Arn Durand - Zulu Zulu Foxtrot: To Hell and Back With Koevoet

Published by Zebra Press
an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd
Reg. No. 1966/003153/07
Wembley Square, First Floor, Solan Road, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

www.zebrapress.co.za

First published 2012

Publication Zebra Press 2012
Text Arn Durand 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

Publisher: Marlene Fryer
Managing editor: Robert Plummer
Editor: Beth Housdon
Proofreader: Rod Prodgers
Typesetter: Monique van den Berg

ISBN 978 1 77022 434 6 (print)
ISBN 978 1 77022 435 3 (ePub)
ISBN 978 1 77022 436 0 (PDF)

In memory of Bravo, my Labrador, who helped me raise three children.

After I published my first book, Zulu Zulu Golf , in 2011, I received strong reactions.

Some called me a traitor, while some called me a war criminal. I dont care, as my only agenda was to record my story as truthfully, honestly and accurately as possible.

Some say that I grossly exaggerated my story, while in fact I toned it down. For the armchair critics who never saw the gross, grim, gruesome reality of war, it will always be difficult to understand.

In my first book and in this one, I chose not to gloss over certain contentious issues in order to please an audience. The rivalry and animosity between Koevoet and the army and between different Koevoet teams was a reality. Those who know me today will know that I now look back and salute all who fought that fight, including my former enemy. It was a damn good fight.

I thank the surviving members of my team for supporting me and encouraging me to tell it as it was.

I thank everyone at Zebra Press, in particular Beth Housdon and Robert Plummer, for bringing my past dreams and nightmares to the realm of the written word.

I fought not for love, honour or glory, but for the sake of warring. I wrote not for fame or fortune, but simply to record my story.

ARN DURAND
CAPE TOWN
JULY 2012

Darkness engulfs me. I dont know how I got here. No one will see me here; no one will find me. Here I can die in peace. Have I drunk myself to death? Hazy visions of whisky bottles, beer, schnapps and liqueurs drift in and out of my mind. Im dead-drunk, almost comatose. I dont know where Ive been or what Ive done. If the town were attacked, I wouldnt know, and if I did know, I wouldnt care.

Its just another Saturday night in Oshakati.

From the outlying locations around the town, automatic small-arms fire erupts, lighting up the night sky with tracers. Most of Koevoets Ovambos empty a magazine or two of R5 rounds into the sky each night, especially on Saturdays, when the mahangu beer and the White Horse whisky flow. Some Koevoet guys at a party nearby have brought out the hardware two deafening explosions ring out as an RPG rocket shoots up into the air and self-destructs. White Horse whisky makes you drunk then makes you stupid, is what they say.

The gun towers around the perimeter of the town open up with their 40-mm cannons at intervals. Either they are practising or theyre shooting at a vehicle, bicycle or person they see moving on the dirt and tarred roads outside the town. Theres a curfew law: after sunset and before sunrise you can shoot anything moving on the roads in the entire operational area.

The army starts firing 81-mm mortars for practice, and to intimidate anyone who might be planning to attack the town. If Oshakati were attacked, most people wouldnt realise. Husbands, wives, children and babies would sleep right through it unless their house took a direct hit, of course. Over the years people have grown accustomed to the gunfire and explosions. Even without the whisky, I would sleep through the noise.

I slip slowly into unconsciousness, thoughts blurring in my mind. Frans is dead, Jack is gone, Alf is leaving which leaves only Wessie and me. What will we do? Fight on, is all I can think. Even if it is only the two of us, we will fight on.

My mind returns to the meeting this morning called by Brigadier Dreyer under the tree behind the ops room. It was more of a pep talk than a meeting.

A new big wave of SWAPO PLAN fighters preparing to move across the Angolan border better armed, better trained The brigadiers voice droned on.

I joked, saying, War was declared and nobody pitched up.

What the hell, I thought, the more the merrier! Rather have someone to fight with than drive around all day doing fuck-all. What else are we here for? Let them come, all of them; theyre welcome. Well kill them all!

But beneath the bravado was a persistent prickling of fear. It had to do with the night before, when we were at the International Guest House in Oshakati. My Koevoet colleagues had spoken in hushed tones about the impending new wave of SWAPO PLAN infiltrators. Id been with Koevoet for four years, and this was the first time I had seen fear in their eyes and heard fear in their voices, and it troubled me.

Fuck them all and damn the rest! Why dont you become immortal and invincible like me? If you get shot its your own fault, I thought, angrily trying to combat the fear. The way some guys operate how do some groups lose so many of their own? Some accidentally shoot more of their own people than the enemy do. Theyve got no discipline. Their Ovambos run the show.

Suddenly, Wessie laughed and I snapped out of my reverie as he piped up, And what did you say to Captain Koch?

Fuck him! shouted someone from the bar. In Zulu Golf he got the shit shot out of him and his team in an ambush.

Yes, I agreed, I was in Zulu Golf in the beginning. Captain Koch had taken over from Lieutenant Goosen as the commander of Zulu Golf after Id left. Wed recently been in a contact together; hed been flying in a gunship and Id been on the ground.

Then he wants to sit in a gunship all the time and claim a contact every time there is one, even if hes not there! the guy from the bar complained.

Yes, but what did you say to him, Jimmy? Wessie asked me again.

When we made contact and shot those five, he was still 50 kilometres away in the gunship. So he landed and came up to me to thank me for making his 60th contact. Instead of telling him to fuck off, I said, Well then we both have something to celebrate, because that was my 120th. So he got all pissed off and went back to the gunship, and I thought, What a prick. What are you? A fucking gunship pilot or what?

Now theres complete blackness all around me, in my mind and in my body. Ive gone to a faraway place where no one will find me and no one will care. The demons start to creep through my soul and into my head, carrying me to the nightmares.

Theyre all dead. My team members are all dead. Some lie in our Casspir, which is slumped to one side behind me. Im lying on the hard, gritty ground with my back against the left-rear wheel. Others lie dead around me. Mandumes dead behind the wheel. Bennies dead, Joe Talipis dead, Kanjambangas dead. Elias is dead, Haifenies dead, Bokomas dead. Theyre all dead. Their bodies are scattered around me. Weve been ambushed; countless RPG-7s have taken us out.

Im half deaf from the explosions, but I can hear them coming from the other side of the Casspir. Soon theyll come around the back or the front of the vehicle or from both sides at once, creeping up on me. Between the rear of my Casspir and me theres a log, which provides some shelter.