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A3079-D20-001-Jpeg.Pdf 1 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.
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