20

Civvy street

I bought a brand new Alfa Romeo with the ‘danger money’ I had earned up on the border and spent a few months surfing before going to university. My girlfriend had waited for me during my National Service and so we began pretty much where we had left off fourteen months ago, the difference being that I had to get her to adjust to who I really was and not the image she had created in her mind when I was away.

I never really adjusted to life at university. My outlook on life had changed forever … and as has been said, ‘the first casualty of war is innocence’. I was outside looking in – something was missing for me … a sense of pride, an ‘espirit de corps’, a real purpose to life? Everyone in civvy street was out for themselves; no-one could relate to my experiences and no one cared. Why should they anyway? They were strangely fascinated but would rather not know. It left me wondering if I had an emotional imbalance … was something wrong with me, was I overreacting? I did some army ‘camps’ with 2 Reconnaissance Regiment during my university vacations, hoping for a balance. But it only served to illustrate the divide.

I found being back in South Africa and living in the midst of the policy of Apartheid confusing. After being in Three-Two where we had fought a war with such pride and with no racial segregation, something didn’t make sense. I tried to ignore the madness around me and to get on with my life, trusting in God, and trusting in fate.

Although it will always be there with me, it took about ten years to constructively start putting it all behind me, to begin finding the perspective, to be able to think or talk about the Border War without an unsettling emotional pull settling in my stomach for a few hours. I suppose the passage of time played a role, but so did hunting. Initially I couldn’t get myself to raise a rifle or shotgun, but I slowly came back round to facing it. Never enjoying it, it did however give me the means to face killing and to accept the hunter instinct built into us all. The preparation, the focus, the sense of purpose, the pursuit of ‘one shot, one kill’, the responsibility and implications of taking a life … the lingering afterthoughts.

Those who didn’t make it will remain with me forever. I think often of my friends Tim Patrick and Heinz Muller. Tim’s memory carries an overbearing aura of youthful innocence and a life cut short before its time. The tragedy of his death in the pitched battle that was Savate, when he was still so young and for which he was so ill prepared, has weighed heavily on me over the years. The courage he displayed in throwing himself into the assault with Alpha Company when they knew they were heavily outnumbered is the only consolation I carry with me.

And it’s always with the ghost of a smile that I think of Heinz and the fun we had sitting round campfires in the middle of the bush. Our raucous, beer-induced discussions on how best to fight the war… with the joviality and laughter increasing as we consumed ever more beer and our solutions to the world’s problems became ever grander and grander as the fire died down, and the moon rose steadily above us. Heinz was the epitome of an infantry officer, strong and fit with an air of measured aggression about him. The irony for me has always been that I survived Savate and he didn’t. His last words to me, “Justin ! … . jy moet lekker wees” (“Justin! …. you must be good”), have haunted me ever since. It was his way of saying goodbye, his way of telling me to get on with my life, to be strong, to be happy.

In times of hardship Heinz’s words have always served as a source of inspiration. I like to think that I have lived up to his expectations.