75 — Darkness and FOG (Harare: Jan 1984)

After touring the apartment, we walked a few blocks with Charles to the apartment home of his pastor. A knock on the door opened into a sitting room with at least a dozen 20-something African males and females sitting on sofas or on floor cushions. A couple of places on the sofa were cleared for us. Once seated, we were served cups of milky tea and buttered bread slices. Neither the pastor nor his wife were home, but the apartment was bustling with conversation and with a constant flow of traffic, expecting “Pastor Felix” to return at any moment.

While we waited, we were introduced around the room. We met Charles’ fiancee. She was soon to leave for Kiev for university. There were several young men and women who worked in various business offices downtown, Felix’s brother who was a detective with the Harare police; Sparks, a former ZANU-PF Political Commissar; and a tall gentleman who had recently returned to Zimbabwe from some specialized pilot’s training in Moscow. He was one of the most highly trained African members of the new Zimbabwe Air Force, having received his MiG 23 training during the war. This was my first direct encounter with someone from the ZANLA/ZIPRA forces that I had come to Rhodesia to fight in 1977.

As the introductions circled the room, I noticed that the young man seated next to us was holding his right leg straight out in front of him. It was apparent that he had lost his leg and was still becoming accustomed to his artificial one. I asked him where he lost his leg, not wanting to ask him “how” he lost it. I assumed that he had stepped on a land mine during the war rather than losing it in a vehicle accident. He answered, “In Mozambique.” That told me that, he too, was a former freedom fighter in the Communist forces that I had joined the Rhodesian Army to fight five years earlier.

My mood darkened a bit as I realized that we were sitting in the midst of a potentially hostile crowd. These were the citizens of the new Zimbabwe. They represented the emerging urban African middle class and certainly would not be very sympathetic to someone who had come to their country five years before to support white minority rule! When was Pastor Felix going to return? I was worried that these young Christians from Family of God (FOG) might be in a fog with regard to their relationship with whites and especially white Americans who had supported Rhodesia. Could they still be recovering from the fog of war? Could there be dangerous darkness lurking in the fog of FOG?

But, no sooner that these worries darkened my spirit, the fog was dispelled by the amputee. Turning to me, he reached around to hug me as a “brother in Christ,” welcoming us to Zimbabwe. Then, the MiG pilot came over and started up a friendly conversation and showed me the handshake that had been used by supporters of the freedom fighters. We found that this handshake was now the greeting common to all African Zimbabweans. You shake normally, then reach up and grasp around the thumb, and then return to the standard handshake. Shaking everyone’s hand in this manner, we were suddenly members of the family.

It was as if the sun shone through my dark mood and the fog was burnt away. We were accepted—even loved!

The front door opened and there was Pastor Felix who came straight over to us with a huge smile on his face. Somehow I knew that we were to be best friends, partners in a common cause—long lost brothers reunited. It made no difference that five years before we would have been enemies. Two followers of the Lord hugged each other.

A few minutes later, Felix’s wife, Spiwe returned from her day working at a local bank. She and Pegi found themselves instant sisters. A new family had been born. Two American members of the “family of God” were united with Zimbabwean members of the “Family of God” ministry.

Felix and Spiwe Mukonowengwe

The apartment was overpopulated now that more of Felix’s congregation dropped by at the end of their work day. Everyone wanted to speak with Felix about something. Felix grabbed me by the hand to go for a walk. [In Africa, African men often hold hands while walking. It is a symbol of male friendship.] 

We were gone for close to an hour as Felix and I got to know each other. After hearing my story, including my reasoning for having come to Rhodesia as a soldier, Felix poured out his heart’s burden for the unevangelized rural masses. His ministry had been focused on the urban centers. He and his co-founder of F.O.G., Andrew, now had churches in Harare and Bulawayo with memberships of over 7,000. Felix had been the primary evangelist with Andrew as the senior pastor once the churches were established. 

In recent months, as the ministry had prospered financially, Felix had become concerned with the way Andrew was managing the ministry bank accounts. Felix wanted to begin to establish new congregations in the rural Communal Lands (the former Tribal Trust Lands), where 70% of Zimbabwe’s population resided in 1983. Andrew was spending the majority of FOG’s money on his own lifestyle and was focused on his status as pastor of the largest urban congregation in Zimbabwe. Andrew was building his own kingdom. Felix wanted to build God’s kingdom.

  By the end of our walk, it was obvious to me that Felix needed to leave FOG to Andrew and free himself from ethical problems that Andrew seemed to be creating for the ministry. Of course, to leave FOG was to leave his ministry-paid apartment, car, expense allowance and salary. Since we had only recently done something similar in leaving our American careers to come to Zimbabwe, I felt confident in assuring Felix that the Lord would provide.

In fact, since Spiwe had a good salary from the bank, the extra money that he received from FOG was just spent on taking care of the dozens of people who literally ate all of their meals at his apartment. His car was constantly being used to transport his congregation members around town. 

The bottom line was that Felix could not get free to minister in the rural areas as long as he was tied to the urban ministry of FOG. He was known as “Pastor” Felix, but he did not see himself as a pastor. He saw himself as an evangelist whose calling was to find lost souls and guide them to the kingdom of God. 

As I shared my thoughts with him, Felix shared his own similar concerns for me. Although he saw the potential of having a secular job with NCR, he felt that would keep me too busy on weekdays, not leaving enough time to make an impact in the rural areas. He said that a secular job would be fine if I wanted to minister in urban Harare, but if I was to really reach the rural areas, I needed to be full-time in ministry. And since I needed a “job” to satisfy Immigration, he was supportive of my accepting the pastorate of Chisipite Baptist Church.

He felt that my duties with Chisipite would be mostly on Sundays and that church would be a good platform to reach out to the rural areas on weekdays.

It was food for thought for both of us.

Next:  76 — Computer Programmer or Pastor? (Harare:  Jan 1984)

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58 — Are We There Yet? (New York: May 1978)

Tears of joy began to fill our eyes as we saw the approaching American coastline.  The pounding in our chests that had begun as we left Salisbury changed to a comfortable rhythm as the wheels of the 747 touched down at JFK International.

After gathering our bags, we joined the lines of returning American citizens.  Much to my dismay, the person in front of us was another Rhodesian Army member whom I knew from my training intake at RLI.  When I left Training Troop to join the Chaplain Corps, he had gone on to become a medic in 2 Commando.  [He, too, was “officially” on his first year’s 30 day leave, but we both knew that neither of us would be returning to Rhodesia at month’s end.  If I had seen him in Rhodesia, I would have given him the “word” that the Army had advised us to leave.  Apparently, he had already heard.]

He had some difficulty speaking as his jaw was wired shut from an auto accident.  As such, he was relieved that I could be there to “speak for him” although that was the very last thing I wanted--to be associated with another American returning from Rhodesia.  To make things worse, he was carrying his army issue medic’s bag with Rhodesian Army markings and had his camo uniform on a hanger in a dry-cleaning bag!  

I really didn’t want to have a conversation with Customs and Immigration about my time in the Rhodesian Army or the uniforms that Pegi and I both had in our suitcases!  Amazingly, he breezed right through ahead of us without any problems or my help.  I don’t remember exactly what we gave as our reason for being in Rhodesia except that we had been on an extended honeymoon, which was a stretch, but true.  We, too, breezed through without any problems.

So, if the State Department really was on the lookout for Americans serving in the Rhodesian Army, they didn’t seem concerned that we had returned home.  Five years later, we would apply for new passports.  I received a follow-up questionnaire in the mail asking:  “When did you renounce your American citizenship and why?”  I responded that I had never renounced my American citizenship.  I had not been required to do so when enlisting in the Rhodesian Army.  Fortunately, my new passport was granted without further questions.

It is no surprise that the US government had our names.  Robin Moore had published our names and photos in 17 American newspapers.  He had introduced us to Newsweek’s Arnaud de Borgrave who had family members that had been victimized by terrorists in Rhodesia. De Borgrave was rumored to be CIA-connected. And then there was the chapter Robin had devoted to us in his 1977 book, Rhodesia.  Pile on the former Special Forces Colonel who worked for Robin in Salisbury whom I got to know at Robin’s home.  According to Robin’s 1991, The White Tribe, this Colonel was actually working undercover for the CIA at the time and had turned over the names of all the American soldiers in Rhodesia to the State Department.  The White Tribe states that Robin had been unaware of his CIA cover until this same Colonel tried to assassinate him in early 1979.

But we were home!  My size 13 feet were firmly on US soil and I had no intention of letting those feet march anywhere else ever again!  Of course there was a question as to whether Berachah Church in Houston was still our home.  We weren’t even sure if we would be allowed entry there since we had dared to disagree with Col Thieme and his political opinions concerning Rhodesia.  So, if not there, where did we belong--where was home?

I was feeling at a total loss.  Houston and Berachah had been my sacred center as a new Christian.  And, due to the extreme isolationist teaching of Thieme, I really knew nothing of the Christian life outside of Berachah.  Bible doctrine wasn’t working for us, yet we had nowhere else to go.  

My time in Rhodesian Light Infantry training had made it clear that my 28 year old physique was no longer capable of enduring grueling military training.  So, now a military career was totally out of the question.  I had previously considered the possibility of emigration to Israel to avail myself of dual citizenship as a Jew in order to serve in the Israeli Army.  Now I knew that I would not be up to it physically.   

Although I had become a believer in Jesus, I still clung to my Jewish identity.  At the time, I was ignorant of the conflict of interest that my Christianity presented to other Jews.  Consequently, I didn’t realize that my open Christian stance would prohibit successful aliyah (immigration) and absorption into Israeli life.  Nevertheless, what my religious insensitivity didn’t alert me to, my body did.  I had tried running recently and found that even though my leg had seemed to heal up nicely, my back would tighten and seize after the first few steps.  There was no hope of a military career for me, not even in Israel.

So, if not the military, what?  Well, my limited life choices as a Thieme-instructed Christian were two:  the military or the ministry.  My service as a chaplain had activated my interest in ministry.  It had also shown me that I had no idea what I was doing in ministry--I needed ministry training and lots of it!  I needed to start with Greek and Hebrew so that I could dig into the original languages and see what the Bible actually had to say for myself.

Catching a New York Airways helicopter from JFK would connect us with our TWA flight to Houston.  Even though we had two hours to connect (in those days that was plenty of time), we had two large suitcases and three large boxes which I could not carry from the American Airlines gate where our SAA flight had landed to New York Airlines gate in another wing of the terminal.  I flagged a porter who told me that he could not help me since it involved transporting baggage to another carrier.  I asked him if he could please do us a favor, promising to tip him well.

He was suddenly more than happy to help us and rushed us and our bags over to the other gate.  Now, I had made a terrible error in overtipping when we first got to Rhodesia [24 — Two eggs Boss? You sure?]  In this case, I definitely needed to be generous to this American porter who had come to our rescue--or was he just “working” us?  Saying that he couldn’t port between airlines seemed odd.  But because we were rushing to make our flight, I gave him all the US cash I had with me--a five dollar bill.  I had South African Rand that he could exchange at any bank, but he wasn’t interested in Rand.  Anyway,  I thought that a dollar a bag sounded generous compared to the five cents a bag that we tipped in Africa.  The look on his face told me that he expected four more of those five dollar bills!  Explaining that this was all I had, we left him a very unhappy porter.

Our helicopter flight stopped at the top of the World Trade Center to disembark some business travelers and we continued on to La Guardia.  We missed our flight, but found space on one an hour later.  Late that afternoon we arrived at Houston International where our old friends Ken and Jill Duckman met us.

We went back to the Duckman’s house and dug out some of the clothes that we had left behind.  I had never really expected to see those clothes again.  As we were unpacking, I turned to Ken and asked, “What have you heard?  Are we even allowed to come back to Berachah?”  Ken responded that he hadn’t heard anything negative about us from the Colonel and that as far as he knew, we were still welcome.  Well, we would see what “welcome” meant.

Next:  59 — In Uniform for Church? (Houston:  May 1978)

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57 — Finding Out for Myself (Leaving Rhodesia: May 1978)

The South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to New York was 18 hours.  The only break in the flight was a 90-minute stop for refueling and crew change at the small Portuguese island in the Atlantic off the horn of Africa named Ihla do Sal (Salt Island) ]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal,_Cape_Verde]. The island’s claim to fame is its white sandy beaches, salt mines and its international airport.

This was our second, but not our last visit here.  On approach from the air, the small island was a brown and lifeless splotch in the blue Atlantic.  Deplaning at the airport was like something out of a Cold War thriller.  As we walked across the tarmac to the terminal building, we were “guarded” by soldiers with automatic weapons and fierce-looking dogs.  I mean, there was nothing there--did they think we were going to steal some of their precious salt or that we would dash across the runway seeking to hide in the luxury of the desolate landscape?  

From the windows of the the terminal building, we could see the planes from Lufthansa and Aeroflot.  Now, this was 1978, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  To see an actual Russian Aeroflot jet was the closest I had ever been to our Cold War enemy!   As we were locked into the stuffy terminal--if they had air-conditioning, they weren’t using it--I began to reflect on the last 14 months in Rhodesia.  

I had come to Africa with the express purpose of fighting the encroachment of Russian and Chinese Communist aggression.  I had hopes of stopping the march of Communism that we had not stopped in Vietnam.  I saw this as my opportunity to finally “get in the game” that I had sat out in Southeast Asia because of my student activism and Hippie lifestyle.

As I stared out the terminal window at the Aeroflot plane just a few hundred yards away, I “wondered” if my wanderings had any meaning at all.  I had not fulfilled my dream of either a military career as a Christian warrior, nor had I accomplished anything of value as a chaplain.  

And now I sat in this desolate no man’s land staring at my enemy’s plane.  I wondered where that Aeroflot flight was headed.  Was it headed to one of the new Marxist states in Africa such as Mozambique or to one its many Socialist nations that looked to it for leadership like Zambia or Tanzania?  Were there Russian military advisors on board?  Were there Russian soldiers locked in another section of the same terminal building?  

I shook those thoughts out of my head.  That part of my life was over.  We were headed back to America.  There was nothing I could do about the Rhodesian bush war.  Indeed, as we left Rhodesia a dozen hours before, the new “Transitional Government” came into place.  This new government was composed of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, ex-terrorist leader Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau.  They were to work together with Ian Smith toward the election of one of their number as Prime Minister in the new “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.”  

The problem was that the Communist forces under Mugabe and Nkomo would try to disrupt the elections and there were already murmurings that the UN, US and UK would not recognize the new Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government.  And if sanctions were not eased with these elections, then the bush war would intensify . . . .  Whoa!  I had to stop thinking about all of this!  I had to let it all go for now.

We were heading home, but to what kind of reception?  Certainly, we would not be able to stay at Berachah Church in Houston for very long.  Thieme and his coterie of sycophants would consider me a failure for not fulfilling my three year contract in the Army.  He wouldn’t care about my conversations with the Army chief-of-staff in which I was advised to leave the country.  

And, I had lost much of my confidence in and respect for Thieme.  His bible doctrine just didn’t work. I had found this out for myself.  Pegi and I had put his whole system of doctrine to the test--taking it to Rhodesia, putting our own lives on the line for bible doctrine--only to find that it was flawed.  Nothing was working the way Thieme had said.  Bible doctrine failed us politically and personally.

As I write this in 2009—three decades later, I can see that we left Rhodesia at just the right time.  Over the last 30 years, I have battled with my own personal feelings of failure.  I have carried my feelings of guilt for not pushing through the pain from my leg injury to complete my commando training.  Removed from the events, it is easy to forget just how bad that pain was.  And removed from the events, it is easy to dismiss the turmoil and terror that inhabited our hearts as we experienced the frightening deterioration of the Rhodesian experiment.  

But, we left at the right time.  If we had stayed another 12 months, we would have seen the disheartening refusal of the world to accept the new majority-elected government of Bishop Muzorewa.  Although the Rhodesian Army successfully defended the Rhodesian people from terror allowing for his election, the UN, US and UK overthrew the new government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, demanding new elections.  

Before the new elections could take place, the UN, US and UK combined their power and influence, calling for the amalgamation of Mugabe and Nkomo’s terrorist forces into the Army.  Rather than keeping his terrorist soldiers in their garrisons, Mugabe dressed civilians in uniforms and kept them in the garrisons.  This allowed his trained soldiers to disperse into the countryside where they could coerce the population into voting for Mugabe.  To the surprise of all, neither Muzorewa (the favorite of the African population) nor Nkomo (thought to be the most popular of the terrorist leaders) won.  

Instead, Mugabe was able to intimidate his way into power.  All the sacrifices of the Rhodesian people, black and white, were for naught in the face of the political maneuvering that brought Mugabe to power.  All these years later, Mugabe is still Prime Minister, and recently has refused to effectively share power when he was soundly defeated in a new election.

The armed guards escorted us back to the SAA flight and we prepared ourselves for the final leg of our flight to New York.  No, we had no choice but to leave now.  There was nothing more that we could do for Rhodesia.  As far as we were concerned, we would never see that part of the world again.  

As we turned towards home, we dismissed the lingering questions about our reception at US Customs and Immigration.  Yes, we had heard through Robin Moore that many Americans were having problems reentering the US.  That could not apply to us.  We were returning Americans who valued our American citizenship more than ever before.  America was the only place we were safe.  We were going home. 

Next:  58 — Are We There Yet? (New York:  May 1978)

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25 -- Fit or Fat? (Salisbury, Rhodesia: Nov 1976)

I was feeling a bit sluggish and very guilty about my early morning gluttony as I slid into a taxi to take me to my 8:00 am appointment with the chief recruiting officer of the Rhodesian Army, Major Nick Lamprecht.  I was also feeling a bit bloated and felt like I needed to suck my stomach in a bit to be more soldier-like.

The taxi ride was my first time on the left hand side of the road in a right-hand drive car.  This felt a bit better to me than my experience with RSM Springer in his American left-hand drive car.  As we wove our way through the Monday morning traffic, the left-side driving began to make some sense to me.  But as we approached the intersection of two four-lane roads, turning right across traffic—all my reactions were upside down.  Good thing that I wasn’t driving!

As I was paying the driver, (with Rhodesian currency this morning!), he gave me a tip for driving on the left:  "Always keep yourself as the driver the near the center of the road."  This tip works!  It even works when you come back to the States and need to readjust to driving on the right again.

[No extra charge for this driving tip.  Consider it an added benefit of reading my book!]

The recruiting office was on  the fifth floor of a downtown office building.  I guess the only difference between the recruiting office and any other business would be the Army posters on the walls and the personnel behind the desks wearing uniforms. 

Major Lamprecht rose to greet me as I entered.  I introduced myself and handed him the packet of information that Roy Hurst had given me in Houston.  I had filled out all the personal information and included all the documentation he needed (birth certificate, marriage license, etc).

I don’t remember the details of our conversation, but we began with a discussion of my motivation for coming to Rhodesia saying:

I really believe that the struggle of the Rhodesian people is my struggle.  I missed the war in Vietnam, but that struggle against a Communist insurgency was similar to the insurgency that I believe is going on here.  Terrorists are attacking soft targets:  rural villages, stores and medical clinics.  They rob buses filled with unarmed African civilians, often shooting the driver, raping the women even bayoneting babies.  They torture and kill village leaders who have any contact with the government.  And when the Rhodesian security forces show up, the terrorists scatter in all directions, casting aside weapons and uniforms, seeking to hide themselves among the very population they terrorize.

I also understand that Rhodesia has 96% of the world’s strategic-grade chromium.  So, for me, defending Rhodesia is defending America’s ability to develop high-grade weapon systems.

I also understand that this is not a race war as it has been portrayed by the world press and even my our own UN Ambassador, Andrew Young, who seems to have President Carter’s ear.  I know that Rhodesians, both black and white are fighting together to defeat the threat of Communist terrorists led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo.

I have been here less than 24 hours, but have already seen how black and white interact peacefully.  One thing that my wife noticed is that the blacks here do not seem angry or tense.  She has remarked at the amicable interaction between black and white here.  Everyone seems to get along without any undercurrent of racism.

I just couldn’t sit around in the prosperity of America while Rhodesians, both black and white fought, often to the death, to stop the spread of world Communism.  As a born-again Christian, I know that the Gospel can spread most effectively in a free society.  I also know from history that no freedom is ever won without sacrifice on the battlefield, indeed all freedom comes only through military victory.  The politicians may squander that freedom, but it is the military that always wins it back.

I want to be a part of Rhodesia’s military victory that will lead to even greater freedom for black and white.

[This reflects my thinking at the time as a 27 year old.  Obviously, the situation was not as cut and dry as I thought.  And, just as obviously my feelings about Rhodesia, the war, the politics and the people there would evolve as I grew in knowledge and experience.  Please hang in there with me as I tell the rest of the story over the coming months.]

Major Lamprecht seemed satisfied with my motivation.  We moved on to the subject of my training.  I was to start with 18 weeks of basic commando training at Cranborne Barracks, the home of the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI).  Assuming all went well, I would continue on to Officer Training School and finally to the SAS Selection Course.  If I passed SAS Selection, I would be posted as a Second Lieutenant (pronounced “leftenant”) to Squadron “C”, Rhodesia Special Air Service.  The whole course of training would take about a year, but I would see action as soon as I completed my training at RLI.

The links below are short documentaries on SAS, RLI and other branches of the security forces:  the black volunteers of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR), Selous Scouts composed of black and white Rhodesians, Grey's Scouts-horse cavalry, the Rhodesian Air Force, and the Rhodesia Regiment among others.  Since they document a virtually unknown piece of world history, I highly recommend their viewing. These were gallant soldiers, black and white, defending their homes and their way of life.

Rhodesian Light Infantry - "The Saints"

The Rhodesian Bush War - The Air War (1966-1980)

Finishing up our interview, Major Lamprecht took the receipt from our airline tickets for reimbursement.  He asked me to drop off our passports to get our residence permits.  Finally, he welcomed me to the Rhodesian Army, saying that it would be about three-four weeks before my training would begin.  He suggested that we find a place to stay quickly and spend the next few weeks touring Rhodesia—finally having that long-delayed honeymoon.

I commented that I had some work to get in shape since Salisbury was several thousand feet above sea level.  He smiled and made a remark that I misunderstood with the British clip of his accent. 

I thought I heard, “Well, you look fat!”   

I responded that I needed to lose a few pounds from traveling.  Then I realized that he had said that I looked “fit” meaning “in good shape.”

I really was feeling guilty about that breakfast!

We both chuckled when we realized the confusion.  I thanked him and wandered out, a little humiliated by my own idiotic guilt.  I was with people who were fighting for the survival of their way of life.  I was still thinking about breakfast like a typical tourist!

Next:  26 — A Rhodesian "Rebel" I Loved (Salisbury, Rhodesia:  Dec 1976)

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