The Man Behind the Fear

Untitled Part 1

It regularly came upon me, The Haze. It didn’t call ahead to announce a visit, it just arrived. Over the years, the visits diminished in frequency and strength. I have long gone past resenting its visitations, and once I became a better host, The Haze was less of a chore. By The Haze, I refer to memories relating to service in the military, named The Haze due to the sense of loss of control over my self-will. When The Haze does arrive, an involuntary walk down memory lane ensues. At least the depression and withdrawal from society is now gone. Time has tended to disarm The Haze on its arrival. This disarmed Haze has become a companion to me now, rather than an antagonist.

Being a naturally introspective person, The Haze has added to inner dialogues over the years. Who am I? Why am I who I am? Could I have been someone else? These questions concern me deeply. How much of who we are is due to an acceptance of what has happened to us? How much of me is lying dormant and undiscovered due to a lack of circumstances bringing that to the fore? I enjoy my own company now, it has not been like that for most of my life. Yet still, I resent being a product of chance. Had chance walked down other roads, I would still be me, but with significant differences. Experiences in the military affected me deeply, especially the near-death type. And one of The Haze’s recent topics of introspection was a person I knew in the military who was a prisoner of his own unpleasant brand of chance. His situation was partly self-defined, partly not. And one day, chance gave him an opportunity to break free. Whether he did break free or not is something I may never know. But The Haze and I think about him often.

My military service was in the South African Defense Force, where we were protecting our borders against the communist backed forces of Angola, and other surrounding countries. The communist backed unrest in many other countries in the region was complicating the struggle for freedom of the black people in South Africa.

Many people have very good reasons to begrudge the South African military back in the apartheid era. There are many negatives related to that period of my life where I served in the military, and I abhor apartheid and racism of any kind. Yet, through all the bad experiences that I had, there were some deep life lessons that I learned. I am aware that my participation in military service did not hasten freedom for my black brothers and sisters. But I am proud to say that I fought against the injustices of apartheid as I matured and realized the truth of what was going on. I just wish I had followed in my father’s footsteps in reaching out beyond “white” privilege a little earlier.

With regards to military service, I had options to avoid the service, but I still chose to go. So, as a 17 year old kid, I was one of a bunch of young guys enlisted into the South African military. We were all young, but were from very varied backgrounds. I hung out with the English speaking crowd as my father is British in descent, but the military was predominantly Afrikaans. One chap assigned to my unit was very Afrikaans, in that he could barely speak in English. He had glasses that were the thickness of the bottoms of beer bottles. We called him "Brille" - Afrikaans for glasses. At this stage in life, we were already “products” of some circumstances. Social interaction within the harsh South African culture had determined where we stood in various social circles. I was always on the fringes, never the center of any group of people. I had “learned” my place. But I was to discover how much better I had it than Brille.

In the beginning of basic training, the pre-existing social structures were both reinforced, and yet restructured. We relied on each other in desperation, because it was very harsh. So our social circles often involved people we would never have been found with in civilian life. But as basic training got worse and worse, we realized there was a level of weakness that was shocking. Brille was the epitome of a wimp and couldn't be relied on. He couldn't run worth a damn, couldn't do anything of the physical side of training. He got us in trouble all the time because he would give up at the slightest challenge. We used to tie ropes to his backpack and drag him behind us so that he wouldn't slow us down. His name became synonymous with loser. He was needy, and would break down into tears at the drop of a hat, and therefore we avoided him, he had no friends.