Leopold Scholtz - Ratels on the Lomba: The story of Charlie Squadron

Fapa Fora Area Popular de Angola (Angolan Peoples Air Force)

Fapla Foras Armadas Populares de Libertao de Angola (Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola)

MPLA Movimento Popular de Libertao de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola)

Plan Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (military wing of Swapo)

SAAF South African Air Force

SADF South African Defence Force

SANDF South African National Defence Force

Swapo South West Africa Peoples Organisation

SWATF South West Africa Territorial Force

Unita Unio Nacional para a Independ ncia Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola)

Speech by Captain PJ Cloete, 6 October 2014,

at a Charlie Squadron reunion

We changed the course of history.

War is a futile exercise, conducted for nefarious purposes by those who only wish to serve their own interest.

When touring through the USA with a team of South Africans, I was struck by the pride of every single American in their flag and country. No matter the colour or creed, when the anthem played, every American stood firm, hand to his heart and sang the anthem at full voice.We as South Africans lack that pride and we need to engender a pride in our country and our flag.

Leadership, as many of you would have discovered over the years, is a lonely place who I am is not who you perceived me to be. As leaders, decisions must be made normally we would appoint a committee which would appoint another committee to reach a decision. In Angola we did not have this luxury as leaders, we had to make instantaneous decisions which had life-changing impacts, and whether good or bad, we had to stand by them. I made many such decisions good and bad. But once taken I had to stand by them and be accountable for their consequences.

In the normal scope of life most of you would never have met but circumstances beyond your control, circumstances over which you had no control, had you thrown together through National Service a disparate group who emerged united, bound together for eternity through our experiences.

On our return from the battlefields having been through the hell we went through, we were put in a deurgangskamp spoken to by a few kopdokters and then put on a Flossie and returned to civilian life. No one in the higher levels within the Defence Force had a clue what we had been through.

I left together with you and disappeared into civilian life until traced a year and a bit ago. I can remember feeling disconnected of looking at the people around me and thinking they have no clue about what happened, what I have seen and gone through of not being
able to allow those close to me to hug me and of struggling to adapt.

In the world out there they did not know who I was or what I had done what I had achieved what I had seen. I could not share my experiences with anyone except my fellow brothers in arms and how I survived was to make a pilgrimage once or twice a year to Cape Town to a young lieutenant where we would go out, over-imbibe, and return home wasted but with some of the intense pressure released that is how I survived in that period of transition. For 27 years I have never shared my experiences in any detail with my wife and family and nor have many of you.

The impact on many of you was devastating, resulting in broken marriages taking to alcohol in excess and even for some finding
refuge in boom [marijuana] even up until recently. This reconnection
must stop that.

Today this reunion this parade is about validation it is about realising that

I BELONG

I AM WORTH SOMETHING

I WAS PART OF AND ACHIEVED SOMETHING GREAT

Today in remembering we must remember both sides I cannot imagine the terror that those young soldiers felt some miles away from home in Cuba when those artillery barrages rained down