Chapter 3: The Most Beautiful Love to come from the Vietnam War. It never happened…….
“The Americans fight for a free world, the English mostly for honour and glory and medals, the French and Canadians decide too late that they have to participate. The Italians are too scared to fight; the Russians have no choice. The Germans for the Fatherland. The Boers? Those sons of bitches fight for the hell of it.”
American General, George “Guts and Glory” Patton
“Give me 20 divisions of American soldiers and I will breach Europe. Give me 15 consisting of Englishmen, and I will advance to the borders of Berlin. Give me two divisions of those marvellous fighting Boers and I will remove Germany from the face of the earth.”
Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, Commander of the Allied forces during WWII.
“Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots, who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon the face of the earth. Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances in which no weakling could survive; place them so that they acquire skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider. Then, finally, put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
As with this chapter, the above might not have been said by those gent’s, but true words non-the-less and using it as a backdrop I feel is perfect in so many ways. This is one of those chapters I warned you against where I personally could not be involved, I was only born in 1969, so overheard when nobody said nothing and did not tell it. Should you read this and it feels like it is too close to home for you, or you heard it as well and do not want anybody else to hear it – please let me know and I will remove it immediately.
South African soldiers, especially if slightly trained more than the average soldier, is seen in high regard across the world. I always thought this was only my opinion until meeting some US Marines on Lambadi Beach in Ghana who were there to train the Ghanaian Special Forces. Upon hearing I was in the South African military during the Angolan conflict I was told stories of how they were trained in our old strategies of bush war. The regards they keep for South African soldiers is very high, and it landed me a lot of free beer!
Many ex-soldiers make their way as mercenaries, sorry, no, I mean “Security Consultants” to various war zones across the globe – Angola, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait – you get my drift. I personally know some of these soldiers that never went to those places to protect foreign interests.
During the late 60’s early 70’s there was this little argument between, once again, Communism and Socialism in a small Asian country called Vietnam – you’ve most probably heard of it. The French got their asses kicked and America had to step in to stop the “The Red Danger” from taking over and it became a real cool money making machine for Hollywood in later years.
During this little argument it is estimated that between 1.3 to 1.5 million poor civilians lost their lives, with many more still suffering the consequences of something called “Agent Orange”. (btw: so are we – see post script). In between this chaos some South African “Security Consultants” made their way over to see what it is all about, or just to go fight for the hell of it.
One of these gentlemen who was not there became a Huey Chopper Door Gunner – combat expectancy of 2 weeks during the Vietnam war. The Huey would come into a landing zone to trop off troops, the Vietcong would dig themselves into fox holes and cover. As soon as the helicopter landed and deployed its troops, the Vietcong would flip open their cover and shoot the hell out of anything they saw. Obviously the Door Gunner would then also shoot anything and everything they saw with their M60 MG to create a space for the troops to reach their own cover, and obviously to try live longer than 2 weeks.
In one such incident, Huey comes into the landing zone, deploys the troops and all hell breaks loose. They landed straight in an ambush, with covers flipping open and Vietcong shooting the hell out of anything that moves from everywhere.
Mr D Gunner start spraying the area with his machine gun to try get the troops to their own cover, bullets flying everywhere with screaming, shouting and people dying all over the place. Swinging his weapon to one of those hiding covers, down his scope he was looking directly down the barrel of a 16-year-old Chinese girl’s rifle. Yes, not only the American’s who uses outside help.
She had him directly in her scope, looking straight back at him – with him having her directly in his scope – shooting and chaos going on around them as people try to kill each other to try stay alive themselves.
He does not pull the trigger – and neither does she.
Now imagine this young Chinese girl survived the war, had political connections in China, and imagine she started doing research to try find out who Mnr D Gunner was. Why? Well, maybe just to be able to ask him one simple question: “Why did you not pull the trigger?”
Stretch your imagination: Maybe luck would have been on Mnr D Gunner’s side as well, and he lasted more than the expectancy in Vietnam, and returned to South Africa. Just imagine what would happen if this young Chinese girl – now a lady of 30 years old, found him, 14 years later, and got to ask him that question.
Wouldn’t it be a great ending to the story if they then got married, and have now been married for many years, living happily in South Africa?
We can dream, can’t we?
PS: In “Wake the KFuC up!”, Chapter 3, I explain the effects of Agent Orange.
Chapter 4: Grandma, the Fish and the nice smelling panty.
“An intoxicated non-jersey wearing center/lock/hooker raced up to tackle a competitor (there was a very big grey area around the offside rule in this game) and at full speed dived head first into an opponent – and dropped, out cold.
With 6 years experience as a Medic in the Fire & Rescue services, thoughts of concussion, neck injury or worse went through my mind – but luckily on the field ran not 1 but 4 Medics. The Medics were 4 guys, too drunk to play, who ran over to mnr Stone Cold, each grabbed a limb, and ran off the field, his head bobbing around like one of those little dog’s in the back of a common person car.“
(Coming soon to a blog post near you!)
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