Matabele
Journey Man
My friend [censored] died a horrible but quick death. The Bedford truck bringing supplies to the Kanyemba area started to slow down as Gary, then a corporal in the Rhodesian territorial Army, approached it to guide it to the appropriate place...as he did so its left front wheel ignited a landmine and Gary was blown into oblivion.
I first met Gary on the playgrounds at Churchill High School, from there we became friends and he played base guitar in our little band that played at weddings, house parties and sports clubs... I last saw Gary on a train running between what was then Salisbury (Harare) and Bulawayo with his pregnant young wife. After I became a Chaplain I then helped bury Gary in a lonely grave on a rainy day at Warren Hills.
I told his wife: as I handed her his personal effects including their wedding ring, that it was a noble sacrifice. It was to preserve our country and prevent it becoming a wasteland and that his sacrifice would save lives. She looked at me with disbelief in her eyes and she was right! Not because of the reason he fought, but the end result! The cause was noble, but the end result was not as we wanted it to be.
It was Mugabe and his distorted philosophy against which we fought. It was not simply against the blacks who we loved. We may have treated them wrongly, we may have tossed aside their aspirations and misunderstood their capabilities, but our fight was not against them personally. Our fight was to preserve a way of life and a country, to prevent cruel and wicked dictators destroying and despising the whites and blacks and bringing bloodshed, heartache, and desolation, to a land so rich in potential, people and vitality.
We supported Ian Smith, not because he was a racist, but a man who understood that it was a country to be shared, and we also understood that it would transition to a country that reflected the aspirations of the indigenous Africans and assimilate them into the prosperity and potential of the land...eventually that majority rule was inevitable...we understood the paradigm change. We knew these things... and blood was spilt because of these things. We may not have got it right at all times, and we may not have done it right most times, and we may have misread their impatience during those times, but it was a righteous cause at all times.
The empty shelves, the desolate farms,the rampant disease, the daily chaos, the starving children and the overfilled morgues tell their story. The hopeless emptiness reflected in the eyes of the Zimbabweans as they struggle against bizarre inflation, government corruption and brutal dictatorship bear witness. To everything there is a season....may this one soon pass.
{name removed}
Former Chaplain to the Rhodesian Army
I first met Gary on the playgrounds at Churchill High School, from there we became friends and he played base guitar in our little band that played at weddings, house parties and sports clubs... I last saw Gary on a train running between what was then Salisbury (Harare) and Bulawayo with his pregnant young wife. After I became a Chaplain I then helped bury Gary in a lonely grave on a rainy day at Warren Hills.
I told his wife: as I handed her his personal effects including their wedding ring, that it was a noble sacrifice. It was to preserve our country and prevent it becoming a wasteland and that his sacrifice would save lives. She looked at me with disbelief in her eyes and she was right! Not because of the reason he fought, but the end result! The cause was noble, but the end result was not as we wanted it to be.
It was Mugabe and his distorted philosophy against which we fought. It was not simply against the blacks who we loved. We may have treated them wrongly, we may have tossed aside their aspirations and misunderstood their capabilities, but our fight was not against them personally. Our fight was to preserve a way of life and a country, to prevent cruel and wicked dictators destroying and despising the whites and blacks and bringing bloodshed, heartache, and desolation, to a land so rich in potential, people and vitality.
We supported Ian Smith, not because he was a racist, but a man who understood that it was a country to be shared, and we also understood that it would transition to a country that reflected the aspirations of the indigenous Africans and assimilate them into the prosperity and potential of the land...eventually that majority rule was inevitable...we understood the paradigm change. We knew these things... and blood was spilt because of these things. We may not have got it right at all times, and we may not have done it right most times, and we may have misread their impatience during those times, but it was a righteous cause at all times.
The empty shelves, the desolate farms,the rampant disease, the daily chaos, the starving children and the overfilled morgues tell their story. The hopeless emptiness reflected in the eyes of the Zimbabweans as they struggle against bizarre inflation, government corruption and brutal dictatorship bear witness. To everything there is a season....may this one soon pass.
{name removed}
Former Chaplain to the Rhodesian Army
