My technicolour life.

MY COLOURED PAST.

For some unexplainable reason I'm unable to put a title to my posts... (Thanks Lewis! Titles added...)

Had some difficulty sleeping last night, and started thinking about my life - more specifically what happened after High School. For some reason my national service period of my life was floating trought my brain, a time I remember fondly, but for the life of me, will not want to do again...

Growing up in Apartheid South Africa, all white boys, when completing school, were conscripted into the National Defence Force to fight the 'good fight' against the 'terrorist threat' in the then South West Africa (Now Namibia) and Angola. You were forced to go do military service for two years of your life, as it was your 'civil duty' as a white South African male... Thank goodness how times have changed, as this practice was stopped as Namibia gained Independence from South Africa, and apartheid was abolished - but I digress.

Taken up into the signals core, I spent my basic training in Heidelberg - about 80km from Johannesburg. Basic training basically constituted the first few months of your two year stint, where you were broken down mentally and physically, and then built up again to think like a soldier. Also during this time you would be trained in the 'art of war', and taught to use the equipment you would be working with - in my case, radio and surveillance equipment used for electronic warfare. The one good thing about this time was that I've never been fitter or more toned in my life! My body fat percentage was probably minus 20%... This was also the time that I really became aware of my sexuality, which was a bit daunting at best, and downright scary really.

You see, homosexuality was, to put it lightly, not acceptable in the SADF (South African Defence Force) and people 'caught' practicing these vile acts, would be subjected to shock therapy and would be locked up in a brig. I've always known that I was different from the other boys, and now having to share a shower with a hundred plus other young, well built, fit men, was pure hell/heaven. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to contain my 'whore'mones during this time, but you had no choice - the vision of having electrical probes connected to my genitals while they showed me erotica was not something I really thought would be enjoyable.

Then we got posted to Namibia, and this is where the fond memories come from. Suddenly the strict rules and regulations were put behind us, and we only had to make sure that we do our 'jobs' well. This meant spending days on end in a metal box filled with radio and electronic equipment, searching for the enemy, and trying to intercept their communications. The military type of discipline remained, but it was less important in comparison to what we had to do, and that was work a twelve hour shift every day. The other twelve hours of every day, was spent in a dusty, fly infested camp, where we used to drink (a lot), smoke the 'green green grass of home' and play. (Don't worry, that part of my life is now in the past!)

It wasn't all fun - I mean you're stuck in the middle of a war zone, (Now and again you spent a night/day in a bomb shelter 'cause the camp was being mortared by Swapo) and it really got to some people - a close friend blew his brains out in the bathroom one night - but it was a time that I really grew as a person, and went from a boy to a man. We were young innocent boys, placed in a situation that was difficult, gut wrenching really, and it made us hard - or you lost your mind. You saw friends die, you saw what was left of a person after a vehicle was hit by a RPG, you saw friends losing their minds and crawling into themselves, but you also forged friendships that will last forever, and learnt that, despite what the government was preaching at the time, that all men are truly created equal.

What was the point of this post? Don't know really, just needed to write this down somewhere, to share a time in my life that changed me forever. It took me a few years to get over my time in the SADF, and even spoke to a therapist about this, but not all the young men that spent time 'on the border' had this opportunity. A lot of young men still face nightmares and horrific memories from a time that the SA government was 'living in it's own little world'.

And now, with wars being fought in so many countries, wars that I do not necessarily agree with, young men and women are put into the same situation, and my question is - who will support them when they return home? If they return home...

TTFN