SADF TROOPIE SONGS

THE SOUND TRACK OF OUR MILITARY SERVICE

Everybody had a favourite artist who got them through. I remember listening
to my dad's collection of John Edmond stuff from the Rhodesian war days.
I'm interested to hear what got you guys through "it".

ERICH KROHNERT - 04-05-2000

I don't know what got me through it, except maybe Barney Simon's Shadow show
and Powerhaus shows on Radio 5. But I do remember some aashole, who after
being dumped by his girlfriend decided to play that Whitney Houston song "I
will always love you". And he played it over and over and over,
aaaaaaaaaaagh, even now just thinking about it and I feel like smacking some
guy with my staaldak.

Grant Howard - 04-05-2000

Sorry - got one better than that!
Phalabowa 1985 Basic training Oscar Co.- 4am

doors kicked open by brutal PTI's and screams of "Stan op" with the
accompanying whistles, turning over of beds etc. etc..
Then some bloke used to hit the ghetto Blaster play button and the Jennifer
Rush

"Whispers in the morning.................."

Every bloody day for 3 months

Kind of ironic (or is it sarcasm) but I don't think he even spoke English

Mark Davies - 04-05-2000

We had this black guy who played gospel at 11 o'clock at night. Needless to
say we all got a bit pissed off, so one night I sent him and his tapes
flying. He ratted on me to the Lieut. which got the lot of us a good oppie.
Ever heard of "sokkie-en-seep"? He knew what that meant that night!!

ERICH KRHNERT -05-05-2000

We had a guy play "Blue eyes crying in the rain" for 3 months. I eventually stripped my moer and ripped his tape up.

That caused platoon 1 Bravo company at Mahanene to have one glorious punch-up. I ended up with swollen thumbs because one guy kept on ducking and I kept on hitting him on the side of the head.

I spent a nice time the next day carrying a wet sand-bag, flipping tyres, and being drilled with full kit. Almost lost my stripes....

But it sure lifted the tension.

Jakes Louw 05-05-2000

Maybe we can add a section to the SADF insults web
page with SADF songs.

Things like...

I wanna be a spes force medic ( no I dont I just wanna
go home!)
I wont stop until I get it
Wings on chest and head held high
I wont stop until I die

I wanna go into Angola
I wanna kill Sam Hjoma

I wanna go into Mozambigue
I wanna kill that FRELIMO freak

I wanna go into Zimbabwe
I wanna kill Robert Mugabe (if only?)

Etc

Simon Lewis - 05-05-2000

what is it that every person i ever speak to that has done national service
in the sadf has had a nutter with a huge fuck off ghetto blaster in the
bungalow!!!
did the buro of state security issue a guy with one just to piss everyone off
and to keep every one extra agressive?
our resident nutter in troop2 in army guy in 86 played fucking sig sig
sputnik,uuuuuuuurgh(and they are set to make a come back !!!!)

Stuart 05-05-2000

remember winding up the NCOs by singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of
Life' a la Monty Python during opvoks etc? Hierdie blerrie souties, ek kan
nie hulle verstaan nie...!!!

Tee Hee!

Trev Perks - 06=05-2000

'We had a problem with some of the Afrikaners on the other side of the wall,
one of whom I recall was called Pook. He had a large stereo
ghetto-blaster, from which would pound 'I WANNA ROCK' by Twisted Sister,
seemingly constantly.

We had nothing to match this, and were forced to endure it or else shut out
everything by using a Walkman.

I remember going back to 7SAI, after our first pass, on the busses that had
been our salvation four short days previously. There was still a carnival
air about us as there were no corporals on board, and we exchanged stories
of what we'd been up to over the weekend. Out of all the guys in our little
group, I'd only seen Michael Prince and Tim Hylands, a guy we'd become
friendly with since meeting him as part of our platoon, at Decodance, the
club in Jo'burg we used to frequent.

Steve Naylor was brandishing a massive ghetto blaster he'd bought. He was an
apprentice electrician and his wages were 'made up' by his firm while he was
in the army. In other words, his firm paid him the balance of the defecit of
his wages once his army money had been paid to him, so he was actually
better off financially, having no outgoings to speak of while at
Phalaborwa.

We cooked up a plan to gain revenge over the guys on the other side of the
bungalow wall.

As we got closer to the base, our mood began to get more sombre, until we
turned off the road leading to the Kruger Park Phalaborwa gate and entered
the base.

With heavy hearts, we took our bags into the bungalows and began to prepare
our kit ready for the next testing day. Steve turned his stereo on, fairly
loud, and sure enough, a few minutes later, from the other side of the wall,
I WANNA ROCK!

In the vain hope that he could outdo this, Steve cranked up his volume, but
to no avail. It was then we revealed our secret weapon.

Simon Lewis opened up his bag and there was his set of bagpipes, he being a
proficient piper.

Out they came, he set them up, and we allowed the Afrikaans guys a minute or
two longer of their incessant loud rock.

Then, enough was enough. Up jumped Simon, chanter in gob, pumped up his
sack, then DRO-O-O-ONNN-N-N-E-E! THERE WAS A SOLDIER, A SCOTTISH SOLDIER
etc!

Fantastic! I couldn't hear anything else, just this amazingly loud and
frighteningly terrible droning bagpipe racket! A row of heads appeared above
the wall, "Wat die donner?" as Pook and his cronies sought to find out just
what it was that was drowning them out.

Another totally hilarious moment I'll treasure forever!

People came running from all over the place to find out what the racket was,
and I remember that night that Simon piped us all down to the mess hall and
back.'

You had to be there, I'm telling you. One day I'll finish this story and
Barry can stick it on his site...

Trev Perks - 06-05-2000

What about

" Life is life" , Nana Nanana" Wheres that bloody
razorblade man my wrists are itchy

Simon Lewis - 06-05-2000

Hell, guys, maybe they were state issue! the ghetto blaster in our bungalow
had lights round the speaker that used to keep time with the beat and give a
real disco effect. so even if you didn't hate the bloody song for the 1
millionth time, the flashing lights would piss you off.

Cheers,
Grant Howard - 8^th May 2000

I would love to know how many issue radio batteries got broken up into
little cells and re-wired to provide power to those bloody ghetto
Blaster's - I think that half the time we never had comm's was because the
batteries had all been nicked.

The horrible songs from my time:

Whispers in the Morning - Jennifer Rush
Forever young - Alphaville
Life is life - dunno but death is too good for them

Mark J. Davies 8^th May 2000

Life is Life was sung by a German bunch called Opus......
Obviously if you pronounce that name in Afrikaans, you get a better idea of their skills....
Jakes Louw - 8^th May 2000

Geez Jakes,

I pissed myself laughing at this .. This whole thread has been hilarious..
although I suspect that it had less to do with the music than with the fact
that you had a bunch of guys living extremely closely together for long
periods of time with no way to relieve the tension..

John Dovey - 8^th May 2000

John

And along comes Status Quo with "you're in the Army
now" I mean for fucks sake-overstate the obvious.

As for Opus, its must have been one of those oddly
South African things in that outside of Germany SA was
probably the only place where Opus had any success.

Simon Lewis - 8^th May 2000

So that's how you did it! I had a stereo on which I'd painted a Union Flag.
We used to tie it to the roll bar on the buffel and razz around Kwa Thema
with all sorts of 80s Brit pop playing. Inevitably we'd stop and there'd be
an impromptu disco with all the locpops.

I just tied a radio battery to the casing and wired it up to the battery
terminals.

This radio ended up bevok due to the abuse it got, and so my 15 yr old
boetie gave me his as he was gapping to the UK to finish his schooling. I
immediately sold it for R25 to Steve Adams the section organiser (need eggs?
steaks? ammo? He'd organise it).

He organised a battery, despite the fact that there were six new torch
batteries already in it, took out the D cells, wired up the comms radio
battery, and then we all laughed like drains as he switched it on and gave
us a fireworks display that nearly burnt down the tent.

The 25 bucks was already in my asbestos-lined pocket nice and safe.

Trev - 8^th May 2000

A similar sit-yashun existed with Mango Groove. When I was last in SA in
December 91 everyone was asking me what I thought of them, as they were
doing so well in the UK. Huh? Mango who? Utter bollocks, apparently they did
one gig at somewhere like the Castle Tavern in London, which obviously was
packed out, and the music press in SA reported a sell out tour!
PS I confess to having an album of theirs on CD.... curiosity got the better
of me!
Trev - 8^th May 2000

how about koos kombuis "die bar op de aar"about the trans karoo
"ek's oppad na die greans
en my een laaste wens
is n glas koue bier
in die gatkant van nerens"
translation
i;m on the way to the border
and last final wish
is for a cold beer
in the asshole of nowhere

please exuse the spelling and the not quite 100% translation
stuart
PS anyone remember the smell of the dodgy sheets and blankets you would get
on the train?!

Stuart Robertson - 10^th May 2000

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