Thugs of Power --- Hell Yes We DID serve

Hell Yes We DID serve (Sunday Times [South Africa] Review, Andrew Donaldson, Sun 20 Oct, 09)


After reading the abovementioned article (Hell No! – We didn’t go) I was wondering why these “draft dodgers” who, after 25yrs of wimping, are now getting all the attention. There has been little regard for those who actually did buckle down, much against their will & toed the line of the ‘Thugs in Power’ at the time, to serve their country.


The “Thugs of Power” were not ONLY the then Minister for Defence (P.W. Botha), the then Chief of Defence (General Magnus Malan) & the then Foreign Minister (Pik Botha). The “Thugs of Power” were also the fathers, mothers, uncles, aunties and neighbours who were so ‘power- drunk’ as to sit by and send their sons to fight a war that was unjust, oppressive, cowardly and inhumane.



Had nobody learned anything from the Frontier Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries? How easy would it have been to have voted those politicians out of office? Instead they were sending their own sons to their certain deaths, or if they did survive, to a lifetime of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (knowingly or not).


None of those boys (yes, they were just children - fighting a man’s war) were in any position to make rational decisions at that age, almost all of which had only a month ago left their school benches. At 16, 17, 18 and 19 years of age, straight out of school, these young men were sent to Army bases across this country, and trained so intently to “kill” anything resembling a certain ‘target’ . These children were trained killers once the C130 “flossey” arrived to fly them to Grootfontein.


They stood in that hanger in Grootfontein on a hot stuffy afternoon, addressed by some ‘knob - head’, telling them that all their hard work (training) was now finally going to reap rewards. That they were now finally going to be able to serve their country as their forefathers did in the Boer War, against Dingaan, and like Piet Retief did at the Battle of Blood River. This was now to be a new era of glory for these young men, to make their mothers and sisters safe at home. What a disgrace to now only honour those who ran away. This is certainly no criticism of those who refused to fight. However, because the shame, disgrace and dishonour refusal to fight would bring to their families such refusal would be intolerable. How could these “children” turn their backs – at this stage – on their families, their friends, their ‘maatjies’, their schools and, God help them, on their country? To even begin to think of refusing to fight? That was just not an option. Whatever happened to those boys who at the 11th hour refused, in Grootfontein, to go through those doors and fight?


The irony of it all is that those who did fight, who did not run away, who did not go AWOL, who stood and were counted (albeit for one of the worst civil wars imaginable) - were able to make valuable contributions both on the battlefield and back in ‘civvy street’ afterwards – with no accolades, with no fanfare, with no medals, with no acknowledgment.



Shame on you all for not celebrating those who did do their duty and making an equally valiant effort – while trembling as they did so!