In our family we never made an issue of New Year, there were
no special celebrations or parties. Mostly we would sit talking until midnight, wish each other happy New Year
and go to bed. My mother liked to go to a midnight church service if there was
one going in the neighbourhood, and she did not much care what the denomination
was.
But I do remember one very well that I partook of,(slightly
against my will,) 34 years ago. First I must set the scene.
Way back in the good old/bad old days of Apartheid South
Africa all White males were liable for National Service call up at 18. Blacks and
other races could volunteer, (strangely enough, thousands did). As we were
brain washed back then we were told that we were doing this to defend Western Christian
Civilisation in South Africa,(and the rest of the West), and most of us believed it. Those that did not
were called commies, or worse still liberals.
I did my National Service in 1966, trained as an
infantry soldier and in the use all sorts of death dealing weapons. You name it I was trained to use it, how to take it apart, how to keep it clean and how
to maintain it in perfect condition. Our personal weapon was the FN semi
automatic , 7.62 calibre rifle, made in Belgium, seen below.
The FN rifle above was similar to the one we used. This particular model was used by the West Germany army. The magazine held 30 rounds.
Part of my specialised training was in the use
of the FN LMG, (Light Machine Gun), this training was to haunt me for the rest
of my military career. The LMG fired the
same calibre round as the FN rifle but at the rate of about a 1,000 rounds a
minute.
A cut away illustration of the FN LMG. The bi-pod could be folded back and locked in place, the machine gun could then be used on a tripod.
FN LMG with bi-pod, this is a US army version shown above.
FN LMG with bi-pod, this is a US army version shown above.
After completing National Service you were assigned to a
reserve regiment and had to attend a further five years of “camps”. Which meant once a
year you were called up with your regiment for 3 weeks of refresher training.
Your regiment could also call you up at any time and send you off to some military
base for specialised training, this was over and above the mandatory 3 weeks
every year. Due to my LMG training my regiment
assigned me to be the LMG gunner for my section. Each section, with a sergeant
in command, had an LMG, and a section had 10 men, with 4 sections to a platoon, four platoons to a
company. (Three combat sections, one HQ section to a platoon, and three combat platoons and one HQ platoon to a company).
Most guys did not mind this annual
disruption of their lives, it was a chance to do "man stuff,' play with
dangerous weapons, fire thousand live rounds,(at the Governments expense) and drink too much cheap beer (subsidised by the Army) at the
end of each day.
I enjoyed the military life so much that I ended up doing 15
years in the reserves. One of my call-ups was December 1977/January 1978 and
our regiment was sent to the Ndumu Game Reserve on the Northern border of Natal
with Mozambique. Once again I was a
section LMG gunner.
December/January is the middle of our summer and the
temperature soars to the mid 40’s in the shade in this area, it’s also mosquito
and malaria country. Mozambique was commy country and the ANC terrorist,
(freedom fighters today) were active in the area.
Ndumu is a small game reserve right on the border, famous for
its elephants and bird life.
The reserve game rangers and other staff wanted to
have a New Years eve party and the company I was in was given the task of
setting up a defence perimeter around the party venue. We arrived at about 5pm
and our company commander set about placing each platoon, each section right
down to each individual infantryman, (placed two by two). He had worked it all
out on a large scale map of the area, exactly where everyone had to be positioned.
The whole venue was surrounded by tall, (almost 2 meters) elephant grass, so we
were given strict arcs of fire, marked by pegs in the ground. Once you were in your place you could not see
the guys 15 meters to the left or the right of you, (come to think of it we were all sitting ducks). The perimeter was about a 100 meters
from the party venue.
The company commanders
HQ platoon was placed right up close to the party venue so that if any "ters"
(terrorists) broke through the outer defence line they could still defend the
New Years revellers. (More likely to be close to the booze).
Well I set up the LMG on a tripod, and not the normal fold
away bi pod, these two items I had to carry. When you've carried and LMG and its
bi pod you find that it’s not so light any more. I turned to my no 2, whose job
it was to carry the ammunition belts and asked him to pass them so I could arm
the machine gun (he was Northern Irish
by the way).
“Ammo, he said, “don’t be bloody stupid I didn’t bring any ammo.” In an Irish accent I won’t try and duplicate
here.
My no 2 was not only from Northern Ireland but also ex IRA, and
had left Ireland because he got tired of all the killing and fighting. He
volunteered to join the regiment as he still liked the idea of playing soldier.
"Why not?" I asked aghast.
“Even us Irish don’t fight on New Year’s eve”. he said.
I looked at him and saw that all his ammo pouches, his back
pack and the various pockets, (and there were a lot of big pockets) on his
combat uniform were bulging obviously full of something.
“What’s that then,” I asked pointing at these bulging
containers.
He then proceeded to pull out several, (several is an understatement) bottles of beer,
whiskey, vodka and brandy. “We are going to have our own party, like all
civilised people do on New Year’s Eve.”
What he had done with the ammo he was
issued I don’t know.
“What will we do if we are attacked?” I asked.
“If they are even just slightly civilised, they won’t. If
they do we ask them join us. “ Anyway”, he said pulling out a crucifix and kissing it, ”this will
protect us.” He was a devout Catholic.
And that’s what we did, Party with a capital P. The last bottle in his collection
was something called “Boechoe” brandy - a vile concoction of herbs and brandy. Boechoe is a medicinal
herb found in South Africa and used for all sort of ailments in traditional
medicine. As it was so hot we removed most of our combat dress, leaving just
enough clothing on for us to still look respectable if we were killed in an
attack. The mosquito’s made mince meat of us but we were too drunk to notice.
We passed out long before midnight in the long grass with the mosquito’s
continuing their own New Year’s party.
The next morning when the officers and NCO’s rounded up the
rest of the company they could not find us. We lay in the blazing sun for more
than three hours before we were found. Apart from alcohol poisoning, we were
badly sunburned, dehydrated and so mosquito bitten that we were hardly
recognisable. The medics put us on intravenous drips and rushed to the nearest army sick bay which fortunately wasn’t far.
I surfaced about 24 hours later wishing I was dead, but I
survived and rejoined the company 3 days later, still feeling like “death
warmed up”. The two of us should have been Court Marshaled and sent to the
army Detention Barracks, (army jail) for dereliction of duty, but our company commander managed
to save our mangy buts. To this day I have an aversion for New Year’s parties.
Another aversion I have developed is an aversion for guns
and weapons of any sort. As much as I enjoyed using them in my Army days (I grew up with guns and hunting, and for years I swaggered about with a Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum), I
refuse to touch them today. There is nothing, but nothing, good one can say about guns, they
only bring misery and destruction. They are designed for one purpose only and that is to kill. (We only need to look at recent events in the US).(The NRA says the solution to this is more guns).
Alcohol can bring just as much misery and destruction, put the two together and you have a really evil mix.
Good thing we had no ammo, or we would have felt obliged to do some celebratory shooting, that would have livened things up.
