Something that might interest former soldiers

[Peter Laidler]

I forwarded this thread to an ex South African Army friend of many years, who left when the tide was turning. He commented to me this morning that '........ The whole western world should have seen this coming. It is a tribal Country now' Indeed.

As a bit of an aside, I got on the London bus a couple of weeks ago and the white driver was clearly from SA(?) I asked him the usual friendly Q's and he told me was from Rhodesia. Told him that I was in Malaya and carved into the brick wall into one of our camps there, was the Rhodesian African Rifles (or was it Rhodesia Light Infantry) Lion with a tusk badge. He immediately flicked his lapel over, and there, he had a miniature RLI badge. Made his day that someone would recognise it. Made my day too as he didn't collect my fare!

Added the next day. My ex SADF friend, as above emailed me later and said that the SADF mentioned in glowing terms at the start of this thread started its visible decline shortly after the 80's freedom regime came about. That's as diplomatic as he was prepared to go. Needless to say, he saw the writing on the wall and left!