Discovering our history

I had an interesting day yesterday...



In the morning I was visiting my mom and she was telling me that my brother-in-law has gone to Gauteng for an interview with the Air Force, and so we got onto discussing the military experiences of my dad and Andrew - some good, some bad...



Andrew had a relatively easy time. He was in the army in 1989 to mid 1990, so the Border War was over, and after basics he was trained as a medic, and then got transferred to the kitchens, and he ended up working at the Nurse's Home in Cape Town, and in fact he was able to live at home. So apart from the normal basic training experience, he had a pretty good time.



My dad did his military service while the Border War was on, and he also got called up for a couple camps after my parents were married. He did go to the Border, but worked in the officers kitchen, so he didn't see any conflict (except for relationship conflicts with superior officers...)



So Andrew had a much easier time, but my dad's could have been a lot worse as well.



Then on the way home I heard an interview on CapeTalk with the author of a book called "Troepie, From Call-up to Camps", which is a collection of different people's military experiences - some good, some bad. It is a bit skewed towards the good, because many people who had bad experiences will not talk about what happened, so that does affect the content of a book like this.



And then people started calling in... One guy said that he'd been identified as a candidate for the special forces and where there's no record of what happened in certain incidents he knows, but he can't talk about it... He was actually referred to a trauma counsellor... And another women who wouldn't even talk on air, but her son killed himself a few years after getting back because of the things he'd done and seen. Other people spoke about grown men who still have nightmares about Angola...



I was so upset by all of this... Because of my age I didn't really know anything about the Border war, except for hearing people talking about being posted at the border. And then they didn't say any more than that... But when I got home I read up a bit about it, and Andrew told me what he knows. The whole thing is so appalling! In the same way that so many other things in South Africa's history and world history are so appalling... There are certainly people in this world who have a lot to answer for - for this war and so many others where innocent people's lives were damaged and/or destroyed.



I came away from this with such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude though that neither my father nor my husband was involved in open conflict. That they never had to see or do anything where they now have to live with regret or nightmares. We have been blessed.