A Message To Sally

It was 1980 and I was a reluctant conscript in the Apartheid military machine. I had been in the infantry for 9 months when, at 18h50 on Saturday, April 5, I boarded a Safair Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules (ZS-JUV) and took off from Hoedspruit for the Namibian "Operational Area". We flew at 24,000 feet and landed at Grootfontein at 22h22. I was officially in the combat zone. Almost two weeks later, I wrote the following entry in my diary: "After a week in the bush we are now 8km from Angola. To an RV - set up a T/B. Sec 3 went out on patrol - we parked off. Got signal from Coy HQ that we have to go back! Started walking. Walked 5km, then set up a T/B. A bit late (18h30)! Didn't even bother to dig in".

On that same day, April 18, 1980, this picture of the model Sally Nicholson was published in the South African "Scope" magazine, and we must have received it at our base at 53 Battalion, Ondangwa, Ovamboland, soon thereafter. As you can see from the creases on the paper, this centre-spread folded up to top pocket size, and I carried it with me for much of the remaining 15 months in the military. Strange you may say to yourself. But try to think yourself into that time and place. The brutality of Apartheid and Afrikaner imperialism had press-ganged me into the military juggernaut, fighting a war I didn't believe in. Being a left-wing "Soutie" (English speaker) I was earmarked for special attention, and (along with a handful of others) was branded a "Fucking Communist" for two years. I was disposable cannon fodder in an unjust and immoral conflict, and there was no escape. Except in my head. As the great Asylum Kids once sang, "Fight It With Your Mind", and some of us did exactly that.

This picture was part of that survival strategy, and it functioned at many levels. Sure, Sally Nicholson is a pretty girl - that helped! But it was really the escapism that the picture represented that made it important to me. The image has vibrant colour, which contrasted with the drab nutria combat fatigues, the camouflaged gear, the arid semi-desert of Ovamboland and the rasping brown brutality of the vegetation there. It was a land without colour but, in my pocket, I had a rainbow of beauty. And look at that smile, those eyes, the innocence. It was a wonderful antidote for the brutality and evil that we wallowed in. Sally also represented my dreams - she represented the lover I had left behind 9 months earlier (and recently lost to a "Dear Johnny..." letter). Sally was the aspiration - the soft, delicate angel that we all fantasised about encountering when we eventually got home. We were in a hard, unforgiving place, and this young lady was a portable beacon of hope. Pocketable escapism. She went through a lot with me, survived some ghastly experiences (including a month in incarceration) and the fact that I still have this poster over a quarter of a century later speaks volumes about its importance to me. But I must say, that cute little cameltoe also helped ;-)

So, Sally Nicholson, I know nothing about you or where you are today, but thank you for helping me survive the darkest period of my life. You didn't know it, but you made a difference and will, in my mind, be forever young. Thanks for being there with me...



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