Some years in life pass quietly.
Others mark you permanently.
1992 was one of those years.
It was the year I stopped being a boy—and began to
understand what it means to endure, to survive, and, in some ways, to be
rebuilt.
By the time I finished school, one path lay directly in
front of me, whether I chose it or not.
In the old South Africa, military service was not a distant possibility for
white boys. It was built into the structure of life. Once you turned sixteen,
you were automatically registered for compulsory national service through your
school. In my case, that happened while I was still at Affies (Afrikaanse Hoër
Seunskool – a well-known Afrikaans boys’ high school in Pretoria), and I
received my force number. From that moment on, the state had laid
claim to a year of my life. If I had left school at sixteen, I would have been
compelled to report for duty then. But there was a choice in timing. One could
finish school first, and in some cases even complete university before
reporting. Many boys finished matric (final year of high school in South
Africa) and went straight into the army at eighteen. Others first went to
university and then reported for duty only after graduating.
I expected it. In fact, I was eager to go. I even considered
a career in the military.
That eagerness did not come out of nowhere. Affies
(Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool) had already prepared me for a great deal of what
the army valued. Although it was not officially classified as a military
school, it had many of the same instincts. In the hostel we had inspections
that felt military in spirit. On Wednesdays we had cadet day, wore military
uniforms, and learned how to march. All our teachers had also served in the
army as officers, and the school, with its traditions, discipline, hierarchy, and
culture of order, had a strongly military atmosphere even if no one formally
called it that. More broadly, all South African schools during the Apartheid
era had strict rules, corporal punishment, and a rigid structure. Boys grew up
in a conservative Judeo-Christian culture that emphasized respect for
authority, discipline, and order. Even school uniforms, which South African
children still wear today, came out of that same tradition of structure and
conformity. In that sense, military service did not feel like a radical break
from what I knew. It felt like the next stage.
After five years of a negative high-school experience, I
think I also wanted some kind of reset. I was not yet sure what I wanted to
study, and in retrospect military service gave me exactly what I needed:
structure, maturity, confidence, and a firmer foundation for the next phase of
life. Looking back now, I can say it was one of the best decisions and one of
the most formative experiences of my life.
The Historical Moment
To understand my year in the army, one has to understand
South Africa in 1992. The country was already changing. Nelson Mandela had been
released in 1990, and there was an interim period of four years before the
first democratic election in 1994. Everybody knew which direction the country
was moving in, and many expected that the old Apartheid-era systems would
eventually be dismantled, including forced conscription. In that sense, for
young men who wanted to do military service, 1992 may have felt like one of the
last real opportunities to do so before the old order disappeared.
Among Afrikaner men in general, military service was still
seen as an honour and a duty. We were raised that way. The Angola war and the
Bush War in South West Africa had shaped the consciousness of a generation, and
conscription was part of our cultural DNA. There were of course people who
opposed both the war and conscription, and some tried to avoid it. But in the
circles in which I had been raised, national service was largely regarded as
normal, expected, and worthy.
Politics did not shape the way I viewed the army at that
time. I was not entering the military as a political thinker. I was entering it
as a young man who wanted a new beginning.
Inklaar (intake process / induction): The Death of Civilian Life
In January 1992, I reported for duty in Voortrekkerhoogte.
From there we were loaded onto buses bound for various military bases across
the country. I was selected for 4 SAI Battalion in Middelburg, Transvaal, a
mechanised infantry battalion that operated with Ratel troop carriers.
From the moment we arrived, civilian life ended.
Inklaar (intake process) was chaos. It was exactly the kind
of experience one sees in films: corporals and sergeants yelling, barking
orders, making you run everywhere, and instilling a living fear into you that
would remain as long as you were under their command. You arrived carrying a
valaskaas (suitcase) or sports bag, still wearing your civilian clothes, still
with your hair, still in some sense yourself. Within hours, that person had
begun to disappear.
The first trauma was the kopskoot (very short military
haircut, literally “head shot”). There was only one haircut: Nommer Een (Number
One – shaved very short). It was not really a haircut so much as a shearing.
Hair hit the floor in clumps, and with it went individuality. Then came the
magasyn (military stores/issue depot), where you were issued your stel
toerusting (set of equipment)—your browns (brown military uniform), your
tekkies (training shoes/sneakers), your bostewels (combat boots), your staaldak
(steel helmet), your webbing (load-bearing gear), kidney pouches, water bottle,
and all the other equipment that would define your new life. Then came the
mediese ondersoek (medical examination), the long queues, the jabs, the
indignity of standing around in little more than your underwear while medics
and instructors processed you like raw material.
Once you got to the bungalow, the real work started. The
balsak-uitleg (full kit layout inspection) began. Every piece of kit had to be
emptied onto the bed and checked against the manifest. Every item had to be
marked with your force number using a laundry marker or bleach pen. Every
garment had to be folded into perfect A4-sized squares for your kas
(locker/cupboard). By sunset on that first day, the civilian boys were gone.
Everyone looked identical: bald heads, oversized brown uniforms, terrified expressions.
A few days later, most guys sent their civilian clothes home in a box. That was
the final goodbye to home.
That first night in the barracks did not feel like the end
of a day. It felt like the end of a life. The lights went out, but sleep did
not come easily. Rows of steel beds filled the bungalow, each one occupied by a
boy who had, only hours earlier, still belonged to another world. Now we lay
there stripped of identity, reduced to numbers, suspended between what we had
been and what we were being forced to become. There was no talking. Only the
sound of breathing, the occasional cough, the creak of a bed, the restless
shifting of bodies that could not settle. Fear, apprehension, and uncertainty
hung in the dark like a physical presence. I lay awake, staring upward, trying
to process what had happened and what still lay ahead. I slept, but only
uneasily. Somewhere in that restless night, it became clear: my civilian life
was over.
4 SAI and the Mechanised Infantry World
4 SAI was not ordinary infantry. It was mechanised infantry,
which meant movement, firepower, and infantry action were tied to armoured
mobility. The central machine in that world was the Ratel, and I was trained as
a mechanised infantry 20 mm gunner on it.
The first six months of my year in the army were spent in
continuous training. It began with basic training, then infantry training,
followed by gunnery training, and then Teen Stedelik (counter-urban operations)
and Teen Platteland (counter-rural operations) training. Each phase built on
the previous one. Basic training stripped away civilian softness. Infantry
training taught movement, weapons handling, fieldcraft, navigation, and how to
function as part of a section and platoon. Gunnery training introduced a new
level of responsibility. Operating the 20 mm cannon on a Ratel was not simply a
technical task. It required precision, awareness, and absolute discipline.
Mistakes were not theoretical. They had consequences.
One of the closest calls of my entire year happened during
that gunnery phase in Middelburg.
We were on a live night exercise with the Ratels. My 20 mm
cannon refused to fire. We halted, and I began the safety drill exactly as
trained. I turned the turret to the left, but not far enough. In the next
instant, a live round discharged and passed dangerously close to the gunner in
the Ratel ahead of me. For a split second, everything stopped. I had come
within inches of killing another man. Everyone was shocked. The lieutenant
understood immediately that this could easily have become a court-martial-type
offence. But within seconds, I think he realized he did not want to go through
that whole process. He simply fumed, stormed off, and acted as though the whole
thing had not happened. But I never forgot it. Fortunately, my training and
safety procedures had saved the day. It became something to laugh about later,
but in the moment it was terrifying.
Alongside all this, we were also trained in what was called
Teen Stedelik (urban operations) and Teen Platteland (rural
operations)—preparation for internal security work in urban and rural
environments. That reflected the realities of South Africa at the time.
Military operations were not only about conventional warfare. They also
involved unrest control, crowd management, patrols, roadblocks, and
counter-insurgency type work in townships and rural areas.
Learning to Break
Basic training was not only physical. It was psychological.
It was designed to break civilian habits and replace them with military
reflexes. You ran everywhere. You slept very little. You learned to obey
instantly. Days blurred into one another. Exhaustion became constant.
The first day is burned into my memory. What you see in the
movies is not far off. Corporals and sergeants barked orders at you, making you
run, scream responses, and perform instantly, while instilling a fear into you
that lasted as long as you were under their authority. During the first six
weeks of basic training, you ran a lot, slept very little, and attended classes
on how to shoot, navigate, survive, and function under pressure. There was no
time to be shocked by anything. Fear was present at all times, and you simply
had to do what you were told. There was no time to process.
One of the sharpest memories of those early weeks was
waiting in formation for three hours in the African sun to get lunch. If you
moved, blinked, passed out, or did anything the corporal did not like, you were
punished. One common punishment was the Harley Davidson (a static wall-sit
exercise with rifle held out)—leaning with your back against a wall, legs bent
at ninety degrees, holding your R4 automatic rifle straight out in front of you
until your body screamed. After waiting all that time, you might finally
receive a full varkpan (metal army food tray) of food, only for the corporal to
yell that you were finished and had to dump it all into a rubbish bin before
assembling again for the next training session. I learned quickly to gobble
down the jelly and custard first, just to get some sugar in before the rest
might be lost.
An opfok (intense physical punishment / disciplinary PT) was
the standard language of punishment. It was physical training used as
discipline and as a tool of psychological domination. It was designed not only
to exhaust you, but to break your will. One day, after a mistake that would
have been considered small in civilian life, we were ordered into an opfok
(punishment session). It began with the usual commands—down, up, hold, move—but
it did not stop. We were forced into the front-leaning rest position and held
there until arms trembled, muscles burned, shoulders shook, and sweat dripped
into our eyes. Around me others collapsed and were screamed back into position.
Time stretched until it seemed unreal. There was no clock, only endurance. In
those moments something shifted. It was no longer about strength. It became a
negotiation between body and will. And eventually I understood what the real
purpose was: not fitness, not even punishment, but breaking. Breaking
resistance. Breaking the illusion of control. Breaking the instinct to stay
civilian so that something military could be built in its place.
The hardest parts of training were the physical exercises,
the lack of sleep, and the constant punishment whenever you failed, slowed
down, or did anything incorrectly. Every time you failed or did not complete a
task fast enough, you got an opfok (punishment). As an infantry soldier,
absolute fitness with full kit was essential, and we trained accordingly.
Needless to say, we were super fit and combat ready at all times.
I was a skutter (rifleman / private, lowest rank), the
lowest rank, though we were always told it was also the most important rank. We
had a captain whose brown uniform was nearly white from all the ironing, and he
always told us, “Stick with me and I’ll make you famous.” Our officers and NCOs
were larger-than-life figures, and to this day I still remember many of their
names and faces.
Officers, NCOs, and the Strange Humanity of the Machine
Discipline was absolute, but the people enforcing it were
not always one-dimensional.
If I am honest, I would like to say they were tough but
fair, but in the beginning they were often mostly tough and unfair. The goal
was to break you so that you could be moulded into a proper soldier. Yet over
time their humanity showed itself.
One winter morning in Middelburg, while it was still dark
and the temperature was around minus seven degrees Celsius, we were ordered to
gaan af (get down / drop into the front-leaning rest or all-fours
position)—down into the all-fours or front-leaning rest position—for an
extended period. I developed frostbite in my hands and eventually found the
courage to say something. I expected more cruelty. Instead, the corporal and
lieutenant took me inside and kindly poured cold water over my hands until the
burning stopped. It was one of those rare moments when the machinery of fear
gave way to genuine care.
Another time I twisted an ankle badly. It was severely
swollen, but the corporal still made me hold the plank for an extended period
while I was in excruciating pain. When the lieutenant saw it, he was furious
and disciplined the corporal. It probably helped that the same lieutenant was
my doubles tennis partner on Wednesdays. That gave me a little leverage and
influence.
I could also mimic the voice of the RSM (Regimental Sergeant
Major), and even officers would sometimes ask me, for fun, to perform a little
impression. I remember one day in the bush while we were operational, a bunch
of officers and NCOs asked me to drill them as the RSM (Regimental Sergeant
Major). That strange gift, combined with tennis connections and the fact that
some senior men found me amusing, gave me an unofficially higher standing and
probably helped me get away with “murder” sometimes.
I have ADD, tend to daydream, lose focus, and can be clumsy,
and those traits certainly got me into hot water. But because of the unusual
social capital I somehow developed, my punishments were not always as severe as
they might have been. I also saw God’s hand in that. Again and again, I felt
that I survived tricky situations by grace.
Barracks Life
The barracks were not really a place to rest. They were a
stage for what might be called disciplinary theatre.
Each platoon had its own barracks with steel beds and steel
cupboards lining the walls. Preparing for inspections took enormous amounts of
time. The beds had to be made with hospitaal-hoeke (hospital corners), hospital
corners so tight a coin could have bounced off them. The folded corners of
blankets were often literally ironed into shape. If one bed in the row was
slightly off, the instructor might kick the frame or flip the mattress and make
the whole platoon start again. Your kas-uitleg (locker layout / cupboard
display for inspection) had to be exact. Every piece of clothing, every item of
kit, every hanger had to be placed with almost absurd precision. Many troops
even used hidden pieces of cardboard inside folded shirts to keep them looking
perfectly square and solid.
Metal surfaces had to gleam. Locker handles, pipes, taps,
even the fire extinguisher had to shine. Brasso (metal polish) and Silvo
(silver/chrome polish) became part of daily life. Floors were waxed and buffed
with heavy blocks until they reflected light. The stalle (ablution block /
washroom area), the ablution area, had to be so clean that one should
theoretically have been able to eat off the surface. If there was a single
water droplet on a tap or a hair in a drain, the whole bungalow was considered
filthy.
The smell of barracks life has never left me.
Floor wax. Brasso (metal polish). Boot polish. Dust. Sweat. Stale cigarette
smoke. On some weekends, if a pass was near, sometimes a bit of Old Spice after shave or Brut deodorant.
Preparing for inspections consumed hours. But that world
only existed while on base. In the bush, life was entirely different. Then you
slept on the ground, in a sleeping bag, outside, often not even on a level
surface. In Middelburg winter, sub-zero nights forced you to wear every pair of
socks and all your warm clothes inside a very thin sleeping bag. In the Kaftan
(tri-border operational area where South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland
met), heat replaced cold and sweat replaced frost, but comfort was equally
absent.
Food: The Varkpan and the Rat Pack
Food in the army was a world of its own.
On base, meals were generally good quality. We received
three square meals a day, even if we were doing live exercises in the bush,
because food trucks would still bring meals. Dessert was often included, and
Sunday meals were particularly special. In garrison, food was served in the
mess hall on a stainless-steel tray known as a varkpan (army mess tray,
literally “pig pan”).
Breakfast often consisted of weepee (porridge, usually oats
or Maltabella)—oats or Maltabella porridge—along with white or brown bread,
jam, margarine, and coffee that was pre-mixed with milk and sugar in huge
containers. Lunch and dinner usually involved some kind of protein, starch, and
vegetables, though much of it often ended up as some variety of moerby pot (a
rough mixed stew / everything-thrown-together pot), where everything available
seemed to have been thrown into a single pot.
In the field, however, food became much more basic. There we
relied on the famous rat packs (24-hour ration packs), the 24-hour ration packs
designed to keep soldiers alive and functional in operational conditions. The
packs were numbered 1 through 5, with each one containing different
combinations of porridge, canned main meal, and drink flavour. One might
contain Maltabella and beef curry with orange juice; another oatmeal, chicken
and vegetables, and tropical juice; another maize porridge with corned meat and
pineapple juice. Number 5 was usually the favourite because it included a
chocolate or strawberry milkshake. Every rat pack (ration pack) also contained
the standard items: hard digestive and salty biscuits—what everyone called “dog
biscuits”—a tube of processed cheese, a tube of condensed milk, a vrugtestaaf
(fruit bar), tea, coffee, sugar, powdered creamer, a little folding stove, and
hexamine fuel tablets.
At first, rat packs (ration packs) seemed novel.
Later they became torture.
After three months of deployment, we were thoroughly tired
of them. We sold them to locals in the townships for beer money whenever we
could. The farm boys sometimes hunted for extra food. Two weeks in the bush,
living on rat packs (ration packs), was broken only by a short spell in camp
where fresh food, showers, and tents suddenly felt like luxury.
Daily Routine and Sundays
The typical daily schedule during training was brutal. You
woke at three or four in the morning, assuming you had really slept at all, and
prepared for inspection by five. Breakfast was around six, then training until
midday, lunch, more training and PT, dinner around five, then further training
or preparation for another inspection. Sleep was not a major part of the
system. Many sleepless nights were considered part of psychological
strengthening and training.
Sundays were a slight relief. We could sleep until six,
breakfast was at seven, and around nine we were taken to churches in
Middelburg. After lunch there was usually some free time to walk around base,
rest, or catch up on sleep.
Sometimes, after training and once things had normalised
somewhat, we got weekend passes and I could go to Pretoria, roughly one hundred
kilometres away, for the weekend. That never happened during basic training
itself. On deployment in the Kaftan (tri-border operational area), we got no
home passes. Instead, there were only occasional day passes to Nelspruit.
Friendship and Band of Brothers
I made many close friends in the army. There was Ampie, who
came from Mountain View, the same neighbourhood where I had grown up. There was
Jacques Fourie from Witbank, my cousin Marcu, Pieter van der Merwe, Pens, and
many others. Most were rough and tough farm boys, especially from places like
Pietersburg. There was Gouws, a giant of a man and a boxing champion. There was
also Corporal Ivy, a South African who had grown up in Australia and came back
specifically to do military service here. He always used to say, “Hang on.”
Was there hazing or bullying? Not in any way that stands out
strongly to me as an institutional feature of my year, though I am sure weaker
soldiers were sometimes bullied by stronger men. In general, however, there was
a strong Band of Brothers feeling. We were all in the same predicament. Going
through difficulty together united us. Boys from very different social,
economic, and intellectual backgrounds became a unit. If one man made a mistake
or underperformed, the whole group suffered, and often you feared the
retribution of your own section more than that of the corporal. You had to give
maximum effort.
That shared suffering forged real bonds.
At Affies (Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool) I did not really make
good friends, and after school those friendships simply vanished. The army
buddies became my real friends. Later, at university, even those friendships
slowly faded as new phases of life brought new circles, but in 1992 those men
were my world.
The Moment with God
The moment I felt closest to God did not come during
deployment, but during training.
We were in the Middelburg training area after a very
difficult day. At sunset we sat on a huge rock—hundreds of us—eating dinner
from our varkpanne (army food trays) as the sun went down. For once there was
no shouting, no punishment, no pressure. Just the quiet, the fading light, and
the exhaustion of the day behind us.
And in that moment, I knew God was with me.
I remember my prayer for protection.
It was not long. It was not dramatic.
It was simple, but certain.
Deployment: The Kaftan
In July 1992, after six months of basic training, infantry
training, gunnery training, and Teen Stedelik (counter-urban operations) / Teen
Platteland (counter-rural operations) preparation, our battalion deployed to
the Kaftan (the tri-border region where South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland
met).
The Kaftan (tri-border operational sector) was the border
region where South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland met, with Komatipoort and
Nelspruit as the nearest major towns. It was a notorious operational sector.
This was not the far-off Bush War of earlier years in the Caprivi. This was the
tense eastern border during the final years of the old SADF (South African
Defence Force).
We would spend the next five months there.
We did all kinds of covert things: roadblocks, setting and
lying in ambush for illegal weapons and illegal people crossing into South
Africa from Mozambique, drug busts, weapons busts, and crowd control during
riots in Buffel troop carriers. We slept and patrolled 14 days at a time in the
bush on the border, trying to prevent illegals and illegal Russian-made weapons
from entering South Africa. Then we would spend 2 to 4 days in camp, eating
fresh food, showering, sleeping in tents instead of under the open sky, before
heading back into the bush to resume operations. During that period I flew in
helicopters and was mobilized for various counter-insurgency operations.
I was still a mechanised infantry 20 mm trained gunner on
the Ratel, but on the Kaftan (tri-border operational area) we were retrained
and repurposed for Teen Stedelik (anti-urban operations) and Teen Platteland
(anti-rural operations). In practice, that meant anti-urban and anti-rural
internal stability work, not just classical mechanised war.
The Kaftan (tri-border operational area) had its own logic
of suffering. In Middelburg, the main challenge had been the cold. In the
Kaftan (tri-border operational area), heat and humidity became the enemy. In
summer the air from the Indian Ocean made everything permanently damp with
sweat. During the day the temperature climbed over forty degrees. At night you
lay in ambush, stood guard, or tried to sleep under a bivvy (small field
shelter / improvised cover) while everything around you remained alive, watchful,
and dangerous.
Sleeping in the Kaftan (tri-border operational area) was a
world away from barracks life. On base, one had steel beds and cupboards. In
the bush, you had your sleeping bag, your bivvy (small field shelter), your
rifle, and the ground—often not even a level patch of it. One would find a
“flat enough” place, clear some thorn branches if possible, and hope for the
best. Under the bivvy (field shelter), daytime sleep was almost impossible
because of the heat. You woke in a pool of sweat. We were not allowed to remove
our browns (brown uniforms), but of course, hot and bothered as we were, we
sometimes broke the rules when the risk seemed manageable.
The Kaftan (tri-border operational area) also had wildlife.
This was not only about insurgents or illegal crossers. The bush itself could
kill you. I remember one night, lying under a bivvy (field shelter) in my
sleeping bag, when Pens saw a very poisonous scorpion near my head. He calmly
told me to give my hand to him and pulled me away in time.
Malaria was another constant threat. The army was
hyper-vigilant about malaria in that region, but men still got sick. I knew
about Jason, a corporal in my cousin Marcus’s company, Alpha Company. I did not
know him personally then. On the first day of university later, I saw him,
recognized him, introduced myself, and we became friends for the next four
years while studying B-Proc (Bachelor of Procurationis / a South African law
degree) at the University of Pretoria.
Passes, Movies, Spur, and Brief Civilian Escapes
During training we received no passes at all. Later on base,
weekend passes sometimes allowed me to go to Pretoria for the weekend. But
during deployment on the Kaftan (tri-border operational area) there were no
home-going passes, only the occasional day pass to Nelspruit.
Those passes felt almost unreal.
I remember a particular day pass when a Samil truck (South
African military transport truck) took us to Nelspruit. We watched Basic
Instinct, then went to Spur (a South African family restaurant chain) for
burgers and chips. We earned around R360 per month as soldiers and had very
little opportunity to spend it, so when we could, we splurged.
Another memorable evening pass came when our platoon won the
inspection of our Ratel vehicle and cannon. We were allowed to go out that
Saturday evening to Middelburg. Again, there was a Spur (South African
restaurant chain) meal, and I remember watching the Vanilla Ice movie.
Those little glimpses of civilian life felt surreal, like
stepping briefly out of one world into another.
Communication with home in those days was by letter,
telegram, or landline phone. My parents sometimes sent me parcels. Once I
received one while on the border and was really looking forward to it because
it contained biltong (South African dried cured meat). But when I opened it,
the biltong (dried cured meat) was green with mould and completely inedible.
Spiritual Struggle
Military service affected my faith deeply.
On the one hand, it drove me toward God. It made me rely on
Him more. I knew and understood that there were times when only He carried me
through and that He was the one on whom I ultimately depended.
On the other hand, peer pressure and group dynamics drew me
into smoking, drinking, swearing, and pornography. The army is a rough
environment. It brings out the worst in people as easily as the best. Sinful
temptations and the pressure to conform were everywhere.
Did I struggle spiritually?
Absolutely.
But God understood that environment better than I did. He
never left me or forsook me. He allowed me to make mistakes, to learn, and to
grow through them.
Fear, Humiliation, and Danger
There were many dangerous moments during that year, even
outside actual combat conditions.
One of the most humiliating moments was on the firing range,
when I shot too early. The RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major) put his boot in my
neck and ordered a corporal to punish me. That led to another opfok (intense
physical punishment).
One of my friends later died in a SAMIL (South African
military truck) accident, and that was not even in war conditions. Another man
went berserk and took his R4 and shot four troops dead. In the bush, wild
animals, insurgents, or mosquitoes could kill you. But that is why
eighteen-year-old boys make such effective soldiers: they do not really
understand risk.
Did I ever want to quit?
Of course.
AWOL (Absent Without Leave) was always a thought for some
men, and some tried. But the consequence was Red Doibies (military prison /
detention barracks) and prison. Technically and legally, one could not simply
quit. You survived. That was the only option. And I did survive, through
camaraderie, through grace, and through the stubborn refusal to give up.
Uitklaar (demobilisation / clearance-out): Renewal
If Inklaar (intake / induction) was the death of civilian
life, then Uitklaar (demobilisation / clearance-out) was its resurrection.
In December 1992, we left the Kaftan (tri-border operational
area) and returned to the 4 SAI base in Middelburg to finish up. Uitklaar
(clearance-out process) was the administrative gauntlet you had to run in order
to leave the gates of the base as a civilian again. You were given an
uitklaarlys (clearance list / checkout form) and needed a stamp from every
department. If one stamp was missing, you were not going anywhere.
The most stressful part was returning all your equipment at
the magasyn (military stores/issue depot). Every item issued during Inklaar
(intake) had to be handed back. If you had lost a staaldak (steel helmet), a
groundsheet, or even a water bottle cap during deployment, you paid for it out
of your final salary. Watching everyone dump their dusty, sweat-stained gear
back into the bins was one of the great moments of relief. No more ironing
browns (brown uniforms). No more polishing everything. No more inspections over
a crooked fold.
There was a final medical, a final bit of paperwork, and
then, most surreal of all, you put your civvies (civilian clothes) back on.
After a year in browns (brown uniforms), your own jeans and T-shirt felt
strange and thin. You looked at your friends and realized how much everyone had
aged and hardened since that first Nommer Een (Number One haircut) haircut.
There was of course also the klaradyn (farewell celebration
/ end-of-service party)—the final celebration, the beer garden, the last
release of tension. Some men burned old boots or signed each other’s kit. Then,
at last, you walked through the gates of Middelburg carrying your bag and your
discharge papers.
You left the gaan af (drop down / get into front-leaning
rest), the No. 5 rat packs (ration packs), the freezing Middelburg mornings,
the Kaftan (tri-border operational area), the bush, the buffels (Buffel troop
carriers / mine-protected vehicles), the ratels (Ratel infantry combat
vehicles), the opfoks (punishment sessions), and the barracks behind.
But the memories stayed.
What the Army Did for Me
When the year ended, I felt both relieved and saddened.
I had really enjoyed military life—just not necessarily life
as an infantry soldier forever. I wanted to get a degree and maybe one day
rejoin as an officer, not in infantry but in another area more suited to my
strengths. Years later, while doing my Master’s degree in Criminal Law in 2001,
I met Paul, a military judge, who tried to get me into the legal corps. He was
unable to.
Affirmative action and all.
Did the experience change me?
Absolutely, and for the better.
The army had given me discipline, structure, confidence, and
the knowledge that I could work hard. It built me up after Affies (Afrikaanse
Hoër Seunskool) had broken me down for five years. It was a turning point in my
life. After all the rejection and bullying, I discovered that some people
actually liked me and wanted to be friends. I got a new positive message about
myself, and it motivated and empowered me.
No physical or emotional challenge that came later ever
seemed quite as large as army training and that year of service. The army
taught me that challenges can be overcome with hard work, discipline,
perseverance, and the help of God. It gave me confidence that almost anything
is possible if one refuses to give up.
When I entered the University of Pretoria the following
year, I carried that discipline with me. In my first year, I studied long hours
in the Merensky Law Library and achieved five distinctions, including one in
Latin.
Was military service good or bad for me?
For me, always good.
Not everyone’s personality would have responded to it the
same way. For some men, it would have been a nightmare. But for me, given my
family background, my schooling, and the way Affies (Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool)
had shaped and damaged me, the army turned out to be exactly what I needed.
We were told at the beginning that it would be the toughest
year of our lives, but that when we looked back later, it would seem like one
of the best years of our lives.
It rings true.
It was extremely difficult.
But what remains strongest in memory now are the good things, the highlights,
the people, the strange beauty of the hard moments, and the sense that I
survived—and emerged stronger.
🪖 Glossary of Afrikaans Terms
This glossary explains Afrikaans words and military slang used during South African national service in the early 1990s. Many of these terms carry not only literal meanings, but also cultural and emotional significance shaped by the environment in which they were used.
A
Affies (informal)
Afrikaans nickname for Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (AHS) in Pretoria, a
traditional Afrikaans boys’ school known for discipline, structure, and strong
cultural identity.
B
Balsak-uitleg (informal / slang)
Literal: “ball bag layout”
Meaning: Full layout of all issued equipment on a bed for inspection. Every
item had to be present, marked, and arranged correctly.
Bostewels (formal)
Combat boots issued to soldiers.
Browns (informal)
Standard brown military uniform worn by SADF soldiers.
Buffel / Buffel troop carriers (formal term,
informal usage)
Armoured personnel carriers used to transport troops, especially in operational
and riot-control environments.
Bungalow (informal military usage)
Barracks building where soldiers slept and lived.
C
Civvies (informal)
Civilian clothes worn outside military service.
G
Gaan af (informal command)
Literal: “go down”
Meaning: Command to drop into a physical position (usually
push-up/front-leaning rest position), often used as punishment.
H
Hospitaal-hoeke (formal)
“Hospital corners”
Precisely folded bed corners required for inspections, symbolising discipline
and attention to detail.
I
Inklaar (formal military term)
“Processing in”
The intake phase where recruits are registered, shaved, issued equipment, and
introduced to military life. Often chaotic and psychologically intense.
K
Kas (formal)
Locker or cupboard used to store uniforms and personal items.
Kas-uitleg (formal / inspection term)
The precise arrangement of clothing and items inside a locker for inspection.
Klaradyn (informal)
Final celebration or send-off before leaving military service.
Kopskoot (informal / slang)
Literal: “head shot”
Meaning: The initial military haircut (complete shave).
M
Magasyn (formal)
Military supply depot where equipment is issued and returned.
Mediese ondersoek (formal)
Medical examination during intake or discharge.
Moerby pot (informal / slang)
A mixed stew made from whatever ingredients are available; rough, improvised
army food.
N
Nommer Een (Number One) (formal term, cultural
usage)
Standard military haircut: fully shaved head, symbolising uniformity and loss
of individuality.
O
Opfok (vulgar slang / swear word)
Derived from Afrikaans profanity
Meaning: intense physical punishment (push-ups, planks, drills, etc.) used in
military training
Contextual meaning:
In everyday Afrikaans, opfok is a coarse expression meaning “to mess
someone up,” “to push someone beyond limits,” or “to punish harshly.” In the
military context, it became standard slang for disciplinary physical
training, often severe, exhausting, and psychologically demanding.
Usage in the army:
- “We
got an opfok” → We were punished with intense physical drills
- “Hy
gaan jou opfok” → He’s going to push you hard / punish you severely
Tone note:
Although widely used, it retains its aggressive, vulgar edge, reflecting
the harsh and uncompromising nature of military training.
R
Rooi Doibie (red disciplinary helmet / punishment marker)
A notorious item from the South African Defence Force (SADF). The Rooi
Doibie referred to a red plastic inner liner (doibie) or sometimes a
red-painted steel helmet (rooi staaldak) issued to soldiers who were confined
to barracks (CB) or undergoing disciplinary punishment.
Those required to wear it were marked out as undisciplined
and were often subjected to intense physical punishment (oppies –
strenuous corrective exercises) under the supervision of PTIs (Physical
Training Instructor corporals). A common rule was that they were not allowed to
stand still and had to continuously “mark time” (march in place) when not
moving.
Among soldiers, the Rooi Doibie became synonymous with afkak (to go through extreme hardship or punishment) and carried a dual reputation: something feared, but also worn almost as a badge of honour by those who frequently pushed boundaries.
S
Skutter (formal)
Rifleman; the lowest rank in infantry, but often described as the backbone of
the army.
Stalle (informal)
Ablution area (toilets, showers, washing facilities).
Staaldak (formal)
Steel helmet.
Stel toerusting (formal)
Full set of issued military equipment.
T
Tekkies (informal)
Sports shoes / sneakers.
Teen Stedelik (formal)
“Against urban”
Training for operations in urban environments (crowd control, unrest
management, township patrols).
Teen Platteland (formal)
“Against rural”
Training for operations in rural areas (border patrols, counter-insurgency,
field operations).
U
Uitklaar (formal military term)
“Processing out”
The administrative process required to leave the army and return to civilian
life.
Uitklaarlys (formal)
Checklist of required signatures and approvals needed for discharge.
V
Valaskaas (informal)
Suitcase or travel bag.
Varkpan (informal / slang)
Literal: “pig pan”
Meaning: Stainless steel army food tray used in mess halls.
Vrugtestaaf (formal)
Fruit bar included in ration packs.
W
Weepee (informal slang)
Porridge (usually oats or Maltabella), commonly served for breakfast.
Webbing (formal military term)
Load-bearing equipment worn around the waist and shoulders to carry ammunition
and gear.
🧭 Cultural and Historical Context
These terms are not merely vocabulary; they are part of a distinct
military subculture shaped by time, place, language, and political history.
1. Language as Identity and Authority
Afrikaans was the dominant language of command in the South
African Defence Force (SADF) during the Apartheid era. As a result:
- Orders,
punishments, and routines were often delivered in Afrikaans
- Even
English speakers quickly adopted Afrikaans terminology
- Language became a tool of authority, control, and identity formation
2. Compression of Meaning
Many terms carry meanings far deeper than their literal
translations:
- Inklaar
= not just intake, but the psychological shock of losing civilian identity
- Nommer
Een = not just a haircut, but enforced uniformity
- Opfok
= not just punishment, but a system of breaking and rebuilding
These words function as emotional shorthand for shared experiences.
3. Harsh Environment → Harsh Language
The frequent use of slang and vulgar terms (like opfok)
reflects:
- the
physical intensity of training
- the
hierarchical and authoritarian structure
- the
normalization of stress, fear, and endurance
Language became direct, blunt, and often aggressive, mirroring the environment.
4. Shared Vocabulary as Brotherhood
These terms also created a strong sense of belonging:
- Soldiers
from different backgrounds quickly learned the same vocabulary
- Using
the same words reinforced group identity
- The
language became a marker of having “been there”
Even years later, these words can instantly reconnect former soldiers through shared memory.
5. Historical Specificity
This vocabulary is tied to a very specific time:
- Late
Apartheid South Africa
- Conscription-era
military culture
- Pre-1994
institutional structures
For modern readers, this glossary provides essential context to understand not only the language, but the world in which it existed.
