Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live by Shani Krebs Page A

with Craig and our teachers, my aversion to getting stoned had melted away. I loved the feeling smoking weed gave me. But weed wasn’t a priority for any of us the summer we finished school. We were just out to have fun.



Chapter 3
    Soldiers We Are Not
    Early in December 1977 I had received a letter from the army, telling me that my call-up had been changed: I was to be posted to 4 SAI Middelburg, and the period of training had been extended from 18 months to two years. The Border War had intensified, especially in Angola. Troops were being moved to the operational area and bodies were starting to come back in bags. The conflict was real. Our troops were dying out there, and nobody really knew what we were fighting about. Not that I gave a shit, but it disturbed me that we were fighting a war in another country. I thought fleetingly of becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Those guys were pacifists and did their two-year stints in detention barracks. The only problem was that they were looked down upon by the other soldiers as being chancers or jippogat s.
    At 8am on Monday 9 January 1978 I presented myself at Milner Park (Milpark) in Johannesburg with all the other conscripts who had received orders to assemble there. Guys were arriving from all over South Africa. We made up an entire battalion. There were corporals, sergeants, sergeant majors, even lieutenants, all shouting at once.
    ‘ Jou bliksem se moer! ’
    ‘ Kom hier! ’
    ‘ Troeper! ’
    ‘ Roer jou gat! ’
    After having our names taken, we were split up into groups and taken in Bedford army trucks to the Joburg central railway station. Our appointed corporal marched us to the platform. Some of the Afrikaans guys marched like they had been doing it forever. Generally the Afrikaners were very ‘ kop toe ’ (the guys who felt a deep sense of duty towards South Africa). We boarded a train and I ended up sitting opposite two well-built Afrikaans guys who were both over 2m tall. They were also a good couple of years older than me.
    It turned out that both these guys had degrees. Instead of joining the army first, they had gone to university, which meant that immediately after basic training they would be given the rank of second lieutenant. We instantly struck up a friendship and the trip to Middelburg passed quickly. As we pulled into the station, I looked out at the open landscape, struck by the bright crimson red colour of the sand. Once we disembarked, orders in Afrikaans came blasting from megaphones. Once again, we were loaded onto Bedford trucks and then transported to the camp. On arrival at our camp site, I was amazed to see rows of identical military tents stretching as far as the eye could see. Besides the mess hall and the toilets, there wasn’t a single building.
    We were divided into companies and then taken for a medical examination, after which we were all subjected to the ultimate induction for a soldier: a barber with an electric razor proceeded to shave my head, and I watched my blond curls cascade to the ground. The man basically reshaped my head, leaving nothing but bristles. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t stop rubbing my hands all over my head.
    In the army, 4 SAI Middelburg was known for being one of the toughest infantry units (it was almost a concentration camp, in my opinion). After being shorn, we were issued with uniforms, which included a beret, a heavy metal helmet, or staaldak , and a baalsak . We also received clean linen and two blankets. In my tent there were four iron-framed beds. I had discovered at Milpark that another guy from Arcadia had also been posted to Middelburg and coincidentally he was in the same tent as me. The following morning at breakfast I met up with a handful of other Jewish guys.
    It didn’t take long to realise that the South African army didn’t much care about soldiers of the Jewish faith. For a start, there were no kosher meals and, secondly, we were expected to train on Shabbos. None of us Jewish guys in