmuks. 15

Interviewer You speak like a 1 SAI man. Sarel No, they were a bunch of idiots. Interviewer Why do you say that? Sarel They did their training, again, they did well, I must say their training was quite hard. But they’ve got this thing about themselves. And on the border they just shoot each other. I don’t know. They’re supposed to do an ambush and the lieutenant totally got it wrong and three of his guys got shot dead or something. They were overrated. And on the border they were not even used. They got given a Buffel in the townships. Interviewer So you think they were arrogant? Sarel Of course. The biggest…just before I was there, in ’83 apparently, parabats jumped the fence to the 1 SSB guys, and the 1 SSB guys knew about it, when I did my 90mm course. They knew about this. The parabats are coming and they put steam irons and everything in the balsakke and they were waiting for…I don’t know if you know about…they actually killed two and that was the truth. Honestly. God’s truth. Interviewer There you are, once again, you’re in the same army, you’re allegedly fighting for the same cause, and yet the guys are fighting and killing each other. Sarel There was a big story about that but I know that for a fact, Alpha company corporals, they were all pigs. They used to…remember I told you about the drilling, this parade? They told us, this is what happens. Interviewer Now all this is going on, so now by the time you’re on the border, you’ve been in the army for a long time and you’ve seen Koevoet and you’ve seen Three Two and you know about the parabats, what were you thinking at the time? Were you thinking, shit I can’t wait for this to finish? Sarel Yes. I was very enthusiastic to start. Major. I went there, I want to do it, I want to do it, and halfway through I thought, no, goodness me, I just want to get out of here. laughs I was glad it’s over. Interviewer And the guys you were with, your unit, your platoon, were they saying the same thing? Sarel Yeah, I suppose everybody was like that. I mean, these big buddies, yes, yes, ok fine, yes, we’re going to have a moerse reunion or something, and then after that we never heard from each other again. Never ever! Never heard from these people again. Never. I go on this website, the South African reunion, I put my name on there. 1 SAI, 4 SAI. A lot of guys I saw that was with me in a section, I send them emails saying they must contact me. Never. Interviewer Do you think it’s just because the guys have moved on and their 16 lives have changed? Sarel I don’t think they’re wanting to go back. They don’t want to talk army stuff anymore. Interviewer That’s interesting. I wonder why? You clearly have remembered it well, your friend Anton remembers it well. Maybe it’s too difficult for some guys? Sarel Anton and me, we talk a lot about the army. We talk quite a lot. Interviewer Yes, and you collect militaria, don’t you? Sarel Yes. Interviewer Now what sort of militaria do you collect? Do you collect badges and berets and stuff? Sarel Just medals. Any type of medal. Militaria medals. South African border medals. I’ve got Recce badges. Parabat insignia. First World War, Second World War. Boer War stuff. Interviewer Do you think you would have done this if you hadn’t gone to the army or do you think it’s as a result of the army? You’re remembering some parts of your life. Sarel Yes, yes, definitely, that’s why I’m doing it. I always take my medals and I go to Anton and I show him, and I can see he appreciates it. Interviewer And you guys up there, in Angola, sometimes you’re not in Angola, and most people would say, gee, we want to go home now, we’re tired of this. Did your commanders ever have briefings where they’d say to you, this is what you guys are doing here, this is why you’re walking patrol, this is why you’re out in the sticks doing all this stuff day to day? Nothing? Sarel No they didn’t talk about anything. They didn’t try to motivate us, definitely not. Because they knew we were very like demotivated. This is lots of bullshit. Actually they should have given that to the professional soldiers to do. They didn’t need 3000 guys to attack Cuito Cuanavale. They should have actually just used the PFs to do it. That’s their job. Obviously. A lot of guys got negative because of that. Interviewer Ok, I’m still talking about your National Service. So the guys that are in there, they’re getting negative, all they want to do is go home to their girlfriends and civvy street. How long were you on the border during your National Service? Sarel 4 months. Interviewer And then they brought you back to Bloem? Sarel No, 4 SAI. Interviewer Sorry, to 4 SAI, Middelburg. 17

Sarel Then I did a lot of townships, because at that stage in ’85, there was a lot of unrest. Sometimes it was even worse than a border duty. Interviewer So the townships were more frightening than the border? Sarel Sometimes, yes, definitely. Interviewer We used to…there I worked a lot with Koevoet guys. Policemen. They wore cammos, I don’t know if they were Koevoet or not. But I know that they used to… Sarel Were they not riot units at that time? Interviewer Must be. They used to wear cammos but they were like rustige bastards. We used to go out with…a section of us used to get…say ok fine, you stay with that section for the week. Then you get your little tents and stuff, and then every morning a policeman would come and pick you up in his Casspir and then you would do a patrol. END OF SIDE A (counter at 530) SIDE B (counter at 13) Interviewer What townships were you patrolling? Sarel Tembisa and…there’s one close to Tembisa I did…there was one, Secunda. Interviewer Just outside Secunda itself? Sarel I don’t know. Interviewer And what would a sort of typical day there be like? Sarel Aagh it was a bit rustige. Again we did her-opleiding, urban pacification they used to call or something, where you throw out of a Buffel or something and then (inaudible). But we used to walk patrols a lot in the streets and stuff like that. Interviewer Daytime and night-time? Sarel Yes, daytime and night-time. Interviewer What did you think when you were doing that? Sarel Night-time was a bit scary but…daytime was ok. We stayed in a school yard, a rugby field. Our section. Just us alone. Just us, 11 guys. And the locals used to bring us food. We used to braai and the girls came to visit us there. Then it was quite lekker. Laughs Interviewer And once again, did your commanders explain what you were doing there? Sarel Yes, what we did is before we left, 4 SAI, we just came back from the border, we were getting ready to go on pass. And then they cancelled this pass. And the guys were going totally frigging nuts. We had just handed in all our stuff. Our trommels, our guns, our 18 R4s and whatever, we’d just handed it in, and we were getting ready to go on pass that next morning we were going. I’d even got my stuff, your putties and your flashes and you’re ready now to go and the next day, listen you’re not going any more, go draw your kit. We’d just come back from the border. Then off we went to Secunda from there. We were very like close to striking there. Interviewer Which was unthinkable in the army. Sarel No. laughs Geez, don’t even talk about it. Interviewer But then when you were doing these patrols, you say you were 11 of you, you were on the school field and people were actually being friendly to you? Sarel Yes, that was nice. Interviewer But did you wonder what you were doing there? Sarel I know that they were building schools and stuff. And before we left there, we got shown, just that day that our pass was cancelled, before we left, we got shown a video of how they ate people. Interviewer Ate people? Sarel They threw tyres over them and they set them alight. And then this guy was taking a video of this one woman cutting this piece of flesh, this person was burning with this tyre, they call it a necklace. We looked at this shit and we thought, oh geez, ok now we have to go through this crap. That actually happened, I saw that. On a movie they showed us, after they necklaced this one woman. Interviewer Did you wonder, there you are, you were trained to use anti tank missiles, you’re trained to use 90mm cannons, and now suddenly you’re in an urban warfare situation, was it urban warfare or was it…? Sarel Yes, we were trained to do that. We were trained to do border duty. I did a crash course after that, we always…actually my main training came after I was finished with my National Service. I became Citizen Force. That’s when I really started becoming…like they trained us major. Interviewer I’d like to get to that now, but what I’m asking you is, did it strike you as surprising that your entire military training had been about essentially conventional warfare, and suddenly you were patrolling the streets of a township. Did that sort of…? Sarel No, we didn’t even think about it. Like we just thought, ok, it’s something that has to be done and we do it. We were trained to do anti-tanks and shoot tanks and stuff like that, yes, ok, fine. And the next moment you find yourself in a township in the middle of your own backyard. That was quite…an eye opener to see that there’s more crap going on here than on the border. But you never got told, you must just be there to subdue the Rooi 19 Gevaar type of thing that they always used to say to us. Interviewer Did they say who the Rooi Gevaar was? Sarel No, just the Communists and stuff like that. Interviewer So what did Communism mean? Sarel We don’t know. We just thought, there goes our way of life. If the Communists will take over the Afrikaans people won’t live anymore, there won’t be a place for us. We’d better fight. If you get used on the border or they use you here, you must just do it, otherwise there’s going to be big kak. There’s no place for us in this country. Interviewer But you weren’t really sure what a Communist would look like or what Communism was about? Sarel We were not told what it was, all that we were told…even at school, you know with this cadet force, we did cadet camps and stuff like that as well. Rooi Gevaar, Roomse Gevaar, Roman Catholics, die drie Gevare. Swart Gevaar, die Rooi Gevaar and die Roomse Gevaar. The Roman Catholics taking over the world. Then the Communists are taking over the world, and then the blacks are taking over the world. Interviewer Was there any suggestion about the ANC or was it just black people generally? Sarel Just black people generally. And Communism. Interviewer So nobody said the ANC are causing all this trouble or anything like that? Sarel No, no. On the border it was Sam Njoma, yes, I know. Interviewer Ok, SWAPO. Sarel Yes, SWAPO, you’re going to fight SWAPO. But South Africa, just Communism. We didn’t…never talked about ANC. Interviewer And so the people who were instigating for this idea that the schools were being burned, there was unrest and this was being instigated by ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ were, in your mind was this a combination of the three? Sarel No, we were told that they’re doing this totally to upset the flow of peace in the country. They’re purposefully trying to destabilize the country. Interviewer And this was ‘they’, just this broad ‘they’? Sarel They discussed the governments of other countries as well. Everybody was against us type of thing. Interviewer Which countries? Soviet countries or would that have included… Sarel Not the Soviets, we thought that the Soviets are sitting back and laughing at us because we were fighting the Soviets, other guys 20 that were supposed to be with us or against the Soviets are also now against us so we’re basically alone. We haven’t got the backup from other countries. We must (inaudible). Then they brought this arms embargo in, and then we just got told listen we found something better. And then we found the G5 cannon, the big guns. This Milan was a French design. It wasn’t supposed to be in the country. We got it on the black market or something, that’s what we got told. So who needed the other countries? We were just told we’ve got a serious problem in the townships. That was in ’85, I was like 19. Interviewer And then so you spend some time in Tembisa and somewhere else possibly, and then how soon was that before you klaared out? Sarel No, then I went to Kruger National Park. I stayed there for 3 months. We were there to catch all the Renamo, Frelimo…there was a civil war going on…all the refugees used to come through there. A specific place through the Kruger National Park which they used to go because it’s… Interviewer Near which camps? If I’m looking at Kruger north to south, we’ve got Punda Maria at the top, then you’ve got Shingwedzi, and Letaba, Olifants… Sarel What’s that other one right at the bottom? I can’t remember. Interviewer Were you right on the Mozambican border? Sarel Yes. We patrolled the Mozambican border. We went right south, all the way south, to the southern most point. Then we went up to Punda Maria, we stayed there in the field itself. Every morning we used to do patrols. Then we used to patrol for refugees. Interviewer And those refugees were unarmed, they were genuine refugees, people just fleeing the war. Sarel Definitely they were…ok, we didn’t have any respect for them so…but the older you get to actually think about it…there were a couple of things I saw. Like this old woman was sitting right next to this border, the wire, the fence, on the other side. They just left her there. Because she was too old to climb the fence itself. So they left this poor woman there. This guy asked, how long have you been there? She said 3 days, in the middle of nowhere. Give her water and stuff like that. This poor woman is lying there, they just left her there because she’s keeping them back. That’s a bit rough to leave the woman there for 3 days, just to die. Interviewer And at the time were you aware of what was going on in Mozambique? Were you aware of what the war was about? Sarel No. I just know that we are supposed to be on Renamo’s side. Interviewer But no …were you aware that South Africa was funding Renamo? Sarel No. I know in ’85 three of our guys left, went over, they went 21 fishing, they got caught. Can you remember something like that? Interviewer That sounds familiar but I don’t remember the specifics. Sarel When I was already finished, then only then they got released. I was finished, sitting at home one day, and then I heard. But it was from another…same company, but another platoon. Interviewer So they just took some time off, went fishing and then got themselves captured. Sarel Yes, they got captured and were thrown into a jail for a couple of months. Interviewer That must have caused your commanders a little bit of concern. Sarel They were horrified but not us. Whatever. Laughs Bloody Engelsman from Durban laughs It was true. It was Englishmen from Durban. Interviewer And your patrols, you obviously encountered elephants and things like that? Or not? In Kruger? Sarel Yes, yes. A lot of stuff. We saw elephant. That was the best 3 months of the whole 3 years. We caught a group of…I picked up a spoor, we caught them, once, in the whole three months that we were there. That was lekker. Interviewer So it made up for the boredom of the border. Sarel Oh yeah! We didn’t want to go home. They just left you for 2 weeks. Every third day they used to come around with a canteen, what do you need or something? There’s your actually rat packs. Is everything ok? Yes, fine. Here’s new batteries for your radio. It was lekker. That made up for the whole three years. Interviewer The best game drive. Sarel Oh yes! We saw everything. I saw everything. We stayed there for three and a half months, in the field. We saw lions attacking zebras, hunting. I saw a snake catching a bird. We were driving past in a Buffel, I see this snake lying there and he’s got this bird by the head and this bird was like flapping around, and I thought geez, did I see that now or what? And I looked and I saw this one guy also saw it and he looked at me, did we just see that? Yes, we did. And then we talked about it. We saw everything. Interviewer And during this whole period, did you start thinking about, well what am I going to do when I leave the army? Sarel No. I wasn’t worried hey. Geez I applied for Spoornet, I applied for the bank, I applied at Telkom, because we knew we would get jobs. Serious, I wasn’t worried. Interviewer So at that stage you viewed the military as something that you had to do, you had to get it over and done with, it was just an accepted part of society. 22

Sarel Yes. Interviewer But during your National Service you didn’t think, hell, what a pity I did this, it was such a waste of my time? Sarel I knew that it was a waste but I was never sorry I did it. Never, never. I stayed quiet, everybody else was like complaining, but I just kept quiet. I was glad I did it, I really was. Interviewer At what point did you…? Sarel I’m just glad I did it. Just proud to say, listen I went to the army for 3 years. I did something constructive, I wasn’t supposed to. I wasn’t classified physically fit to go and I did it. Interviewer So you felt more from your own personal point of view that physically you could do it, mentally you could do it? Sarel Definitely. Lots of time wasted and I was sorry I did it…no not sorry I did it…it was a time waste, yes, it was a time waste, but I’m glad I did it. We kakked, but we did it. Interviewer When you were in Kruger did they have specific rules that if you found refugees, did they have rules about what you did with them, who you handed them over to and stuff like that? Sarel No, we had a medic with us, and when we caught…it was a group, quite a big one, we immediately let the commander know that we had a group, keep us together, give them water, give them something to eat, we used to…and then we just waited for the Samil 50 to arrive, you know the big Samil truck. Taken to Komatipoort or something, put them in an internment camp. This one woman told me she’s just coming back every time. They catch her, they put her back, she just…there’s nothing to eat there. Interviewer So as many times as you caught her and sent her back she would just carry on coming. Sarel Yes. Interviewer So at this stage you’re approaching the end of your National Service but you’ve already served in South West Africa, Angola, whatever, you’ve served in the townships, and you’ve served in the Kruger National Park. Did you ever think to yourself, goodness gracious, I didn’t expect any of this? Sarel I didn’t expect any but I didn’t think about it. Interviewer That was just what happened in the army. Sarel That was just…what we called your (inaudible) Interviewer How soon after your Kruger Park stuff did you klaar out? Sarel About a week later. Interviewer Did you keep a min dae calendar? 23

Sarel 99 days. I got so flipping drunk. At Kruger I got drunk, 99 days. Everybody got drunk. But a scorpion stung me on my finger and I’ll never forget it. It’s the most painful thing of the army I can remember is that scorpion sting. It was flipping sore! I never saw it swollen, never saw any blood, never anything, never got red, never went white, never went nothing. It just was so flipping sore. Interviewer And that was the start of your hundred days. Sarel Yes, that was the start. But I don’t know if people told you about the rat packs, you get like sores all over you. It’s true. You’d get a scratch and the scratch doesn’t go away for like three weeks or something like that. Interviewer Were you only on rat packs those days? Sarel Yes. Interviewer So there was the standard little thing with a little can of Bully Beef and peas and stuff like that and the little Cheezie and all the rest. Sarel Yes. Interviewer And you think that was the diet? And then when your day comes, your klaaring out parade, what did you think to yourself? Sarel A big mess. Everybody made a stuff up with the klaaring parade. Sergeant major was screaming his lungs out, but we didn’t give a fuck, we just left. F U man, I thought I was finished. Jussie! Then the real kak started to hit the fan. Laughs Ja, I thought this thing’s never going to see me again. I was glad. But then for ten years every year… Interviewer You did your camps. Sarel Yes, her-opleiding and Lohatla, every time. Tape turned off I remember the one, we were walking patrol, and we were lazy, we were tired, we never walked with our guns like this. We always put it on the backside on the grootsak, actually tied it so it can be easier to walk. So anybody could have, actually basically stood up and just mowed us down. And out of the shona up comes this commissar. Just like he stood up just with his hands up like this. And I know the platoon sergeant came with us on patrol but his gun was stuck and he couldn’t get his gun out. He tried to get his gun out and everybody just like looked at this guy. He put his AK on the floor. Interviewer So he surrendered to you? Sarel He just surrendered. He could have flipping mowed us, the whole section down. 11 guys he could have taken out. Because we were just like…like some of our guns were fixed on the back here, looking…hell this platoon sergeant is trying to get his gun out. Laughs It was so funny. And this guy just put his AK down. Obviously he tried to be like, yes, I’m a big guy whatever. But this guy was a commissar or something. 24

Interviewer In other words he was a senior rank. Sarel His belt buckle was brassoed bright, bright, bright yellow Communist belt buckle. Shoes, polished. His gun was spotless. I never in my life saw a soldier like that. And all he had in his rucksack was a tin of Nugget polish and toothbrushes for his shoes. That’s all he had. Interviewer So he had no food? Sarel Nothing, nothing, nothing. Interviewer And did you have a chance to talk? Could he speak English? Sarel No, he couldn’t speak English. We just radioed in and they came and took him. Interviewer Who came and took him? Sarel The intelligence or something. I radioed in and then the base actually radioed something else. Just secured him and then they took him. Interviewer What did you think to yourself when you saw this is ‘the enemy’, if you know what I mean? Did you think, gee, this is a scary sight or did you think just another guy? Sarel Just another human being. With a different kit, that’s all. We were obviously (inaudible) but… Interviewer Just because the way you’d been trained and (inaudible) but you didn’t agree with the guy or anything like that. Sarel He tried to talk but you couldn’t understand a word he was saying. So we just let him sit and we gave him some food and he ate and he drank water, that was it. They came, took him away and he left. Interviewer This guy is the enemy and he’s a black guy. Koevoet and Three Two are also black guys but they’re on your side. How did that affect your perception of this whole race thing? Sarel No, that didn’t do anything. We looked at them as though they were the same as us. Definitely. Like we did in ’88 when I did the Operation. I saw a black guy that’s a Recce. We treated him like he was one of us. There was no such issue then, race issue. Interviewer Had you ever dealt with an adult black man on an equal basis before the army? Had you ever met a black guy and said, well you’re the same as me, there’s no issue here? No. So the first time you saw a black guy you thought well, there’s no difference between us, was in the army? Sarel Yes, we always looked down on them. What do you mean, when we were still at school or…? Interviewer All I’m suggesting is that when you went to the army had you ever sat down with a black guy your same age, and treated him 25 or viewed him as an equal? Sarel No, never. Never. Interviewer But then in the army when you see Three Two Battalion then you treated those guys…? Sarel Yes, exactly the same. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Strange but yes. Especially the ex terrs that came over. They fought with the South African Territorial Force. Interviewer South West Africa Territorial Force. Sarel Yes. We respected those guys. If the guy was in the Koevoet, if he was white or black, we treated him the same. Three Two Battalion, Territorial Force, 101, or whatever, we never looked down on them. We actually respected them more. And that’s a fact. Even before the army. Interviewer It’s quite interesting because the idea is that the army was fighting against Soviet expansion but also Angolans and… Sarel Yes, you see we were told that the blacks are actually more easy to convert or to bullshit basically by Communism than the whites. So these guys just get told a story and then they believe it. That was in the schools already we were told that. Interviewer So did it surprise you when you saw that Three Two guy, there was a very good soldier and you considered him to be an equal, did that surprise you? Sarel No. We never even thought about…I know that ex terrs in the Territorial Force used to get mattresses to sleep on, and we didn’t get mattresses. And they were all like old (inaudible). And they slept in the middle, they never used to stand guard. They all slept in the middle of this…we called it a laer… Interviewer A laager? Sarel We used to work with the South West African Territorial Force a couple of weeks, and they’ve got a place right in the middle with mattresses and they’ve got their beers and they were having themselves a royal time. Interviewer So now your National Service ends and you think well now I’m going into the big bad world and I’m free and all the rest and then you start getting called up for camps. Sarel Six weeks later I got my first call up. Laughs This is in February. I just klaared out in December. It was terrible. Six weeks, heropleiding, I was in De Brug, Bloemfontein. Just for six weeks. Came back next year, Lohatla. Heropleiding. Did everything again from scratch. We started from scratch. ’87 we went to Lohatla again. From scratch we basically got our Ratels, everything in De Brug. Interviewer Was that Operation Sweepslag? 26

Sarel No, no, no, I was in Sweepslag but before that we did Excalibur. That was a big one. I even had a certificate for that. I was with Anton at Sweepslag, I can’t remember when that was. ’87? ’86? Interviewer It was just before…I think it might have been early ’87. Sarel Sweepslag. Then we did Excalibur. Excalibur was a big thing. It was just before the Hooper. I think Sweepslag as well…I’m not sure. But I did both of them. Every year. Every year we used to go De Brug, klaar in, get your guns, next day flipping heropleiding. Although not the next day…the next day we get our Ratels, we move to Lohatla, do heropleiding. Every single year! ’88 we did…they called up now for 3 months, then we went to the border. Interviewer So you finished in December of ’85. Sarel ’85. Interviewer So every year you got a call up. Sarel Every year. Interviewer And your first call up was actually… Sarel Six weeks later. Interviewer Six weeks after you’d finished. So they gave you no sort of relaxation, nothing. And your training was it more intense than what you’d experienced with National Service? Was it more sophisticated? Sarel Oh yes! It was much more organised. They didn’t’ actually care much about your appearance. Once you are on Lohatla, you could wear takkies, they didn’t care. But we did heropleiding every single day! Heropleiding is…what do you call it in English? Interviewer It’s re-training. Sarel From scratch. With basics. Attack, attack, attack. From second phase. When I went to NLV after basics, most of the troops got…they call that second phase. That’s where you get your gunners and your… tape turned off Interviewer We were talking about your National Service and six weeks later you get your call up for a camp, then for the few years you get this constant series of call ups. You go to De Brug, you go to Lohatla, which are all big serious exercises and they’re training you in real war now. At those stages, particularly at Lohatla, were you then in the Ratels or were you still straight infantry? Sarel No, then we were straight 90mm anti-tank. Interviewer And what was your role? Sarel Basically…the anti-tank gets taken, ok fine, we used to drill this every day. There’s hard targets, we must go take them out, so we retreated with the infantry, and our Ratel 90s retreated, go to a 27 place, do supporting fire or go with this loopgrawe… Interviewer Yes, the trenches. Sarel Or then just take out the hard targets and they will…with Milan as well, we used to do that, lots. Interviewer Ok, so they were clearly getting you ready for war against armoured vehicles. Sarel Every time. Every single year we had heropleiding. Interviewer If I could give you a title at the time what was your title? Were you platoon leader, were you a…? Sarel A section leader. Interviewer A section is how many guys? Sarel It’s just your driver, your gunner, and your Milan one and two. And you had your second in command. Interviewer And with your missiles you were based in what? Inside a Ratel? Sarel Yes. Interviewer A Ratel 20 or a Ratel 90? Sarel 90. Interviewer And over and above that you’ve still got your commander, your gunner, your driver. Sarel You get your commander, gunner, driver…actually you get your loader as well. In a 90mm. The guy gives out the shells to the commander, the commander loads it, so you call it a loader, but we didn’t have loaders, so one of the Milan guys used to do that training. Interviewer Just let me get my mind around it, you’re in charge of the Milan, so would you be in the back of the Ratel? Sarel No, I’m in front. The commander. Then I identify a hard target. Then I tell the second in command, listen, take your Milan, go out, there’s a target, 1.5kms, and then I actually identify this target, tell him what it is. I tell him there’s ground there, he must go out there. Of course when he comes out, he can’t see, he must run to that place, I tell him exactly where it is. It’s nine o’clock from our position or something. Interviewer Ok, but at the same time you’ve also got a gunner with a 90mm in your Ratel, so you’ve got two lines of attack. You’ve got your missile and you’ve got your 90mm, with your range of ammunition, armoured piercing, explosives and so on. Sarel Yes. Interviewer Every time when you went on these different camps did you have the same crew with you? 28

Sarel No. Interviewer So you had to work with completely strange guys. Different. Did that make it harder for you or easier? Sarel No, it’s not easy and not hard, just the same. Because we get told, alright, we need a Milan one, we need a Milan two. Ok, I’m one, ok come, everybody knew what they had to do. We just every time we used to train together, basically. Interviewer Ok, but I mean, a Ratel inside is a confined space. They must be very hot, very uncomfortable. Sarel Yes, you get used to the guys pretty quickly. You know the Ratel is…you know what to expect. Definitely not the Blue Train. Laughs But I mean it gets to be home for the next couple of weeks. But you get very quickly acquainted with the guys. Very quickly. You have to. Interviewer Ok, but during this period, you keep being called up for these camps, in between you’re trying to be a normal civilian. Sarel Yes, trying to do my job. Interviewer How did this affect you? Sarel I hated going to camps. Aagh, but I used to do it. You just have to. Interviewer Who were you working for at the time? Sarel ABSA. Interviewer How did this constant military training affect your perception of civvy street? You’re trying to, like most guys I presume, you want to go out jolling with your mates, with girlfriends, with stuff like that, you keep on going off to be a soldier. Did it disrupt your life? Sarel …I just didn’t want to do it. I think nobody wants to do it. Yes, ok, let’s just do it and get it over with. Did it disrupt it? Yes, I suppose. You can say disrupt. I don’t know how else to put it. Interviewer Did you ever get to the stage where you felt, bugger this, I don’t care what the law says, I’m just not going to do it? Sarel Oh yes, I was scared that would happen. Laughs I saw a couple of guys getting DB drills and I didn’t like that. I thought, no way, I’m doing my camps and get it over with. Oh yes, I was too scared. Interviewer So you just accepted, you’ve got to do them, you might as well get them out of the way. Alright, so you’re now going through this fairly specialised training, what unit were you with at this time? Sarel Regiment de la Rey. Interviewer Which is headquartered where? Sarel Potchefstroom. 29

Interviewer And you were working with the bank…where were you working? Sarel It was in ’86, I did my first camp ’87. I was working for SAMBOU bank at that stage, ’87. ’88 I was also working for SAMBOU. Then I got my 3 months call up. ’89, ’90,’91,’92, ’93, I was working for ABSA. Interviewer But in those mid eighties, what town were you in? Where were you living at that time? Sarel Oh no, I was staying in Newcastle here in Natal. Interviewer But you were still Regiment de la Rey which is in Potch. Sarel Potch. But I never go there. They always call us up, you have to report at De Brug, and then the next day we used to go to Lohatla. Interviewer So those were all exercises, and then eventually you get called up and they send you back to Angola. Was that in ’87? Sarel ’88. April. Interviewer Can you tell me a bit about what happened then. Sarel I just know there was a lot of rain and every time we were supposed to go we got caught, we couldn’t. A lot of rain. We waited I think 4 days, 5 days. We just did nothing, we just waited because it was just raining and raining and raining. Then we moved. We went up with the Ratels, we drove. Interviewer Ok, so you would have gone up through Upington, Karrasberg and then straight up in Namibia. Sarel Grootfontein, Rundu. Interviewer That’s a hell of a long drive, how long did that take? Sarel Jussie, that took about a week. Yes, that was a long drive. Interviewer And the guys were falling asleep behind the wheel and crashing and all that stuff. Sarel No, no, I never saw that. laughter We were burgermag, we were Citizen Force, we needed our sleep. Some of the guys were quite old. Interviewer Quite old like 35? Sarel Yes, jislaik! Some of the guys were like just finished with their doctor’s degree and stuff and…obviously they were officers. Five o’clock we park off and we sleep. And then six o’clock the next morning we go again. That was ok. Interviewer So you drive right through, did you stop at Grootfontein or did you go up to Oshivelo? Sarel We stopped at Grootfontein, we stopped at Oshivelo for re- fuelling, everything. We went straight up all the way to Rundu. 30 And then the next day we just left for Cuito. So we went straight up. Interviewer Now did you know where you were going? Sarel No. We didn’t know. Interviewer So you just knew you were going to ‘the border’. Sarel When we were at De Brug they didn’t tell us anything about it. Then the rumours started going. You know, rumours, yes, we’re going to the border. And we thought, oh, ok, so what? The border’s nothing, we just walk around. But it’s later on that we only learned from a AWB [Afrikaner Weerstand Beweeging] general that was called up…he was an RSM, Sergeant Major first class, that we’re going to do a operation. But he later got sent home. Interviewer He got sent home? Sarel Yes, he got sent home because he arrived at…he arrived 200kms into Angola, he arrived with two white prostitutes. I’m still trying today to find out where the hell did he get those women? 200kms into Angola this guy just arrived with two prostitutes. And they got sent home. He said, you must go home. Interviewer And you say he was a member of the AWB? Sarel He was. Interviewer And did he tell you that happily? Sarel No, no, no, everybody knew it. He was quite a big officer in the AWB. Interviewer So you left from De Brug, drove all the way up there, then you get to Rundu, did you cross the river on those pontoon bridges? Sarel Yes, everything was set up already. Interviewer And then you just carried on driving north, north, north. Sarel Then at Rundu we met Regiment Groot Karoo, Mooi Rivier tanks. The Citizen Force tank older ex Panzer school people. And then we used to go up, but just one big battle group we went up. Interviewer Were the tanks on the back of tank carriers or were they driving? Sarel No, they were driving the tanks. Interviewer That’s going to need a lot of fuel. Sarel Yes. Interviewer And how well organised…you’re in a big column, battle group, you’re heading north, how well organised were they? Did you have all the food you needed, water…? Sarel Everything was sorted. 31

Interviewer And how long did it take you to get from Rundu to the sort of the holding areas for the battle? Sarel Geez, I can’t remember. I didn’t know how long it took. But it was quite a battle. It was raining season. It was raining. And I know the 2nd of April they bombed us. So it must have been March. So it was just after rainy season and jirra, the sand was…you don’t get mud there, you just get very, very wet sand. You can still pick it up like this, it’s not mud. Interviewer Just like wet sea sand almost. Sarel Wet sea sand, that’s what you get there, and if the Ratel goes like this…every time the Ratel goes…the middle mannetjie gets higher and higher and higher and then some of the cars got stuck and you had to get a scraper to scrape it, and then you just carry on again. I wouldn’t say it was the German invasion into Russia, but it was pretty well organised. Interviewer And then you say that on the 2nd of April they bombed you. Sarel Well we were already there. Then…oh yes, no, the 1st of April, we called it April Fools Day. That’s when I received a letter from my girlfriend saying, she left me for another guy. On the border. This is genuine a fact. That was the first of April, we called it April Fools Day. Yes, the MiGs bombed us that night. Interviewer And what happened? Did you have any warning or did you just…? Sarel They used to call out Victor, Victor and then there’s a vliegtuig, vliegtuig, and then you run. But that happened every second day, about. Except when the G5s are shooting and then we never heard any MiGs. But there was quite a lot of MiG sorties flown against. Interviewer And how close did they drop the bombs to you? Sarel You could feel it sometimes, but it wasn’t like very, very close. They more or less had an idea where you were, but it wasn’t…I mean you were sitting in your fox hole and then doof. You check a little bit of sand falling off the edges. It’s not like brrmm. It’s far. Interviewer So when you got to the sort of assembly areas, you dug your trenches, your fox holes, and you camouflage your Ratels, and then you waited for orders. Sarel Yes. Interviewer You got bombed, and then how long did you wait in that holding area? Sarel We were in the holding area for…Regiment de la Rey was…when the actual Operation Packer took place, they decided they’re only going to take the tanks. And then the mortars. Because I was O company…O company is your sapas, your anti tank and then your mortars. We were close to the mortars and 32 when they called the mortars up and they gave them ammunition…they’re 81mm built into their Ratels...and they came around, they took my medic, and they say, ok fine, we must be on standby. And then they left for the operation, for the actual battle. They attacked Cuito but they didn’t get close. Apparently there were three mine fields instead of two or one. They lost three tanks. They had to fall back. And then we had some more MiGs bomb us, and that was about it. END OF SIDE B TAPE ONE (counter at 502) TAPE TWO SIDE A Interviewer …bombed you, was that a few days later, or a lot of days later? Sarel Every day. Interviewer So it was a case, Victor, Victor, and you would all take cover and so on. Did you ever see any South African airforce jets? Sarel No…. Yes, yes, we did. One or two flying very low. Yes, but like tree high, very, very low. Now that you’re talking about it, I can remember. Interviewer Your commanders, when they were briefing you, did they say that you had airforce backing or did they just not mention it? Because the Mirages flew lots of attacks then but they always flew tree height and then they did something called toss bombing. I don’t know if you know, they would let the bomb…they would fly tree height, go into a steep climb, let the bombs go, they would climb, dive again, go down to tree top level and the bombs would travel in an arc 6 or 7 kilometres, and then that’s how they were bombing the Angolan line. Sarel I never knew that. Interviewer That’s what I understand, is that on the front line you didn’t see that, but the airforce claim, and I no reason to disbelieve them, that they were doing that all the time. So you’re sitting there now, what’s going through your mind when all this is happening. You’re just thinking well it’s a case of survival or…? Sarel We actually joked about it, we joked about it quite a lot. There’s an Afrikaans song, ‘Ek Liewe’, I don’t know if you know it. Rina sings it. Interviewer You know i think I do know it. Sarel Ek liewe’. The MiGs used to bomb us, this one guy used to sing, ‘Ek liewe’, and then all of you just laugh. Laughs It was actually funny. But it wasn’t funny when they threw those trosbom on us. I saw it happen once, they throw this bomb on us and then it explodes in mid air, and then a lot of small little thingies come down, and then ddd, ddd, ddd. Interviewer That’s a cluster bomb? 33

Sarel Cluster bomb. Interviewer Did they do that often? Sarel Yes, that was quite often. That was quite scary. Because we were all in fox holes. If that was close it could have been quite dangerous. Interviewer Did you see any of your colleagues getting killed? Sarel No. Interviewer Alright so they’ve got this attack where they try and attack the enemy front lines but they run into the mine fields. Sarel There was three instead of one. They only thought there was one. You see the tanks were supposed to go through and then the infantry and then us, together with a support. But then the tanks never made it. That was our Ops Packer. We lost three tanks. And then after that we got called in to go…Milan team, we were called in to go to General Jannie Geldenhuys’ place, there’s two Recces there, we went there to pick them up. We picked them up and we went, and we dropped them off. They just disappeared and then the next day or so they came back and they told us, no, you can forget about the tanks, not going to take them out. Interviewer So they just abandoned them. Now that’s where you met Recces sort of face to face. Sarel Yes, the first time I met, spoke to a Recce. It was a Portuguese guy with a big beard, and the other guy was a black guy, as black as… tape turned off Interviewer …Operation Packer. So the tanks had the problem with the mine fields, you picked up the two Recce guys but there was nothing much you could do there, they left the tanks there. What was it like on a day to day basis, in terms of rations, sleep, stuff like that. Was it fairly difficult from the point of view of you having to move and…? Sarel No…I remember we’re sleeping the one Sunday, I remember those who wanted to go to this open air service can go. Those who didn’t want didn’t have to go. And then we had a Victor, Victor. And then everybody arrived running. And I remember running around trying to get my boots on, and I was jumping inside my fox hole and there was another guy already in there, and I jumped with my…landed with my arse onto this guy’s head. Laughs That was actually a big joke. But as we carried on we got used to the idea of that and…we used to know that they’re never going to get us. We could see there was a black one…there was always a black one. There was a joke going around that there’s a Cuban blond French lady, or Cuban lady, flying this MiG. We always used to, kom hierso, that type of shit. laughs Interviewer So while it was quite serious, you were being bombed, there was 34 serious war going and you were actually trying to make life a bit… Sarel Everybody was joking about it. Interviewer And while you were sitting there talking to your colleagues and things like that, when you got serious did you talk about who you were fighting? You knew that there were Cubans on this side, you knew… Sarel Yes, we know there were MPLAs, FNLAs, ZLAs, I don’t know how many LAs there were. We actually didn’t know who we were going to fight. We just know that there were SWAPO guys in between these Angolans. And they had Russian advisors or something and they had Cuban doctors and Cuban commanders or something. And that was all we knew. We know there was MPLAs and FNLA and there were a lot of things that we didn’t know actually. No-one told us, hey listen, this is actually for that and that... Interviewer But in your thinking about it to yourself did you realise that this was a lot bigger than just a normal border patrol? This is quite serious. Sarel Yes. Yes, we were getting ready to go, then the medic came back. Actually what they used, they used Unita to go in. And Unita got seriously hammered. And I remember my medic who came, coming back he was (inaudible) full of blood, ops medic. And then we were told, the next morning we got our orders and everything. The next thing, we just pack up and we left. So we got our butts kicked and we just left. Interviewer That’s interesting, so in your mind the enemy, all these various groups of people actually pushed you out of that situation, they pushed you away. They won that phase of the battle. Sarel I don’t know who won it, we just retreated. We were getting ready to go in and we were told that we’re just going to clear up the way and then we’re going to go in and 90mm going to take position there and the infantry was going to go in there, and that that, next moment we just packed up and we just left. Interviewer Where did you retreat? Did you go towards Mavinga or…? Sarel Straight to Rundu. Interviewer How long did that take you? Sarel About 450 kms, I don’t know. I just remember half way we stopped and we shot out all our ammunition. Didn’t take anything with us. Threw all the hand grenades, all the 90mm, all the Milans, we shot up everything. R4s, everything. Smoke shells. Just shot everything up. Interviewer Why would you do that? Sarel The whole regiment, lined up. And everybody just threw their 35 hand grenades and everybody did…we were told we’re not taking anything out, we just shot everything. 90mm. We shot trees. R4s. ok, there were a bit of, maak klaar, staan klaar, and then you open up and then you… Interviewer Sounds to me like a terrible waste of ammunition. Sarel It was. We shot up everything. A whole operation worth of ammunition we just shot up. We didn’t take anything back. When we got to Rundu there was nothing. Interviewer The commanders obviously knew that you weren’t going to turn around and go back. Sarel Yes, we shot everything. Interviewer And then when you get back to Rundu what did you feel there? Sarel I told you I got that ‘Dear Johnny’ on the 2nd of April. First of April they bombed us, the 2nd of April I got my letter. This girlfriend of mine we were going to get married and stuff like that and she left me…no, I was pretty pissed off. Very upset about it. Next week we were home. At Rundu we just threw everything on top of a Samil, guns, everything we had just threw in. And then climbed onto our Ratels and we drove all the way back to Bloemfontein. Interviewer So at that time you’re not actually interested in the military or anything else about what they’re doing? Sarel No! That was the roughest part. And I got home and went back to work and everybody thought I stood guard. Interviewer How did you feel about that? Sarel That was a bit rough. Interviewer But how did you respond? Sarel I just kept quiet. People thought I was…everybody was saying, oh you’re a camper. What you do at camp? You just stand guard the whole time. You don’t learn anything. Interviewer But did you explain to anybody, be it your family or your friends? Sarel No, I never told anybody. Interviewer You never told anybody? Sarel I told my mother. My dad knew. I came back with a beard. I told her I was on operation. MiGs and stuff, but I told her it wasn’t that bad. As a matter of fact the townships duty was a bit more scarier than that, definitely. But I told her, aagh it wasn’t so bad. But I never told the people at work who thought I stood guard. Never heard about it. Interviewer But didn’t that make you feel a bit resentful? Sarel It did, hey. I actually got pissed off with that. people didn’t know. I don’t think people cared anymore. I mean, ’88, no-one was 36 interested, really. And I said to Anton the other day as well, doesn’t it make you feel like you were in Vietnam or something because you know when you get back…you know when those Vietnam vets came back and they had a terrible…everybody looked down on them. But here you didn’t look down on you. Did you do your National Service? Good. Did a camp? Oh. Standing guard. What did you do, nothing. And I said to this woman, I just need some rest, this weekend I’m not going to do anything, I’m just going to sleep. I mean, I just came back from there, and they didn’t want to understand why. They couldn’t understand why. Interviewer And she was, I presume, one of your superiors at the bank? Sarel Yes. Interviewer And she didn’t understand that there was actually very serious war going on in Angola and South Africa was involved? Sarel No, no-one understood. I read in a Sunday newspaper about Cuito Cuanavale. They had a map there and they showed exactly what happened, and they showed where we were and what happened. And then we retreated. And I specifically remember my father just like looking at it and turning it over. And I said to him, hey, a week ago I was there. Now I know exactly what they’re talking about. My father said, oh! Ok. So I explained to him. That’s Cuito, that’s where the…that’s the tanks attacked through there. The only one place that they could attack because of that and there were three mine fields. And he was like, geez, he didn’t…ok. I explained to him exactly. Interviewer But did he ask you what was it like for you to be there? Sarel No, no-one asked me. It was just a question of you had to do it. It was just like, accept it. You have to go. Interviewer And now, all these years later, does anybody ever ask you? except people like Anton who were there themselves? Sarel No. I know I push it down a bit. Like my daughter I tell her, hey, don’t you want to ask me what happened? Don’t you want to know more about that? Not what happened, but I ask her, are you not interested? Do you know there was a war? Interviewer No? Sarel Are you interested? Interviewer No? Sarel No-one knows, no-one…really no-one. I think it’s just a phase that went…no-one realised it. That was it, it’s gone. Interviewer Look there was government censorship. The Defence Force didn’t say where they were all the time. As you know, they would often deny they were inside Angola. But that was a pretty serious battle that the world knew about. Do you feel resentful that other South Africans didn’t bother finding out? Your boss for example 37 at the bank? Sarel I don’t know what resentful means, but I was a bit pissed off. I’m still a bit pissed off. Because now the other day as well, they said now they want to commemorate this battle of Cuito Cuanavale, but they’re not sure who won this battle. We’re just going to let the Cubans and everybody come over here and have a moerse party. We didn’t win the battle man. No-one won it. I mean, they mustn’t…you can read the story of Ops Modular where Anton was, we lost 33 guys, 1 MiG, and a lot of soft vehicles. That was quite a bit of stuff. Interviewer A Mirage. Sarel A Mirage. That was quite a…I think they lost 30, 20 or something MiGs. A lot of tanks got shot out, over 4000 people died. I mean, they claim victory. And I know it was in the Beeld the other day as well that Fidel Castro actually executed three of his generals because of that battle, I don’t know if you know about it? Interviewer I’ve read that report. Sarel You read it? And that’s a report so I don’t know if it’s true. But still man, geez, you don’t go and execute your generals if you won a battle. That makes me more pissed off. Interviewer It’s the 20th anniversary of that whole era, all those battles happened 20 years ago. There’s a move that the monument in Pretoria, that only the names of the Cuban, SWAPO and Angolan soldiers would be on it, and South African Defence Force guys would be left off. I mean, to your mind that’s clearly not fair. Do you worry about that or do you think that it’s just politics and just let it be? Sarel I’m disappointed. But how can you expect the names of the people who died to come up there and no-one knew what the war was about anyway? No-one is going to worry anyway. Even people going to visit that. Interviewer Do you think the guys on the other side were also just like you, just a soldier who ended up there, fighting a war? Sarel Like I said, there’s that Cuban doctor that was at Cuito, he was working with my mother believe it not in Vryheid hospital. I’ll give you his number if you want to talk to him. And he said to her the one day, die Boere hey, they didn’t stop shooting. And they were like, the casevacs were like streaming in the whole time. And I never saw any South African casevacs streaming in hospitals. Interviewer Now when you look back on that whole era, your National Service, all your camps, and then culminating in Packer, which was really serious stuff, when you look back at it, do you feel a sense of pride, do you feel a sense of, why did we all do it? Was it a waste of your life? Sarel I suppose that’s why I collect this stuff. Just to remind myself that 38 I was there. Otherwise I would forget about it. And I don’t want to. I’ll say I really feel it’s something to be proud of. That you were there, that you did it, you made it, you didn’t crack up, or whatever. You did whatever was told. You did exactly that and you did it very well. What bothers me is that people will forget about it. Already forgot about it. That bothers me a bit. I mean, if you don’t…it’s gone. It doesn’t get written up in history books, there’s not going to be a big thing about it anymore. Interviewer So collecting all these military memorabilia, whether it’s badges, berets, uniforms, whatever, is your link to remembering what you did there? Sarel Yes, that reminds me of what…I’ve still got my photos, medals and stuff. Then I put it with my Second World War stuff. It’s to remind me that I did something. Interviewer That something that you did, what was that? Was that to defend South Africa? Was that to stop Communism? Now that you think about it, what was that something that you did? Sarel No, I didn’t do it for Communism or for the National Party. I did it for myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I can do the army. It’s nothing to do with politics. I didn’t want to go there and kill no flipping Communist system or take out Stalin or whatever his name was in the eighties or whatever. I didn’t care about…I just wanted to make sure, to prove to myself that I can do it. That’s my own personal…I didn’t…ok I was totally…everybody was brainwashed. Especially Afrikaans talking plaatelandse seun that comes from Senekal in the Free State. Everybody talked about the Rooi Gevaar and stuff like that. Ok, obviously we were. But I wanted to prove to myself that I can do it. And I was actually looking forward to it. But that’s all. I wasn’t fighting for my country. Really not. In the beginning I might have thought about it, yes, we’re here, patriotic type of thing. But after like three weeks you’re just forget about it, you’re not patriotic anymore you just want to go home. laughs I don’t want to do this crap anymore. So I thought, no, I’m going to stick it, I’m going to do it, I’m going to finish it. I’m going to finish all my camps to make sure. And every day I can tell people I’m proud I did my camps. I did my everything. I did my border duty, I did operations, I did my other stuff. I don’t know, I did it for myself, to be able to tell, listen I did it. And now I can’t tell anybody because they don’t care. Interviewer It’s so interesting, I see that there’s a few books coming out now about that time. There’s Peter Stiff who’s written about the Recces, and a couple of former Recces have written books and things like that. Do you think people are starting to talk about it more now? Now that we’re so far down the road that it’s…we’re a generation away. Your daughter is ten years younger than the generation that would have been… Sarel I worry a bit about that because I don’t think the truth has come out every time. I think there are a lot of guys who are going to talk a lot of bullshit. I single-handedly hanging out this Ratel with my 39 Uzi, and I drove into this. It’s nonsense. It’s a total mess. If he wants to hit a contact there’s no organised structure. He just maak gat skoen. You just want to duck and just like…there’s no organised structure. So if someone tells you listen my friend I took out four Recces or whatever the case is, he’s talking nonsense. And I’m just scared…not scared, just worried that a lot of guys might talk a lot of crap. Like you were a Recce, you’d get a dog and this dog you have to feed for three months and then you have to cut its throat. That’s bullshit. That’s actually a story! Interviewer I know that’s a story. Sarel Where did that come from? Someone who thought he was a Recce and he told that. and then all of a sudden this thing just get like…that’s nonsense. So there must be someone talking like that. And then stories get mixed. And the real guys who went through the real shit never spoke, never say anything. Interviewer When you do talk about it, you talk about it to a couple of close friends, you’ve got Anton, and a small group of others, but you pretty much keep it in that circle, it doesn’t go outside. Sarel No, we just talked about…we don’t talk about contacts or anything, we just talk about…my favourite chap is Anton. He never ate his vegetables. In the army, never. And this Killer Smit actually saw him throwing his cauliflower. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted army cauliflower, it’s horrible. I mean, the stuff is lying under this much oil. You can’t eat that stuff, it’s terrible! And he took it and he threw it out. Killer Smit saw him. Now I don’t know if you know Killer Smit, have you ever seen this guy? Interviewer I’ve never seen him, I know the stories. Sarel The last photo I saw of him was he was sergeant major first class. Sant’majoor, Red RSM, with Three Two Battalion. When Three Two Battalion got disbanded, they took a photo for the magazine Paratus, and I saw Staff Smit there, and I saw one of this staff sergeants was with me doing basics. He must have joined PF after that, but anyways he was now with Staff Smit. I saw this guy there. And I just now skiet like a (inaudible) when I saw this guy’s face. Laughs He’s terrible. But anyway…that guy saw Anton throw out his cauliflower, but it’s not cauliflower, it’s like leaves. Thick flipping koolblare. It’s terrible! He threw it out and then Staff Killer Smit saw him. Killer Smit said to him, now, took a whole fire bucket, gave it to Anton, he said, now you’re going to finish this whole fire bucket. We talk about it, we laugh about that. That type of thing. we don’t talk about contacts and crap like that. Now and again, yes, when we’ve got too much to drink, but otherwise, once every six months we talk about army. We never get together ever in the week and talk about it. Interviewer And in the course of your work and stuff like that, do people ever say, did you serve in the army? No, so it’s a forgotten history with most people. 40

Sarel Yes. No-one ever asks me. Interviewer And if somebody did ask in a business sort of circumstance, would you say yes, did this and there I was? Do black people ever ask you? When you encounter black people? Sarel Yes, there’s a…ok, I’ve got quite a couple of frames, with medals, frames in my office. And they come in and they ask, they’re quite interested. Are you interested in this type of thing? I said, yes. And then I open up my cupboard and I show them my collection, German…ok Nazi stuff, but they know I’m not a racist. I’ve got some Nazi, I’ve got German stuff, English stuff, Boer War stuff, everything like that I just collect. They’re quite interested. Especially the Indian people that come to visit. The blacks ask me, were you in the army? I say, yes. The blacks always ask me, were you in the army? Now that you mention it. Interviewer And then when you say, yes I was, do they say, well what did you do? What did you see? Sarel No they don’t ask me. Interviewer They just leave it at that. Sarel Yes, they just ask me, were you there? They never ask me what I’ve done. Interviewer And if I was to ask you one sort of overall impression of all those years as a National Serviceman, as a Citizen Force guy, is there any one memory that you sort of cherish more than any other of that whole experience? Any one memory to you that for you is close to your heart? Sarel I will say that the whole experience was definitely worth it. I’d never do it over in my life again, but it was…I just think it matters the whole experience. There were a couple of very funny things I could tell you that happened. I’ll quickly tell you now. I think the whole experience was necessary to do that. you get more disciplined. You get more…you look after yourself. You get taught to basically make your bed, iron, look after yourself, get some self respect. If your inspection is not up to standard, you stand still and the other guys get an opfok and then when they come back they sort you out chop chop. Then that’s a way of, you better bring your kaart. Everybody’s going to come short. That was an important thing. Especially when you get some self respect. Interviewer So if it was suggested that there be a year military service compulsory now for 17, 18 year olds, would you think it would be a good thing? Sarel Yes, I think so, not two years. Two years is too long. You don’t need two years, there’s no township violence or stuff. Ja, Jussie it would help a lot. I was actually thinking if I can do it, I will open up a military academy or something. Basically something like the 41 Americans have got. Interviewer But the primary purpose of that wouldn’t necessarily be to teach people how to use 90mm cannons and…? Sarel No, no, there won’t any guns, it’s just to bring some self respect to the guys, learn how to look after themselves, you can iron, you don’t need to sit every day and just watch TV, you can iron your own clothes, make your own beds, wash your own dishes. You can immediately see. Interviewer Thinking about what you said about Cuito and the various battles around, essentially nobody really won, nobody really lost. The sad thing is lots of people died. Do you ever think…would you ever consider the option that the army you fought for lost politically because in ’94 the government changed? Sarel I think they definitely lost politically. In ’89 I believe…we did the operation in ’88, Anton did his in ’87. I think when did the election in South West? ’89? Interviewer Well it was in March of 1990. Sarel That was like a year later. Interviewer Do you think that was a military loss or a political loss? Sarel We went there, we did the operation, we came back and then there was elections. Doesn’t make sense. I know the Recces did quite a lot of contacts after the United Nations started taking over…Sam Njoma sent all those… Interviewer That’s right, Koevoet and there was a lot of fighting. Lots of people died. Sarel Koevoet shot quite a lot of them. Interviewer The point I’m trying to get to is… Sarel I think that was a waste. Interviewer That’s what I’m asking, do you have a sense that the politicians betrayed the military, is what I’m asking essentially? They sent you to fight for a long time… Sarel No, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think the politicians betrayed the military. I think the military betrayed the military. I think the politicians tried to work something out, but they’re taking the rap for it. It’s not the politicians. General Magnus Malan, he wasn’t a politician, he was a Minister of Defence. I don’t know if you can call that a politician. But that’s army. He must have been in the dock. He must have been in a prison. This Eugene de Kock, those guys… Interviewer In other words he should have taken responsibility? Sarel No, those guys should have taken responsibility! And they know it. I don’t care what Adrian Vlok did or whatever feet he washes, 42 whatever he did, he must…he and Magnus Malan, all those guys, they must take the rap and they’re just getting away with it. So there’s another injustice done. Poor schmuks on the ground take all the rap again. They retire to their farms. How can you justify that? Interviewer Bearing in mind that you think a lot about your army days and you’ve got quite strong links to militaria and things like that, do you ever feel that what you experienced in those days affects your attitude to the South Africa that we have today? Does it affect it in any adverse way or do you think it has made you stronger to deal with it? Sarel I already thought, ok fine, let’s start new, let’s get it over, but as I go on…ok that’s my own personal point of view, I think it’s a bigger mess than what it ever was. This whole country is in a big mess, to be honest. Interviewer But you don’t think to yourself that… Sarel That stage I thought, ok, let’s try it, let’s go for it. I mean, why not? We were totally brainwashed, they were brainwashed, I mean, I think in their camps there was some terrible stuff going on, in the ANC camps, wasn’t it? There was like flipping guys just disappeared and I believe they’re still looking for them or something. I mean, we all did atrocities. Ok not us, I didn’t even know about Eugene de Kock and that type of thing, I didn’t mutilate anybody or stuff. I just got told, hey, the Communists are coming we better defend. Your children is not going to…we’re just going to be taken over. A lot of bullshit. But aagh no, I agree with you there it’s definitely not the small guys that must take the rap. Those politicians got away with it anyway. This whole TRC thing was a joke. Interviewer If there’s anything else that you want to add to this… Sarel Let me tell you this one story. After I went to…I said to Anton, I must tell you that story. I tell it to my wife, every year I tell her the same story, one guy in my section. Everything that’s going wrong went wrong with this guy. First, we were driving in the Ratel, I was now the commander, and there was supposed to be the tail gunner. We were all like anti tanks so we were divided into the other infantry sections for this tuin ops. We came from O company and we got divided into A company to do tuin ops and then we came back to O company just to see what the infantry is going to do. So this guy was supposed now to be the tail gunner of a Ratel, you know the anti aircraft gun. But he was sitting on top of the hatch. And now he’s also got radio, as me, and I told him, hey, get back, get back. Yeah, yeah. And we went through, we did bundu bashing. As we went through the air like this we hit a haak en steek bos. This guy got caught in that haak en steek bos at the back of the Ratel. And as I looked like this I just saw this guy was gone, missing. And I said to the driver, stop and reverse, and as we were reversing this guy was hanging in the 43 air, in the thorns, he was hanging like this. laughs Interviewer He must have been covered in blood. Sarel He was. He was full of Black is Beautiful, the cammo. So all that Black is Beautiful went into his pores, into the wounds, and when we klaared out, he still had lines like that inside, tattooed. Anyway that same guy, we were just going on pass, and we came back from that same operation or oefening or whatever. And we were washing all the spades and we packed the spades in the bungalow like this, and as we clean the bungalows you’re not supposed to walk with your boots in the bungalow, you’re supposed to walk with your socks in the bungalow. And this guy comes running, took his boots out, comes running inside the bungalow and he slips and he goes with his head first into the spades. Now the spades are packed like this laughs the lines of the spades gets caught, and they took that whole skin and they moved it away. So we went on pass and this poor schmuk was lying in 3 Mil Hospital until we got back from pass. Now this poor guy, they just took all the thorns out, and then he dived into these spades. Laughs Interviewer I think he was a bit accident prone. Sarel As true as bob, we were doing some other, later on again, but we had thunder flashes, and one Sunday, this idiot took a thunder flash, he broke it off and he took a match and he was lighting, like a normal cracker, you break it and then you stick two sides and you see the gun powder, and you take a match and then tshhh. He takes a thunder flash, this thing is like this thick. He takes this and opens and he wanted to do the same and this thing starts burning and it burns him right up. Took out all his hair, took out his nose, everything was just blisters. Laughs This guy is walking around with this bandage. We just got back from pass, he still walks around with this bandage because he’s got like 56 stitches or something in his head and now he’s burned as well. I said to Anton I must tell you that story. Interviewer And this is a man who was defending his country. Sarel Yes, this is a soldier. Laughs This poor guy was like… Interviewer Can you imagine the stories he can tell about his military training. Sarel I don’t think he’s telling his children that. I wouldn’t be so proud of that. laughs Interviewer Anything else about your overall impressions and feelings? Sarel I think the army now is a joke. I think these guys go on strike now. You told me they’ve got unions! Geez, those days, goodness me. If you talk about a union, you’d get like in the DB for high treason or something. Interviewer The idea of dissent wasn’t well accepted in the SADF. Sarel No. 44

Interviewer Although you did call a sergeant major ‘oom’. Sarel Yes, I called him an oom. But we had a sergeant major in 1 SAI. Stoney. Englishman, but he’s Afrikaans, but he’s obviously got some Scottish flipping connection. He always used to wear…you know PFs. He always used to wear his browns. But he used to put chains underneath his browns for parades. Interviewer To make them hang straight and keep the seams. Sarel You always see the chains hanging on the parade. Interviewer END OF INTERVIEW (counter at 394)

Collection Number: A3079 Collection Name: “Missing Voices” Oral History Project, 2004-2012

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