53 -- This Phone May Be Tapped! (Bulawayo: Dec 1977)

Stan was as much a puzzle to me as I probably was to him.  When I first met him, I was new to the Chaplain Corps and he was completing a six month period of service as a sergeant-chaplain.  He had been a member of PATU (Police Anti-Terrorist Unit) when he received his “call to ministry” as a Baptist pastor. As a preparation for full-time ministry he had been begun coursework and for practical experience, transferred to the Chaplain Corps.  

He functioned as aide-de-camp to the Chaplain General.  If I remember correctly, as he finished his tour as a chaplain, he was heading to a seminary in South Africa to finish his coursework.  About the time we moved to Bulawayo, he returned to Rhodesia as pastor of a Baptist church in Bulawayo.  

What was a bit strange was that he began wearing a clerical collar, something unknown in Baptist circles.  He told me that he thought that it commanded respect, especially from the British Rhodesians with their Anglican backgrounds.  Rhodesians with an Afrikaner background would also be accustomed to the collar with their Dutch Reformed ministers.  It was odd, but who was I to judge oddness?  After all, I knew just how odd I was with my anti-clerical, anti-organized church, Jesus Freak/Thiemite, pistol packin’, foul-mouthed persona.

But because Stan had always been forthcoming with me and had gone out of his way to help me adjust to life in the chaplaincy, I felt that I could trust him with my own misgivings about God’s plan for my life.  One evening after a day at the barracks, I gave him a phone call.

I began to share my concerns about how the Smith government was beginning to openly discuss a transition to multiracial government and my own misgivings about my role as a chaplain.  Stan told me that one of the reasons that Col Wood had left the chaplaincy was that Mugabe, in his broadcasts from Mozambique had added Norman and the Chaplain Corps to his list of enemies who would be killed after “liberation.”  That meant I was on the list!

This alarmed me, to say the least!  But before the conversation could go any further, Stan said something that made my heart skip:

“Jeff, we should get together and talk in person.  It is likely that your phone is tapped.”

Whoa!  All of a sudden, I remembered the conversation with Robin Moore months earlier [45 — A Half Bottle of Jack Daniels].  He had lamented that the government’s Internal Affairs division was watching all of us foreign soldiers with a jaundiced eye.  Americans were the subject of the closest scrutiny because of the deteriorating relations with the US.

To make matters worse, Robin had published a story with a photo of Pegi and me in the New York Times syndicate of over 17 papers in the US [34 — The Interview - Addendum].  That same article also appeared as “The Crippled Eagles--VII,” pages 231-38 in his 1977 book, Rhodesia.  I had also been filmed while in uniform, standing with Robin and several other American soldiers in front of his home in Salisbury.  Just over my shoulder was Robin’s plaque that announced that his home was the unofficial “American Embassy” for Crippled Eagles (American soldiers) in Rhodesia.  This played on the ABC Evening News.  I was a bit exposed!

Hearing the concern in my voice, Stan invited Pegi and me over for dinner the following week.  We would speak about all of this in private.

I would have immediately rushed over there that night if it weren’t for plans that I already had to travel to Salisbury the following morning.  I was headed to Army HQ for one of my regular meetings with Maj Gen MacIntyre to report on the morale of the contingent of foreigners serving in the Rhodesian Security Forces.

Early the next morning, I rode my motorcycle over to 3 Brigade HQ on the other side of Bulawayo.  From there, I was able to catch a ride in the back of a truck with some other troops heading to Army HQ in Salisbury.  I was supposed to be reporting on the morale of other soldiers, but my own flagging morale was sure to color the conversation with the General.

Next:  54 — Tell Them to Go!  (Salisbury:  Dec 1977)

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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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48 — Tea with the General (Salisbury: Sep 1977)

Moving from Salisbury to Bulawayo was interesting, but I was totally mesmerized by the thought that I was about to meet with the Army Chief of Staff.  To-date the highest ranking officer I had even seen was Lt Col Wood, my boss.  But, he was really just a preacher in uniform.  

As I walked in the door to Army HQ, I was totally intimidated.  A corporal directed me inside an office.  Entering, I found myself facing not one, but two officers.  Maj Gen Derry MacIntyre returned my salute and reached out to shake my hand.  Then he turned to introduce me to Maj Gen MacClean.  They were the joint chiefs of staff reporting to General Walls, the overall Rhodesian commander.

Gen MacIntyre invited me to have a seat.  Moments later a corporal entered with tea which the General poured for me!  This was crazy!  Just a few months ago, I had been a lowly recruit at RLI being ordered to attention by anyone (everyone) who outranked me.  Now I was having tea with two generals.  

Even today, I am still trying to get my head around this.  I am sure, at the time, I had no sense of how unusual this was.  I think there was a degree of evangelical overconfidence that this was to be expected.  After all, I was a servant of God--loaded with bible doctrine and a divine viewpoint of history--why wouldn’t a general want to talk to me?  As I sit here at my computer typing this, I regret how my bible doctrine-induced arrogance caused me to miss the value of this event.

I don’t have a record of what was said, but this is how I remember the conversation:

Padre, the reason we have asked you here this morning is to discuss a special assignment that Col Wood believes you are uniquely qualified to undertake.  As you know, we have quite a few foreign soldiers serving with us.  With the political situation evolving, we really need an ear to the morale of the foreign soldiers.  

We would like you to be our ears.  We want you to travel periodically and speak with foreign soldiers in RLI, Selous, SAS, Grey’s, and such.  Get a sense of their state of mind and report back to us.

The significance of this assignment didn’t sink in immediately.  But I was to have another meeting with the two officers a few months later.  Then I would understand, but more on that a few chapters from now. [See 54 — Tell Them to Go!]

For the immediate future, there were a thousand details to prepare for our move to Bulawayo.  First up was that trip with Col Wood to Balla Balla.  

Pegi and I slid into the back seat of Col Wood’s army green Peugeot 404 sedan.  The higher the rank, the better the vehicle.  Chaplain captains were issued the tiny Renault R5. As a sergeant, I got a Yamaha motorcycle.  

The best part of the trip to that point was the conversation with Col Wood.  In the six plus hours we spent in his car, we talked about his life as chaplain general, the war, his experiences as a Baptist pastor, and theology.  

As a disciple of Thieme, I often would refer to the original Greek or Hebrew of biblical passages.  Most people were suitably impressed with my apparent knowledge.  Wood, however, had taken several years of Greek in seminary.  He made some references to the dative and instrumental cases and I suddenly knew that I was in over my head.  

All I knew from my self-study under Thieme was vocabulary and limited grammar/syntax.  I knew what a dative case was.  I knew its function in a sentence.  I didn’t know how to identify a dative case.  I had never actually taken any Greek.  The only Hebrew beyond what I had learned from Thieme was the alphabet I had learned in a fourth grade Temple class.  When he wanted to discuss Greek or even theology more deeply, I realized that I was arrogant in my ignorance.  I was totally dependent on Thieme’s knowledge.  I could parrot what Thieme said, but I had no firsthand resources from which I could draw.  

I had already been wondering about the accuracy of Thieme’s theological applications to everyday life.  They clearly did not work “as advertised”!  What if the Greek and Hebrew I had learned from him was just as unreliable?  “Wandering” to Rhodesia was really causing me to “wonder”!

For the first time, it was my own shallowness that prevented a theological discussion from continuing.  And all this time, I had believed Thieme’s teaching that all one needed was “the constant intake of bible doctrine.”  Of course, by this, Thieme meant listening to him constantly.  Here I was on the theological firing line and I didn’t have any of my own ammo!  The best I could do would be to resort to the adolescent, “My dad can beat up your dad!”  Only in this case, it was “My pastor-teacher is smarter than you.”  

I think we were all relieved when, after a day of driving, we arrived at Balla Balla.  Col Wood had checked us into a small roadside hotel.  I really don’t remember it, but Pegi has very vibrant memories that “It was horrible!”  I felt the same way about my part of the conversations with Col Wood!  It was horrible!

Next:  49 — Balla Balla, Bulawayo and Matsheumshlope (Rhodesia:  Oct 1977)

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44 — Tea with Land Mines (Umtali, Rhodesia: Aug 1977)

As we drove back down the dirt road that would connect us with the main road to Umtali, I had no idea that I would return to that same farm six years later.  In six years neither the people nor the scenery would have changed.  Only the names would have changed from Marandellas to Marondera, Salisbury to Harare, and Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.  How that farm and the family that owned it would become central to our years in Zimbabwe is a another story.  For now, Capt Dodgen and I were on our way to the Mozambique border city of Umtali.

Capt Dodgen and I agreed to disagree about “speaking in tongues” and spent the rest of the trip discussing life as an army chaplain.  Our destination was Addams Barracks, a former girl’s boarding school that sat on the fence line with Mozambique.  Umtali (now Mutare) had been the gateway to Mozambique before the 1975 communist Frelimo takeover there.  The port at Maputo and the beach at Beira were no longer available for the nurture and recreation of Rhodesians.  

    Capt Dodgen was the speaker at a worship service attended by about ten soldiers.  I remember that he spoke from the Psalm 121:1 quoting David, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help . . . ”, commenting that the mountains surrounding Umtali could be an inspiration to the troops.  I thought that was a silly devotional typical of the meaningless palaver that seemed to ooze from the mouths of “professional” ministers.  I couldn’t imagine that David’s reference to his political strength that came from the hills of Judea could be of much comfort.  I think Dodgen thought that the hills were an analogy for God’s power.  As a Jew, the very thought of associating God with a physical object was idolatry.  Fortunately, I had the sense to keep my mouth shut about this.  And anyway, there were only ten people there.   

The real action, as I saw it, was in the conversations that we could have with soldiers, giving them real encouragement in their lonely perch on the side of the mountain overlooking 200 yards of no-man’s land--cleared of trees and seeded with land mines.  It was a bleak terrain just outside their windows.  It was the first thing they saw each morning and was more likely to set their mood than the mountains in the distance.

[The story of the soldiers who manned Addams Barracks is documented at this link: https://www.rhodesianforces.org/rhodesianforces.org/6IndepCoy.html ]

I spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with soldiers and retired to the NCO quarters in the  dormitory wing of the old girl’s school.  I shared a room with another sergeant who told me of his life growing up and recent incidents along the border.

At 06:00 the next morning there was a knock on our door.  The sergeant shouted, “Come!” and an African in the white uniform of a cook entered with two cups of hot tea, already mixed with milk and sugar.  Apparently, this wake-up tea was served each morning to NCOs and officers.

As we sat sipping the tea and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, there was a loud explosion outside our window.  We both crouched beneath the window waiting as there had been recent mortar attacks on Umtali from across the border and the barracks often found themselves a target for sniper fire.  When no other explosions followed, the sergeant remarked, “Must have been a mine.  Birds land on the anti-personnel mines in the no-man’s land and set them off all the time!”

Finishing our tea, we dressed and went to the mess for breakfast.  The unit’s Sergeant Major, whom I had met the day before, told us that it had been a mine.   A patrol was being mounted to scout out any terrorist incursions.  He invited me to join the patrol!  Excited at the prospect of my first real combat experience, I remarked that my weapons were locked in the dormitory.

The Sergeant Major smiled:  “No problem Padre [the common title for chaplains], take my FN [Fabrique Nationale 7.62 mm] and lead this patrol for me!”

He tossed me his FN and handed me his webbing loaded with ammo.  He pointed me in the direction of an armored 2.5-ton Mercedes Unimog that was embarking with a “stick” (a unit of four soldiers).  I climbed into the back as we set off down the dirt road cut into the side of the mountain.  

Since we had no idea what to expect as we paralleled the winding border fence, we locked and loaded our weapons with each soldier surveilling the surrounding terrain.  We bounced down the steep dirt mountain road for about five minutes until we arrived at a gate in the fence.  There were a few small buildings at this guard post and a handful of soldiers on duty.  

I jumped off the truck and spoke with the police officer in charge.  It turned out that they had already captured the African infiltrator who had triggered the land mine.  I was invited to join the interrogation.

I entered the small guardhouse infirmary where an African man lay on a bed receiving IV fluids while a medic bandaged his wounds.  Another policeman who spoke the local dialect asked him what he was doing in no-man’s land.  The wounded African said through the interpreter that he was just trying to visit his family on this side of the border and hadn’t known about the minefield.  It was evident that he was not a terrorist.  It was also evident that he wasn’t very bright as no-man’s land had a tall fence on either side of a 200 yard swath of clear-cut land.  If the 20 foot electrified fences topped with razor wire weren’t enough to warn you that it was dangerous to enter, the signs hanging every few meters made it clear in all the local dialects and with illustrations of explosions, that this was not the way to meet your relatives.  Of course, if you wanted to meet your dead ancestors, this was the perfect way to travel!

Since it was obvious that our additional firepower was not needed, we jumped back on the truck and returned to Addams Barracks.  My heart was still pumping as the excitement coursed through my veins.  But, for these soldiers, it was another boring patrol without even the excitement of firing their weapons.  Their only concern was that they had missed breakfast!

This was the closest I had gotten to combat since arriving in Rhodesia.  Just this taste of “almost combat” reawakened my desire for the military career that had brought me to Africa in the first place.  I had to get closer to the action!  I had been invited to a party with some of the troopers in SAS after I had confronted that spouse-beating corporal.  Maybe I could get closer to the action by getting closer to these elite soldiers.  There was also Grey’s Scouts, a cavalry unit headed by an American Major that I had met at Robin Moore’s “American Embassy” in Salisbury.  I would have to visit them too.  Maybe I could ride into combat with them!

Next:  45 — A Half Bottle of Jack Daniels (Salisbury:  Aug 1977)

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