50 — "Muck" and Mire (Bulawayo: Oct 1977)

Bulawayo seemed a bit lonely right off.  It wasn’t just that Salisbury had become “home” to us--there was more to it.  Bulawayo had been the original capital and major city in Rhodesia.  It was already feeling the effect of economic sanctions and “white flight.”  The large boulevards seemed empty of cars.  It was the opposite of the crowds and bustle of Salisbury.  The shelves in the stores seemed sparser.  Here, it was obvious that the old Rhodesia was gone forever.

The Africans of Matabeleland were taller, humorless and just not as friendly as the majority Mashona of Salisbury.  With a proud heritage that went back to Shaka Zulu, there was a palpable difference in their bearing and “spirit.”  The whites seemed colder as well.  There was a feeling of being a second-class city.  In Salisbury, Col Wood had joked, “Be sure to set your watches back 15 years when you go to Bulawayo!”  I don’t think the residents of Bulawayo appreciated the humor.

We moved into our new home in Matsheumshlope, but this time we didn’t hear from our neighbors.  We were just ignored.  For the entire time we were there, we only met two of our neighbors.  One invited us over to hear Ian Smith on television, but in Bulawayo we were never invited for dinner as had happened with regularity in Salisbury.  We heard from our across the street neighbor only by complaint.  It seems that our dogs enjoyed raiding their trash cans at about 2:00 am.  Just the complaint, no offers of welcome or hospitality.  

I don’t recall actually making any friends in Bulawayo.  The only social contact we had was when Stan Hannan, whom I had met in the Chaplain Corps, became pastor of Bulawayo Baptist Church.  I will cover more on Stan and his role in our exit from the country in a later chapter.

There was even a lonely Holiday Inn a few miles from our house.  It had been built in better times before Sanctions and claimed to serve American-style food.  Pegi and I went there for a Sunday afternoon meal.  The hamburger they served was close to an American hamburger, but it seemed strange eating in a mostly deserted dining room in a mostly deserted hotel.  

Llewellin Barracks, the depot for the Rhodesia Regiment was not deserted.  It was the basic training center for all the Rhodesian “territorial” soldiers.  Except for the couple of thousand Rhodesians who were part of the Regular Army, most white Rhodesian males trained at Llewellin Barracks just after finishing high school.  [Maj Gen MacIntyre had actually argued for the adoption of the Israeli system where males and females alike would serve.]  At the end of 1977, the war was beginning to escalate seriously and the national service “intakes” were getting larger.

As the new chaplain at Llewellin, I was replacing a Catholic priest who had a reputation for being very close to the troops, but also as a drunkard.  As a sergeant replacing a captain, I knew I had to approach all of this carefully.  Col Wood told me that the base commander, Col Muck Mickelsfield was a close friend and would be very helpful to me.  Well, that sounded promising!

Eugene Wiseman, the pastor of Gatooma Baptist Church, fellow Thieme student, and who had ordained me into the chaplaincy, was to join me soon in Bulawayo.  So, I was in a caretaker role until he came.  Once he got there, then I would be freer to focus on my assignments for Maj Gen MacIntyre.

In the meantime, I settled into the tiny one room building that served as the Chaplain’s Office.  I had no idea what to expect, but assumed that there were some regular duties that I would have as base chaplain.  However, the chaplain before me had no regular duties!  It seems that he had even given over most of the Sunday services and even the weekly “Padre’s Hour” for the trainees, to guest speakers.  Most of this was typically handled by a “territorial” chaplain of Indian ancestry.  Padre Val Rajan was a nice fellow and brought all of his sons (I think there were five of them) with him when he ministered.  His sons and he played guitar and horn instruments.  It wasn’t very good, but at least it was interesting!

However, the Sunday services were poorly attended.  No high school-aged kid is going to want to go to a voluntary church service on Sunday.  Most likely, they would be sleeping off a hangover if they “had leave” or would be just getting some rest from the grueling week of training.

And, let’s be honest, there were elements of racialism that would get in the way of an Indian Pentecostal Christian successfully ministering to a bunch of white Rhodesians.  Indians were considered “Asian coloureds” and Pentecostalism had not made significant inroads in the Anglican “churchianity” which was the background of most of these white kids.

So, it was up to me to find a path in between the pentecostalism of Val and the drunkenness of the previous chaplain.  As I was thinking about all of this during my third day at the base, the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM-highest ranking NCO) appeared at my office door.  He ordered me to report immediately to Col Mickelsfield.  I thought, “This is great!  I will get to meet Col Mickelsfield, the Chaplain General’s good friend, ‘Muck’.”

By now, I was not intimidated by rank.  I was a chaplain and as such was treated with deference by officer and enlisted men alike.  I had just recently met with Generals MacIntyre and MacClean.  I had been dispatched to Llewellin by the Chaplain General himself to help out his “buddy” Muck.  

Entering Col Mickelsfield’s office, I saluted, smiled and shook his hand.  I immediately sensed his coolness towards me.  After chatting for just a minute about settling in at home and on base, he screwed up his forehead and said, “You are delinquent for not reporting to me immediately as soon as you arrived on base!”

Uh oh!  Apparently, I had offended his strong sense of protocol.  Because I was stationed on his base, it seemed that he expected me to report to him as my commanding officer.  Col Wood hadn’t prepared me for this.  As chaplains, we didn’t report to anyone other than the Chaplain General and God.  I had received no indication that I was to be taking day-to-day instructions from Col Mickelsfield.  I don’t think that was his intention, but he was a pretty stiff formal officer and I was a sergeant.  He was accustomed to dealing with chaplains who were officers.  Clearly, he was not going to be “Muck” for me--he would be Lt Col Mickelsfield.

I apologized for having been unaware of protocol and he seemed to accept this.  After all, he really didn’t see me as a soldier--I was just a useless American chaplain’s assistant.  He had one final instruction for me, that he expected me to attend the RSM’s prayer meetings.

You would think that I would have no problem with a prayer meeting as a chaplain, but there was no “praying” at these meetings.  NCO and Officer’s messes held mandatory drinking parties each Friday evening called “prayer meeting.”  This was the time when they blew off steam and drank themselves stupid to start the weekend.

I didn’t have a problem with drinking as a Christian.  As a follower of Thieme’s teaching, I was not tied to the American legalism that forbade alcoholic beverage.  However, Col Wood had told me that chaplains were exempt from the the mandatory prayer meeting drink fests.  It obviously sent the wrong message to the soldiers.  And because I was taking over for a chaplain who was well-known as a drunk, it would be a huge compromise of my status as a chaplain to participate.

I straightened my shoulders and responded directly:  “Sir, I am sorry, but I cannot participate in the RSM’s prayer meetings.  I will make an attempt to attend from time to time to meet the other NCOs on base, but I cannot not accept this instruction to attend on a mandatory basis.”

Col Mickelsfield didn’t insist, but I could see that I had not made a friend of either him or the RSM.  Bulawayo was going to be a sticky situation.  I was already mired in the “Muck”!

Next:  51 — War Fever (Bulawayo:  Oct 1977)

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35 -- Reverse Gear and Fast! (Salisbury: March 1977)

Before I began my training as a combat driver I had a weekend leave.  Pegi picked me up at Training Troop in a car loaned to us by a friend.  As we drove home to Alexandra Park, we talked about a lot of things, including our ever worsening financial condition.  We needed our own car, but due to sanctions, new cars were out of the question and used cars were incredibly expensive.  In addition, Pegi was unable to jump back into her profession as a surgical nurse.  The medical system in Rhodesia was so different that she would be required to work as a student nurse at student pay for six months.  This was not an option for us.  The only interesting option was for her to join the Rhodesian Women’s Services (RWS), a non-rank bearing adjunct to the Army. 

After catching up on some sleep and having some time to just lounge around the house with Rebel, we made two decisions:  (1) Pegi would join RWS and start her training in about two weeks, and (2) We needed to go shopping for a car.  We ended up with a very used tan-colored Mini station wagon.  You may be familiar with the tiny Cooper Mini currently for sale in the US market.  Well, this was a stripped down version with an extended passenger cab instead of a trunk—no heat, no radio, sliding windows.  The deciding factor was that I was able to squeeze in the driver’s side and operate the clutch without hitting the brake with my large left foot!  You know that act where a bunch of circus clowns come out of a tiny car?  I was the clown!  Price:  Rh$2500 at Rh$55/mo forever!

07:00 Monday morning, Pegi dropped me off at the main gate at RLI.  I presented my entry pass to the RP (Regimental Police) on duty and was directed to wait next to the office of the motor pool, just to the right of the front gate.  I waited there for about 10 minutes with a couple of other troopers waiting for entrance to the motor pool.  A soldier in civilian clothes walked up next to me and lit himself a cigarette.  He offered me one and I declined.  He took a drag on his cigarette and said, “What are you here for?”

I replied, “I am waiting for the sergeant to give me my assignment to start driver’s training.”

He smiled, took another puff on his cigarette and screamed, “STAND AT ATTENTION WHEN YOU TALK TO ME!”

It was the corporal from the back gate who had dressed me down the week before for walking instead of double-timing.  Of all the people to run into on my first day, it was this guy!

I jumped to attention while he finished telling me what a worthless piece of useless flesh I was.  He threw down his cigarette, smashed it with his shoe and ordered me to clean up the butt and dispose of it.  He spun on his heel and walked through the gate into the motor pool.

A few minutes later, I was summoned to the motor pool office and assigned to another corporal (thank goodness), who would teach me how to drive all the trucks in the RLI motor pool.  We started with a Land Rover.  They wanted to make sure that I could drive a stick shift.   We spent about a few hours driving around the suburbs of Salisbury near Cranborne Barracks.  It was quickly apparent that I could drive.  After all I was an American and had been driving since I was a teenager. 

After lunch, we changed to driving the 2.5 ton Mercedes Unimog.  This was a newer German-made “left-hand drive” vehicle that was the main assault vehicle for the RLI.  It took a few minutes to get used to driving a left-hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road, but since we rode so high above the rest of the traffic, I readjusted quickly.  It was an open/canvas roofed, 4-wheel drive truck capable of carrying a “stick” of troopers (four men), with a 50 calibre machine gun or mortar.  With 12 forward gears and 5 reverse gears, this monster could roar down dirt roads at well over 100 kmh (62 mph). 

The floor boards were armored with steel and rubber mesh to protect from the blast of landmines.  Of course, if you actually hit an anti-vehicle mine in one of these things, you would be thrown from the truck.  So one of the first things I was taught to do was to stand on the breaks, slam it into all 5 gears of reverse, back up and pick up a soldier who might have fallen out of the truck in the event of a mine blast.

For several hours, we raced down rural dirt roads at 100 kmh.  With no notice, my instructor would shout, “Mine!  Reverse gear and fast!”  I would slam on the breaks and reverse as fast as I could to simulate going back to pick up a fallen soldier.  I had never had so much fun driving in my life! As we stirred up huge clouds of dust, local Africans seemed bored by it all as they walked by the side of the road.

As we drove back into Salisbury, my instructor told me combat stories.  Apparently, he had driven this same Unimog on a recent raid into Mozambique.  I will spare you the gruesome details, but it was clear that I would get my opportunity for combat as an RLI driver.   Since it was already 14:00 and it would take us 30 minutes to get back to Cranborne, he had me drive to Alex Park.  He dropped me at my house in time to save Pegi a trip in our new Mini to pick me up.

That night at dinner, we spoke excitedly about the turn of events.  Pegi would go through two weeks of RWS orientation training, including close order drill and learning to field strip and fire a 9mm pistol and an Uzi submachine gun.  She would be assigned as a clerk-typist in Army HQ just a few miles from our house.  You may remember from chapter 31-“Avocado on a Hot Tin Roof” that we had heard automatic weapons fire near Alex Park.  It turns out that the HQ firing range was about a mile away from our home.

After dinner, we listened to a taped lesson from Col Thieme at Berachah.  Although, I was generally satisfied with the thought of being a combat driver, I was a long way from that exciting military career that I had envisioned for myself.  Would I just be a driver for my three year contract?  Would Pegi, with a four-year nursing degree, be only a clerk-typist?  Was this God’s plan for our lives?

There must be something more for us here. There must be some greater spiritual purpose.  If I was not to have a career as a military officer, then the only other attractive option would be to serve in the ministry, but how could that happen in Africa?

Next:  36 — Another Colonel In the Church (Salisbury: March 1977)

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32 — Field "Trip" (Salisbury: Jan 1977)

As I settled into my steel frame rack (bed) and pulled my army green mosquito netting around me for the evening, I reflected on what had just happened.  Here I was thousands of miles from home, separated from the woman I loved, and a recruit in basic training again—this time in a foreign army!  How could I have been so stupid?  I still hadn’t come to grips with the thought of actually getting killed or wounded in combat—those things always happened to someone else.  But, I was a recruit again—the lowest of the low, the scum of the scum.  I was the tool of any Rhodesian who outranked me (and they all did), to abuse me as it suited them.

But the moment of panic and regret passed quickly as I drifted off the sleep, exhausted from the day’s activity . . . and then my alarm went off.  I had set it for 04:30 so that I could get an early start on the day.  Amazingly refreshed from only four hours of sleep, I quickly made up my rack, military style, tucking the mosquito netting in at the end of the bed. After a very cold shower—it took a while before the hot water reached our showers and I was the only one awake—I dressed for morning PT (physical training).  While I was waiting for the rest of my company to wake up, I spent some time organizing my locker and familiarizing myself with my FN rifle.

At 06:00 we formed up outside the barracks for a run.  I was still adjusting to the altitude and had not been running for the last few weeks as we toured the country.  At first I thought I might pass out as I struggled to catch my breath, but eventually caught my second wind and adjusted to the rhythm of the group.  I was 27, a good 10 years older than most of the recruits.  Although they could speed by me, I managed to keep up with them as long as we kept in formation.  

Ready for a Road Run

                

After the run we did some pushups which were not a problem for me.  I could do 50 pushups on demand.  I had developed that ability while delivering office supplies and as a milkman in Houston.  I would do pushups by the side of the road whenever I felt sleepy driving around in the Houston heat and humidity.

Squat thrusts were another matter!  After running and doing pushups, I just couldn’t get enough oxygen flowing through my muscles and I started stumbling around badly.  Mercifully, PT ended quickly and we were sent back to change into our camo fatigues for breakfast.  With some food and liquid in me, I was rejuvenated for the day ahead.

A typical day’s training included close order drill, marksmanship and caring for my FN, plus classroom lectures on small unit tactics.  The grueling conditioning was not fun, but the rest was.  As the days went on, I became accustomed to the routine and began to “feel” like a soldier.  The rifle range, parade ground and classrooms were my place of business as I was being turned from a civilian into a professional soldier.   

The Obstacle Course

Here is an excerpt from a letter that I sent back to Col Thieme at Berachah Church:

While in training I have seen why the Rhodesian soldier is so good. The training emphasizes: 1-fitness, 2-marksmanship, 3-drill. No shaved heads, just clean haircuts–not really much harassment.  Inspections are rigid, drill very important (three hours every day, British style, stomping your feet), but a lot is left to individual initiative. All the NCOs have combat experience and enunciate very clearly when speaking so that Americans, Brits, Canadians and Belgians can understand them.  The NCOs in Training Troop are really well trained for the job.

As you can see, I had a very positive attitude!  My sense of purpose kept me positive.  I was buoyed by the letters from Pegi that she sent every day.  As I read them each evening, my spirit was reinforced.  Aside from the personal elements of her letters, she would include notes that she had taken while listening to bible lessons on tape that we had begun to receive from Houston.  Up until my first day at Training Troop, I had either attended a bible class or listened to a taped class everyday for six years.  Not only was my identity totally bound up in the teaching that I was getting from Col Thieme, but my spiritual life was wholly dependent on continual attention to his teachings.

He had not taught us to gain our spiritual sustenance through reading the Bible for ourselves.  We were totally dependent on his detailed knowledge of the original languages, historical context and systematic theology.  Although I had garnered a storehouse of biblical knowledge, I was incapable of thinking for myself when it came to the application of that knowledge.  The problem was that I did not know that I was incapable.  I had a multitude of opinions that I believed were founded solidly on biblical fact.  I thought I knew “everything” when it came to the subject of relationship with God.  I had no idea of how uninformed I was.  Well, do any of us really know how uninformed we are?  That is what life experience and growth is all about—learning what idiots we have been!

Well, Recruit Wasserman had no clue that his world view was skewed.  And all the other recruits were equally ignorant—just without all the bible doctrine to bolster the arrogance of their misconceptions.

In spite of my “know it all” attitude, I had begun to make friends in my training unit.  The Rhodesians no longer seemed like bad kids who were a step ahead of the police.  Some of them were surprisingly intelligent with a strong sense of humor.  They just hadn’t had it as easy as some others.  Maybe they weren’t quite as well off as some of their contemporaries.  Others might have had a learning disability.  The more we suffered and struggled together, the closer we became. 

I was really surprised to find myself friends with a South African who had been given the choice of jail in South Africa for theft or three years in the Rhodesian Army.  He was a “tough guy,” but actually took a liking to me.  I had taken some martial arts classes in Houston and was hoping that what I had learned would help me in any close combat situation.  He had practical street fighting experience.  We spent our time off working to combine my academic knowledge from doing karate and kung fu exercises with his speed and savvy from real fights.  We both excelled when it came time for bayonet drill.  The two of us destroyed all the practice dummies and smashed our opponents with pugil sticks, much to the delight of our NCO instructors.

One afternoon, as we hurried to change clothes for a training exercise, I mistakenly locked my key to my locker inside it!  Within two minutes, my South African buddy had picked the lock with a set of picks that he just “happened” to have with him!

Our exercise that afternoon was to plant neutered mines in a large field.  The idea was to test the detection skills of a senior training class one week from graduation.  We must have done pretty well, since they only found four of the nine mines we planted.  It was this realistic type of training that allows a unit to fail and to “die” while practicing that led to learning and fewer casualties in combat.  I was envious of these near-graduates.  I still had so much to learn!  They were a week away from being real soldiers and I was still a recruit.

One of the Rhodesian recruits that I did not like was another Jeff, spelled Geoffrey.  Geoffrey “L” had just turned 17 and was a weaselly little troublemaker-crybaby.  He was willfully stupid and always complaining about our NCOs, the Army, the food, etc.  He would deliberately screw up every day, thus insuring that we would have punishment runs with rifles held above our heads several times a day.

A number of my fellow recruits had threatened him with violence, but that only made him worse.  In the 3^rd week of training, he pulled a stunt that got him in trouble with Capt Cooper, the head of Training Troop.  As a result, he was slated to be “held back” to finish his training with the next recruit class.  When we heard about this we celebrated that he would plague us no more! But before the paperwork was completed, he pulled another childish stunt that led to the end of my dream of a military career.

We were outside the gate at Cranborne in a training area that had a large field of high grass and rivulets of water hidden below.  It was rainy season and the rivulets were everywhere.  We were practicing combat movements in the tall grass when Geoffrey L decided to mouth off to Cpl Cotzee (pronounced ‘coat-see-uh’), our senior instructor. 

Cpl Cotzee had been a secondary school teacher and was one of the more educated Rhodesians I had met.  When he wasn’t drilling us, he would come by and chat with me.  I think he appreciated that I was well-read and had a university education.  He was one of my strongest advocates.  He had been supporting my intention to attend the Officer Training School in Gwelo after RLI. 

Why Geoffrey L decided to mouth off this time or what he said is a mystery.  All I know is that the RPs (Regimental Police) marched him off while the rest of us went running through the field with our rifles over our heads.

I mentioned previously that I had developed a method for supporting my rifle while running by locking my elbows and throwing my shoulders back.  This worked great on hard surfaces, but had the result of making me face upwards.  Consequently, I did not see the 2 foot square puddle in front of me as I ran through the tall grass.  My right boot was swallowed up in the puddle and I was thrown face forward in the water.  But, I didn’t drop my rifle!  Unfortunately, when I got up and tried to run, my ankle gave out and I fell again . . . and again . . . again.  Finally, I was able to hobble over to where we were being reformed at parade rest.

As we double-timed back to our barracks, I was limping really badly and had to fall out to the rear of the formation.  Cpl Cotzee walked with me so that I would not be assailed by passing RPs or other NCOs.

The next morning, my ankle was so swollen that I had trouble lacing my boot.  I had broken my leg and ankle two years before in Houston when attempting a jumping kick in a martial arts class.  I had landed badly, slipping on a wet spot on the cement floor.  I still have a pin in my right tibia from the surgical repairs.  Cpl Cotzee sent me to the base hospital where I was examined and given “permission” to walk for the next few days.

A week later, my situation had not improved.  The swelling had gone down and an x-ray showed that I had not broken any new bones.  However, the doctor told me that it was unlikely that the condition would improve in time for me to be able to complete training with my unit.  I would most likely be pulled out of my unit and wait for the next intake class in six weeks.  Until then, I would continue to bunk with my unit, but would be assigned duty working for the Quartermaster, a Color Sergeant.  We addressed him as “Color.”  Color Sgt is equivalent to a Staff Sgt in the US Army.  However, in the British system, all NCOs were treated with officer-like respect.  Even a three-stripe sergeant was equivalent to God!

I was devastated.  My dreams of a military career were fading as each day passed as a result of my field “trip”!

Next:  33 — The Interview (Salisbury: Feb 1977)

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28 -- The Convoy (Rhodesia: Dec 1976)

 

The following morning, we left the judge’s home for Bulawayo, Wankie and Victoria Falls.  This would be the “dangerous” part of our trip as there was daytime terrorist activity on the road to Victoria Falls.  About 90 minutes outside of Bulawayo, we would travel in “convoy” the rest of the way. Traveling in convoys of vehicles escorted by soldiers reduced the likelihood of a terrorist ambush.  

The “freedom fighters” did not take on well-armed targets.  Rather, they preyed on unarmed and defenseless civilians.  The last thing the “Terrs” wanted was to run into some of the well-trained citizen soldiers of the Rhodesian armed services.

It was really an adventure now!  We roared down the two lane highway, trucks and cars alike at top speed, ignoring posted speed limits.  In front and at the rear of our small convoy of 20 vehicles, were camo-painted trucks with four or five soldiers armed with their Fabrique Nationale 7.62 mm automatic weapons and a 30 caliber machine gun on a mount where the canvas roof had been removed.  

In addition, each car was also armed.  I had my Colt 45 automatic that I had brought from Texas. The other vehicles had an assortment of handguns, locally manufactured Uzi submachine guns and R1 rifles (FNs of South Africa manufacture). 

No Terr in his right mind was going to take on a convoy like this!  Needless to say, we arrived at our hotel in Wankie without incident.

 

The hotel looked like something out of Disneyworld.  It had obviously been built with the tourist trade in mind just before the onset of sanctions in 1964.  It was several miles inside the game preserve and elephants and giraffes would graze a few hundred yards from the balcony in your room.  The 1976 tourist season had not gone well and the events that we had planned such as a camera safari had been cancelled.  The man to lead the safari had been called up by the BSAP to chase some Terrs who had attacked a rural village just outside the preserve.  Since there really wasn’t anything we could do there, we decided to go on to Vic Falls the following morning. 

The next morning another convoy took us to the town of Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Rhodesia.  In past decades, Zambia had been known as Northern Rhodesia. 

When the short-lived Federation of Northern Rhodesia (1953-1963), Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland broke up with independence coming to Northern Rhodesia as Zambia and Nyasaland as Malawi.  Southern Rhodesia became known simply as Rhodesia—still a British colony.  It was not much later that Rhodesia broke away from the British who refused to allow them independence.  In 1964, Rhodesia made its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI).  The United Kingdom would then lead the UN in declaring trade sanctions against the newly formed republic.

The issue that kept Rhodesia in a colonial status was the number of European and African members of any future Rhodesian Parliament.  Rhodesia’s European Prime Minister, Ian Smith, was not opposed to African participation in government.  It was the proportion of European Rhodesians and African Rhodesians and the timetable for power sharing that led to the eventual break between Rhodesia and the UK.

After UDI, Smith would harden his stance against African participation, often saying that African rule would come “over my dead body.”  But, to me as a newly-minted conservative American, steeped in the soaring idealism of Texas-style Christianity propounded by RB Thieme, Rhodesia’s UDI was analogous to our own American Declaration in 1776.  And, I saw the issue of African power analogous to our own history with Native Americans.  Indeed, the Rhodesians were much more progressively minded toward Africans than we had ever been toward Native Americans.

For all its detractors, the Rhodesian Army was composed of Europeans and Africans alike, united against a common Communist foe—the terrorist forces under Mugabe, Sithole and Nkomo.  In the short time I had been in Rhodesia, I had learned that the volunteer regular army was composed of about 3000 Europeans.  There were thousands more African volunteers in the BSAP and the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR).  This “all African” force of volunteers was more feared than any other unit of the Rhodesian Army.  These were highly motivated African soldiers who were determined to drive the terrorists out of their country.  Just after our arrival in Rhodesia, the RAR commissioned its first African officers. 

There were also the Selous Scouts, an elite all volunteer mixed race unit.   A Selous Scouts force of 70 men had just carried out a raid in Nyadzonya, Mozambique where they had killed a thousand terrorists in less than an hour with no loss of life to themselves.  [Many years later, Gen Edgar Tekere who was Mugabe’s defeated commander of these forces, said that Mugabe was so disheartened by this series of raids that he had considered giving up the armed struggle.  This explicit interview contains his interview along with Lt Col Reid Daley, the Scouts’ commander.]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs7V_IBQcDg  3/3/26 Note:  Unfortunately, this video this is no longer available on YouTube.

The “territorial” forces were similar to what our American National Guard used to be before the Bush administration re-tasked them as frontline combat troops.  The Territorial Regiments were composed of draftees.  These draftees were all white Rhodesians.  Not a single African was ever conscripted into the Rhodesian Army.  [By the end of 1977, as many as 100 Africans were volunteering for duty with the Security Forces every day.]  

The only African “conscripts” were those who were stolen from their villages and force-marched across the border to Mozambique and Zambia.  These schoolboys were co-opted as terrorists, indoctrinated and trained by Chinese, Soviet and North Korean soldiers.  Then they were set loose on their own people to rape, pillage and plunder.

The only analogy to these terrorists in American history at the time was to be found in our recent experience with the Viet Cong.  In fact, the similarities were striking between the training and tactics of the Viet Cong and the Mugabe/Sithole/Nkomo “freedom fighters.”

Since I had missed my chance to fight the Communist Viet Cong, it made sense to me that fighting these African terrorists was really the same enemy—just a different continent.

Next:  29 — No Umbrella for the Rain Forest (Victoria Falls, Rhodesia:  Dec 1976)

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27 -- Tea with the Judge (Rhodesia: Dec 1976)

Our travel plans would take us from Salisbury, southwest to Bulawayo and northwest to Victoria Falls.  After visiting the Wankie game preserve and Vic Falls, we planned to head back east to Fort Victoria and the nearby Zimbabwe Ruins, then to the mountains of Umtali overlooking Mozambique.

We had some acquaintances in Gatooma, just a few hours by car from Salisbury.  We had met Eugene and Thora Wiseman at The Jameson Hotel after phoning him our second day in Rhodesia.  Eugene was a Thieme “taper” who pastored the Gatooma Baptist Church.  Roy Hurst had given us his name as well as the name of several other “tapers” including some Salisbury residents and the Rhodesian Chaplain General.  Of course, it had also been Roy who had put us in touch with RSM Harry Springer and Maj Nick Lamprecht.

We had also met a Rhodesian who was staying at the Jameson before starting his regular period of national service.  All males served in the military from 18 to 55 whether it was the Army, Air Force or BSAP (British South African Police).  If I remember correctly, this man was serving in the BSAP and would be patrolling the bush somewhere to the northeast near the Mozambique border.  We were welcomed by Rhodesians such as this.  We were Americans who were coming to help them in their struggle to maintain their freedom.  He absolutely insisted that we stay with his father, a judge on the Rhodesian High Court, when we visited Bulawayo. 

So, after stopping for tea in Gatooma with the Wisemans,  we pushed on to Bulawayo for the night.  Salisbury to Bulawayo was about a five-hour drive and there really wasn’t much to see from a tourist perspective in between.  Of course, we were just fascinated to be “in” Africa and traveling safely down the main highway to the old capital of Rhodesia, Bulawayo.  Of course, part of the excitement was that there was supposed to be a war going on!  But, as long as we confined our travel to daylight hours, we were advised that we shouldn’t be concerned traveling to Bulawayo.

We saw quite a few more army vehicles than we had seen in Salisbury.  Mostly, we saw Land Rovers and transport trucks—all painted in a camouflage pattern of green, brown and pale yellow.  Occasionally, we would see a truck with 15-20 soldiers in the back, but it didn’t seem any different than what you would expect to see in the US when you were near a military base.

[We had seen some strange looking vehicles in Salisbury zipping around some of the downtown streets.  These were armored vehicles, some with small guns poking through the armor plate.  We had chased a couple of these vehicles in our rental car as we tried to get some snapshots, but were waved off by the soldiers.  Some months later, I found out that these were vehicles from the Armor Corps out training drivers.  In a few months I myself would be driving a camouflaged 2.5 ton Mercedes Unimog all over Salisbury as part of my combat-driver training.]

We arrived at the judge’s home just before sunset.  Not surprisingly, he was a very formal gentleman.  He seemed stiff and humorless, resembling the caricature that I imagined for someone from Britain. 

He greeted us with hot tea as his house servant took our bags to our room.  It was not my first experience with hot tea, but it was my first formal tea!   Another servant, dressed in white with a pressed white cloth over his arm, served us tea in the “drawing room” where we were seated in stiff-backed chairs.  The tea service was fine china and the tiny cups with their petite handles were hard for me to handle in my large American hands.  As I struggled with my grip on the handle and balancing the saucer on my thigh, I found out just how hot the tea was!  The handle twisted between my fingers and poured into my lap so as to ruin anyone’s honeymoon! 

This was not the first time I had poured hot liquid in my own lap.  I had done the same with very hot coffee a few years before at Steak and Eggs in Houston.  That episode resulted in some blistering.  This time, I knew what to do—I grabbed a pitcher of cold water and poured it in my lap.  A change of clothes later I was none the worse except for the embarrassment.

Later that evening, we ate a moussaka casserole prepared by his cook from eggplant grown in his own garden.  We had never had moussaka before, so thought of it as an African recipe for years until we were exposed to Greek cooking.  After dinner, we retired for some sherry and conversation.  Of course, we were full of questions about the war, politics, life under sanctions, and most of all, what it was like for him growing up as a white person in Africa.

He had grown up on a farm to the northeast near Melsetter.  It was now a hotbed of terrorist insurgent activity.  He learned the local African language from servants and his childhood playmates who were mostly the sons of the African workers employed on his father’s farm. 

This is probably a good place to introduce you, the reader, to some terminology that will make telling the rest of this story a little easier:

When I write of the local black population, I will use the common term, “African.”  Even though most Rhodesian whites were born and raised in Africa, they are commonly called “Europeans.”  Even Americans are called “Europeans.”  Those of mixed race, were called “Coloureds” and those from the Indian subcontinent are called “Asians.”  This terminology continues to this day.  Rhodesian Europeans had pejorative names for others as I am sure the Africans had for the Europeans, but there is no disrespect in the terms African, European or Asian.

The judge explained all of this to us and gave us our first good history lesson about Rhodesia and southern Africa.  We retired to our room for the evening with plans to leave for Wankie the next morning.

Next:  28 — The Convoy (Rhodesia: Dec 1976)

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