At
Thy Call we did not Falter
is a brutally frank and refreshingly honest account 17 years after the
fact, of a teenage national serviceman’s exposure to and his bloody
experiences during the Angolan War. It makes no attempt to glorify or
demonise war, but simply tells the factual story of so many young white
South Africans like Holt who were sent into battle against overwhelming
forces when they were barely out of school. The book will resonate with
the vast majority of men who served who are now entering or are already
in middle age.
Its timing is extraordinarily fortunate, coming just as interest in
Cuito Cuanavale is being revived, with moves afoot to arrange
battlefield tours, and debates raging anew in military and veteran
circles about who the victors and vanquished were. At
Thy Call has the hallmark of a classic battlefield biography — a
South African equivalent of All’s
Quiet on the Western Front — as well as providing a window into
the world of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a rivetting account
of how a government can take young teenagers — the heart of every army
in the world — and turn them into killing machines.
With diary extracts, previously unpublished photographs and a rivetting
narrative, this book transports the reader into the front line and the
dark realms of war.
|
.
..
