My Military Career

The Defence Amendment Bill, designed to make military service compulsory for White men, was passed on 9 June 1967. It meant that all White males between 17 and 65 were required to undergo military training in the Army, Navy or Air Force for nine months. I turned 17 five months later and in January 1968 I was issued with two train tickets, one from Fish Hoek station to Cape Town, and the other from Cape Town to Kimberley.

While the train travelled northward my anxiety increased as more young men climbed aboard. Many of them appeared so oafish as to be barely recognisable as human. I was standing in the corridor when a middle-aged gentleman tried to enter his compartment but recoiled in shock. He said that one of these brutes was fornicating with a schoolgirl who was part of a touring netball team.

On arrival in Kimberley the following day we were taken to the military base and addressed in Afrikaans by an officer. He warned us that this was not a holiday camp, and that we might be sissies and poeftes now, but the Army was going to make men of us. 

We were led to a hangar-like building that contained rows and rows of beds. I was allocated one of them and was told to change into a khaki overall, socks and boots. The rest of the day was spent learning to march. Links, regs; links, regs. Day two was dedicated to more marching interspersed with press-ups and star jumps, saluting, standing at attention and then at ease, and getting used to being shouted at.

On the third day we underwent the medical. In batches of 30, we were taken to a building, told to strip naked, handed a glass beaker and ordered to piss in it. Unlike other men who enjoy a sense of camaraderie in places like showers, change rooms and urinals, I have always found it difficult to urinate on demand, and especially in the presence of others. Accordingly, I asked another recruit, who was holding a full glass, to share it with me, and he happily obliged. It turned out that there was nothing wrong with his specimen, and I then underwent an eye test, which I failed. I took my turn to be examined by one of two military doctors. He looked me up and down, inspected my genitals and listened to my lungs. When it came to my heart, he seemed to be taking his time. He told me to stand to one side and wait. Being somewhat self-conscious, I found the next ten minutes agonizingly embarrassing, and was relieved when the other medic came over and put his stethoscope to my chest., He, too, took his time, then nodded agreement to his colleague and I was dismissed.

On the morning of the fourth day, after roll call, a sergeant read out a list of the dozen or so recruits who had failed the medical and were permanently exempted. When I heard my name called, I was suffused with feelings of humiliation and joy, with the latter far outweighing the former. We were ordered to surrender our military kit, change into civvies and gather in a billet to await transport to the station. While lounging on the stoep of this building, a few of us derived some fun from calling out, ‘links, regs; links, regs’ as a squad of non-rejects came marching past. The corporal in charge screamed at us but we laughed derisively and made hand gestures, knowing that we were now untouchable.

I thought it a fitting end to my military career, and I enjoyed the ride home in an almost empty train. It gave me time to come to terms with the fact that I would not be required to kill any Communists or terrorists, and I would never experience what it is like to step on a land mine or be shot with an AK-47.

More than 40 years later I drew on this brief episode to write a chapter in my book about the escapades of Frikkie and Plug, which will appear in the next blog post.

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