A fast-moving, action-packed account of Granger Korff’s two years’ service during 1980/81 with 1 Parachute Battalion at the height of the South African ‘bush war’ in South West Africa (Namibia) and Angola. Apart from the ‘standard’ counterinsurgency activities of Fireforce operations, ambushing and patrols, to contact and destroy SWAPO guerrillas, he was involved in several massive South African Defence Force (SADF) conventional cross-border operations, such as Protea, Daisy and Carnation, into Angola to take on FAPLA (Angolan MPLA troops) and their Cuban and Soviet allies. Having grown up as an East Rand rebel street-fighter, Korff’s military ‘career’ is marred with controversy. He is always in trouble—going AWOL on the eve of battle in order to get to the front; facing a court martial for beating up, and reducing to tears, a sergeant-major in front of the troops; fist-fighting with Drug Squad agents; arrested at gunpoint after the grueling seven-week, 700km Recce selection endurance march—are but some of the colorful anecdotes that lace this account of service in the SADF.

• Cover
• Contents
• Understanding the Border War between Angola, SWAPO and South Africa
• Howzit
• Growing up in South Africa
• SWAPO—the bush war on the Angolan/South West African border
• Into the army
• 1 Parachute Battalion
• Jump course
• 1 Reconnaissance Commando selection course
• Now what?
• Gatvol
• Back to 1 Parachute Battalion
• Ondangwa—1 Parachute Battalion’s operational base on the border
• Into Angola
• Base nights
• First blood
• Contact
• 32 Battalion
• Free Nelson Mandela
• Back into Angola—Operation Ceiling, June 1981
• Dawn ambush—‘Take no prisoners; kill them all’
• Deadly clash with FAPLA
• More contact
• Bush justice
• Hidden from view
• Court martial
• Operation Protea—August 1981
• Trenches and bunkers
• 21 at last
• The end of Operation Protea
• Glorious 21-day pass
• Operation Daisy—October/November 1981
• Enough is enough
• Epilogue—March 2008