Please Listen to me...
War Babies, the casualties
Submitted by Anon
As the guys, highly supervised (if not revised) were doing assault courses and being treated like excrement, they could but dream of the girls enjoying the beaches of Port Alfred, the Cape etc.
This skirt drain put added pressure on the girls who stayed and tried to go steady with a guy who spent most of his time in the bush. Going out to "Barneys" with a few girlfriends must have been something, all those desperate solo blokes, testosterone and alkillhol(sic) coursing in their healthful young veins, fearing that their blood could be spilt on their next trip...dynamite!
Pity me and my friend MJ at "Club Tomorrow" trying to make out with apparently free birds and having RLI (Rhodesian Light Infantry) come down on us like a ton of bricks. Eat, Drink and make out, for tomorrow we die, heck maybe tonight! MJ had as little luck as me. A very charming and good looking decent guy, a catch for any intelligent lassie. But the laws of supply and DEMAND in a RNR timeframe must have been confusing for any romantic girl. The usual courtship rituals and motions were unnaturally cut brutally short. And the consequences live on....
It was not easy for my age set and class to find girlfriends in the 70s and early 80s in Southern Africa. Those of us who'd worked hard to obtain "M" (Matric) or "A" (Matric + 1 year) levels found ourselves drafted into the Army for National Service for 2 years while many of the girls went to varsity and had freedom from parental supervision.
(Note: the writer is referring to the fact that large numbers of soldiers were losing their lives in skirmishes in the Rhodesian Bush War, Angola and other countries during that time.)
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