Jan
10
Stand At Ease – a Rare Treat
Filed Under Live, Marketing Consultancy, Work
When the pillars of apartheid in South Africa came crashing down in 1994, one of the biggest pillars to fall was the military machine – the South African Defence Force.
From the mid-1960s, white males were subjected to firstly, voluntary and then compulsory conscription and sent away to fight the apartheid war. What started out as nine months and a few ‘camps’ turned into twenty-four months and a plethora of ‘camps’ fighting Cubans in Angola, SWAPO/ANC in Namibia and then, the lowest of the low, patrolling the Black townships.
Recently, there has been a steady stream of literature being published about this era. Many of them have been apartheid generals/historians justifying the insurgencies into neighbouring states and providing a chronicle for the military history libraries. Sound familiar?
One of the first publications to be written by the one of guys who actually did the work – the National Servicemen – has now been published : Stand At Ease by Gary Green (or Groenmannetijie to give him his army moniker).
It’s an often hilarious story of his national service spent trying to outwit the Afrikaans instructors, keeping away from the front lines, living in the most desolate parts of South Africa and attempting to get to Durban to surf.
For those of us who lived through the same experience, there are amazing parallels with Green’s story. He had Corporal Vorster for his basic training – we had Corporal de Witt (Kippie the c–t). Vorster could not grow a proper moustache and took it out on his recruits, de Witt worked his way up to Sergeant-Major and was on his way down due to physical maltreatment of troops. Same story, same experiences.
If there can be criticsm of what is a rollicking read, then it’s the fact that Green has not delved further enough into the disparity of attitude by the English speaking troops and his Afrikaans speaking colleagues.
National Service was a major part of keeping apartheid alive – he has left his readers to draw their own conclusions on these relationships. He comes close with Private ‘Flash’ van Dyk.
However, one quote worth repeating on this subject was concerning the supposed 50/50 bilingual nature of SADF communication.
Language usage was supposed to rotate one day after another. Corporal Vorster summed it up nicely: “I speak in Afrikaans. You think in English”.
Can’t we all relate to that?
For those who endured basic training, ‘vuur en beweging’, abusive corporals, slimy lieutenants, fried eggs on top of porridge drowned in beetroot, hitch hiking through the Karroo and that steel helmet – read the book. Memories will come flooding back and it’s cathartic.
Stand At Ease by Gary Green is published by Reach Publishers (www.aimtoinspire.com) and is available at all good bookstores in South Africa. Overseas readers should email reach@webstorm.co.za to buy online.
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All my staff thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Also, I would like to add that the majority are women – So , it’s not just a man’s book and is really extremely amusing!
Well done, Gary!
More power to your writing arm!!
I usually don’t leave comments!!! Trust me! But I liked your blog…especially this post! Would you mind terribly if I put up a backlink from my site to your site?
I really enjoyed reading this book ! Gary was a great writer! It was amusing to know all his experiences as a national serviceman.
Great blog 9/10! Bookmarked
This is often a extremely very good read for me, Have to admit you’re 1 on the most effective bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.
Located your blog through Yahoo. I will be subscribing to your feed.
Couldnt have said it better my self!
I really enjoyed the website. That’s always nice when you read something which isn’t just informative but entertaining. Outstanding!