Hunting Cubans in Angola

They were racist fuckers, that old South African regime. I've never been a fan of segregation - "the system of adultery perpetuated by an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality" - but even racists were better than communists. So my old employer, the CIA, had me covertly go down there in the 80's to fight against the commies in Angola.

It's no huge secret that we were there against the Soviets - Angola was the hot zone of the Cold War. I didn't mind when I got the mission orders - even when they were based on the White House insisting on deniability - because I knew where there were Soviets there would be Cubans. I'd long run out of real Cuban cigars, and prefer a Punch over the best of the Dominicians (which by the way is a Don Leo) any day. So I was pretty keen to kill some Cubans and steal their cigars.

Sitting on the Hercules over there, I did get to thinking about those Soviets though. They're tough bastards, and I'd be lying if I said the prospect of going head-to-head with them didn't scare me. Particularly as I recalled a story Ariel Sharon told me once.

I was complimenting him on the Mossad's ability to fight Arab terrorism. He said, "You think we're good, we've nothing on the KGB." He then recounted a story that is probably old enough for me to give you some details on, dear readers. A few years back in a certain Middle Eastern country one of the Arab terrorist factions took a number of Soviet embassy staff - including the local KGB agent - hostage. "Now if they were Israeli," Sharon told me, "we would have found out where they had the hostages, sent our special forces in, killed the terrorists and freed our people. But the KGB are truly inspired. They found out where the hostages were being held, found out who the terrorists were, found out who their families were. Then they kidnapped all the male members of the terrorists' family - their brothers and fathers - killed them and dumped their bodies out the front of the terrorists' hide-out. Now in the minds of these terrorists bringing shame upon your family is the worst thing you can do; they all killed themselves and the hostages walked free. And from that day on, no Soviet citizen was ever touched in the Middle East."

For a soldier about to fight the Soviets, that wasn't a memory I liked having fresh in my mind. As a true patriot, however, I marched on into battle.

Now it was an unusual sort of war. The South African armed forces were not overly impressive. They had a few very good men, but the bulk of their outfit were conscripts and crazy mercenaries. Old New Zealanders, yanks and Aussies who couldn't get back into normal society after Vietnam.

I was pleased when I saw my first platoon - all conscripts, no mercenaries so at least I knew if they accidentally shot me it really would be an accident. Our mission was to go deep behind enemy lines, find the enemy, and then call in our gunships to blow the hell out of them. Of course, a scouting mission like this required us to get deep into Angola without anyone knowing we were there. So lots of moving at night and things like that.

We were holed up one day getting some sleep when I was woken by one of my outer sentries. He was a young conscript, but had real fear in his eyes when he woke me. "Sir, I don't know what it is but I can hear this... beat...out in the distance". This was something that worried me, because I had seen first hand the Zulu warrior chant - thousands of them in a zombie-like trance marching into battle. The last thing you wanted to face when all you had was 11 conscripts backing you up. I hurriedly went out to listen and sure enough, I could hear a definite booming, rythmic beat out in the distance. I quickly got the men into position. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was coming at us too fast to scatter. All we could do was get into position and hope it passed us by.

The beat was getting louder, however, and closer. Then all of a sudden, my ears made out what it was. The Canned Heat song On The Road Again. "What the fuck?", I thought. It sure wasn't Zulus, but what was it? I told the boys to ready the RPG's and get set to fire. Then, through the jungle emerged a fucking South African Armoured Personnel Carrier with a huge Ghetto Blaster duct-taped to the front. We walked toward it stunned. Who could be this fucking stupid?

The hatch opened and up popped a head. "Sweet. We heard you were out here", a Kiwi mercenary yelled as he started throwing cans of Speights in our direction. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked him. "We got bored so thought we'd come out and stir up some shit", he replied. Now I'm not a man to lose his temper easily, but this annoyed the crap out of me. "Are you all Kiwis in there", I asked. "Sure are, brother", he replied. "Fuck 'em" I thought and took control of one of the RPG's. Kiwis always wonder why so many of them get killed by friendly fire - shit like this was the reason why. I launched a missile and blew the fuckers away.

I considered the explosion of an APC being blown to smithereens wasn't really that much of an issue because these idiots had drawn so much attention to us the Soviets were sure to be bearing down on us anyway. And just like rugby league players to a gangbang, in they flocked. "Get on the radio and get those gunships in now!" I yelled as I dove to the ground and started firing at those commie bastards. Now the gunship pilots are usually all on speed, so they aren't too bad at getting to a battle fast. And sure enough it wasn't long before I heard them coming in. "Incoming!" I heard all around as we pressed ourselves into the dirt, flicking up the orange reflectors on our helmets. This little plastic reflector was my saviour; the only way they knew who was friendly and who wasn't. The roar of rockets came down around me.

Now the problem with pilots on speed is once they get into battle they get pretty bloody excited. So there were explosions everywhere - some damn close to me. Most people who haven't experienced a major explosion at close-range think the heat and the flames and the noise are the worst part. They're not. It's the absolutely gut-wrenching wave, like a sonic boom that passes through your body and totally disorientates you.

Luckily, once they got the shrapnel out of my bloody head we all survived that mission.

I was pretty pissed because the cuts in my head really hurt and I still couldn't get my hands on a decent cigar. Luckily, hookers in South Africa are sexy and cheap, so things weren't all bad. When a mission to find some downed Cuban pilots came up, however, I was first to volunteer.

My platoon this time consisted of the usual batch of conscripts and three Aussie mercenaries. Out into battle we went. Well, we were out there for four pretty uneventful days with no sign of them. The mercenaries were starting to get pretty edgy - they don't get paid unless they bring the thumbs of the pilots back for verification - and the last thing you went when you're in the middle of nowhere is three heavily armed mercenaries going postal. So I had a little chat with them. "Boys, we're getting a bit light on fuel so we've got to reduce the weight in these jeeps. How about firing off some of these rockets and explosives at those big trees?" They bought it and set about blowing the crap out of some big trees, which amused the hell out of them. My plan was to wait until all the major weaponry was depleted and then tell them we were going home.

All of a sudden, however, luck struck. As one of the trees was falling two dead pilots fell out of it. Their parachutes had tangled in the branches and hung them. The mercenaries went crazy as they hit the ground, running up and taking their thumbs. They then strapped their bodies to the front of the jeeps for the ride home. I was also pretty crazy as I searched them for cigars - and sure enough found six Punchs. I sat back in the jeep, opened a Speights and lit up my Punch as the boys drove us home.