The guys had a fat laugh at me. When we first arrived at the army, they searched our bags. We’d been told to bring washing powder, and my mom had packed me Skip. Skip is for automatics, and the guys were, ‘Hah! You think there are washing machines?’ Fat chance. I knew to expect the worst. We washed everything by hand. I also learnt to iron using Robin starch, which helped iron the crease down the front of your browns and was excellent for ironing our shirtsleeves. What we also used to do was to go to a tailor and have that crease stitched in, which was called a gyppo naat.
– Nick, age 20
On my first pass I bought an iron – not one of those steam irons, just a good old-fashioned plain one. It took flippin’ ages to iron overalls, but it was great for other things. This one night we stole bread – well, actually we were on guard duty, so we could pretty much go where we wanted, as we were the ones with the rifles. We took the bread to our room and used the iron to make toast. We craved the simple things.
– Paul, age 17
In the army you had to chain your washing to the line, and if you didn’t, you soon learnt why it was necessary. I’d hang up my socks, shirts and our horrible old women’s broekies, Santa Marias, and come back to find one sock and some shirts had been swiped. I didn’t take a length of chain with me to the army, but I quickly bought one. It was a vicious circle: people just took what they were short of. Even if it was labelled, it didn’t mean much; it was still stolen.
– John, age 18
Inspection involved so much. Your pikstel clipped into one another had to be spotless. Some okes started cleaning them with Brasso, not realising what it did to you. Do you know what Brasso does to your guts? You have no idea how horribly sick they got – such gippo guts. The knife had a bevelled edge, and they would hold it up to the window and check down the length of the blade. Any mark, water stain, anything, and you got opfokked. Your trommel at the foot of your bed also had to be polished.
We had to stryk our clothes and our bed. In Basics you got your overalls and a big floppy gardener’s hat, your web belt, your water bottle, socks, boots, takkies for PT, so there wasn’t too much to iron, but God help you if there were railway tracks; one line only. We did iron our clothes a lot too, because you wanted them to have houding. Browns that looked new weren’t fashionable in a military way. You ironed your clothes until they were almost worn out. But that damn bed! You had to iron your bed so it looked like a matchbox. To do this you used your clean boot brushes, spray bottle, starch and shaving foam. They taught us how to fold the bedclothes, and God help you if you stood inspection in the morning en daar was ’n slang in die bed [and there was a snake in the bed]. It had to be level and flat. In order to get it that way, you had to climb underneath the bed and clip a clothes peg onto the mesh and the mattress. The beds were those horrible hospital metal mesh beds with a thin flat mattress used by hundreds of fat okes before you. You had to clip it in such a way that it didn’t sag in the middle and look like a canoe. If there were any wrinkles or unevenness, you had to jump on your bed and ‘maak dood daardie slange’ [kill those snakes]. You stood inspection in your boots, and of course if you had to jump all over it, you got boot polish on your sheets and somehow you had to find the time to wash the sheets. It was better to sleep on the floor after you had made your bed for inspection; that way you could get a little extra sleep in. But they got wise to that and would come and check during the night.
– Paul, age 18
We had this one guy who was not very bright. Our platoon was made up of guys who were supposed to be physically and mentally challenged. Shame, he was very dumb. He would be sitting polishing his boots and we would shout his name and distract him. We then quickly removed his spotless boots and replaced them with a pair that needed cleaning and polishing. You could do the same thing with ironing. He didn’t seem to notice that his ironing pile included a whole lot of our stuff. We really used him. I guess that was one advantage of having a person like that in our platoon.
– Rick, age 18
Some bungalows had stone floors, others had wood. All had to be polished like a mirror, otherwise you would fail inspection. Remember Cobra wax, in the big green tin? We used that. The floor was so slippery from being so highly polished that even your bed used to slide on the floor. For inspection they would look at the shimmer on the floor, and if they saw the slightest mark, they would empty the sand from the fire bucket, take the hose, and spray the floor down. This was after eight of you had spent hours on your knees polishing the floor. Even clean boots left a mark, so I made these slippers so that we didn’t have to take off our boots when we came into the bungalow. They were square pieces of industrial polish cloth that looked like a carpet tile, and we cut them into giant feet and Mickey Mouse head shapes. I wrote Nike Air and put big ticks on mine. Imagine all these guys with shaved heads, in their browns, skating around the floor. It was brilliant. We kept the floor clean and polished it at the same time. If you demanded troeps to clean to that degree now, they’d lock you up in a loony bin.
– Paul, age 18
I only remember one time that we actually got driven back from Schurweberg, the combined unit’s shooting range, to Voortrekkerhoogte. Every other time they found some or other reason to make us run back to camp. I remember one time we must have really fucked up. According to them we had been ‘shooting like women’, so a Samil arrived and dropped off poles and tyres. We were told to get them back to camp by six that evening, when we were to stand inspection. I still remember running back and we were all singing, among other chants, the old ‘Why are we run-ning? SWAPO! SWAPO! Why are we sweat-ing? SWAPO! SWAPO!’ It’s amazing how they got the indoctrination in, in everything we did. We got back in time, but of course we were sweaty and dirty and failed the inspection. We were told to stand again at nine that night. Shrapnel, our corporal – so named ’cause he had really bad acne scars – walked in and did the usual old hackneyed pickupapillowcaseandthrowitdownthelengthofthebungalow shit. Of course it’s going to pick up something. And of course he’s going to do the usual Dutchman corporal thing and say, ‘You is pigs.’ He then proceeded to throw two fire buckets of sand and two fire buckets of water onto the bungalow floor and make us do Bungalow PT – over a bed, under a bed, over a bed, under a bed – fucking up an entire inspection. We were told we would be standing inspection the next morning at seven. It’s the first time I ever knew the whole bungalow to pull together. We decided en masse, after moving all of the trommels, beds and kaste out of the bungalow, and washing down and polishing the floor, that we wouldn’t have time to wash and iron dry all the sheets and pillow cases, so we broke into teams. One team was responsible for washing and ironing dry the top third of the sheets and the whole pillowcase, while the rest were setting full uitpak inspection bed by bed. I’ll never forget sliding around the polished floor on ‘taxis’ while I matched up everyone’s numbered moving parts with their stripped-down rifles. We got our inspection done in time. Shrapnel never pulled back one sheet. If he had, he would’ve found the dirtiest beds in the entire Defence Force. So we took a usual standard opfok and smiled. JLs one. Poes corporal zero.
– Clayton, age 17
Sometimes we were at sea for long periods, and fresh water was precious on a small boat. There was no fresh water to wash our clothes in, so on wash day we used to thread the clothing onto ropes and stream it out behind the boat. It would churn along behind the boat, and sea water was the best way to get uniforms faded and soft.
– Louis, age 17
Your browns are all shiny and new, and only after nine months could you iron your first line across your back. That meant you were a roof. In our unit, after one year you could iron a second line, which meant you were a blougat. The third line ironed across your shirt back was when you had done 18 months. When you only had six months left in the army, you were then one of the ou manne.
– Anthony, age 18