SA History Book Recommendation Thread

[rambo919]

Koevoet

One of the most interesting things for me was that so many Koevoet personnel were ex-SWAPO and they were so driven by their hate of the organization that had indoctrinated and manipulated them so much that they were almost merciless in their fighting.... and they ended up being some of the best fighters Koevoet had.

Similarly the B32 & B31 units were so driven by hate for the communists that they were called the "terrible one's" and sometimes enemy units would simply disappear if there was as much of a rumour of them being in the area.

That book alone (with buffelo soldier books mentioned previously in the thread finishing the job) destroyed a LOT of "black inferiority" programming in me because it proved that blacks can excel just as much as whites as long as you remove socialism from the picture and provide proper motivations..... and it made me hate the traitorous NP even more because it promised dignity and safety to these people and then utterly abandoned them even though they had done more than enough to earn it.

 

[Mortymoose]

destroyed a LOT of "black inferiority" programming in me because it proved that blacks can excel just as much as whites as long as you remove socialism from the picture and provide proper motivations.....

My Security Manager and I just discussed the exact same point an hour ago...

He was in the SWATF and is still from that old conservative side and mentioned to me that he could not understand how "Sakkie from Koevoet" seemed to be friendly with a lot of the local Oshiwmbo population..... to which I replied that had he read the book on Koevoet by Hooper that this was the same observation that the American author had made...

He expected blatant racism to be evident in the Counterinsurgency unit, but instead found that the whites and blacks bonded like "Band of Brothers" and that Blacks even held rank in the unit......

I explained to my Security Manager that Sakkie would have been of the same opinion and had more faith/trust in his black comrades in the unit as opposed to other Afrikaaners/whites in SWATF , this is still evident today....

I must say as a person who was never in the war, I find it fascinating as living up here I know a ton of folk from Portuguese Angolans that lost alles in the middle of the night to people in specialized units..... All old Toppies now, in almost all the cases, the folk I knew from these "specialised" units hardly ever spoke about what happened, but the SWATF guys do.....

 

[rambo919]

All old Toppies now, in almost all the cases, the folk I knew from these "specialised" units hardly ever spoke about what happened, but the SWATF guys do.....

Probably like sex, the one's that actually know it never mention it, the virgins can't shut up about it......

But yeah some people had general experience and some had real intense stuff happen that changed their lives. The specialised units were different in that they had nothing tangeble of home so they bonded with each other on individual level rather than group level is my guess.