Top Secret – Not for WikiLeak or even One Behind a Bush
Dear Minister of Defence, Lindiwe Sisulu,
I see people are taking pot shots at you because you can’t keep your Army in order. It’s most unfair because it’s not your fault. You would think President Zuma would have known better than to have appointed you.
You can’t have a woman in charge of a Defence Force, especially when she hides a vital report from Parliament under her skirt for months on end. Take our dog as an example. He takes absolutely no notice of my wife when he runs off down the road and he’s only a little Maltese.
South Africa must be the only country in the Universe where army discipline is worse than in our Government schools. And as you know one of the most charming aspects of these seats of learning is the way the teachers compete to see how many of their pupils they can get pregnant. Mind you I think I read something similar about our brave soldiers doing their bit in this regard while on a peace keeping holiday elsewhere in Africa.
How times have changed. When I was at an all boys’ school (1951-1971) they didn’t stand any nonsense in the Cadet Force I can tell you. They had a Gestapo trained master in charge and when four boys pitched up 10 minutes late for a parade one day he made them run the gauntlet across the shooting range while the two best shots had a crack at them. I can’t bear to think about what happened next. If only you and your easy going, sympathetic ANC Government had been around then those boys would still be alive today. And to think that one of them was a mere five years old.
I have nightmares about it. I remember our headmaster at assembly next day saying angrily: We don’t produce Victoria Cross winners of the future by having little squirts in our Cadet Force. So let yesterday’s events be a warning to you all. Achtung, now get the Hell out of here.
In one of those proud British regiments, if you even thought of deserting or starting a union you would have had a hole between your eyes and your family at home would have been officially ostracised. Somebody who was an officer in one of them contributed the following scenario as to what it would have been like for African National Congress trained troops in a trench during the First World waiting to ‘go over the top’.
Company Commander: Right men, follow me!
Sergeant Major: Can’t say ‘men’ sir that’s discriminatory, some of our lads are women!
C: OK. When I say ‘Go’ it’s up these ladders and over the top.
S.M: Sorry sir, Cpl Van der Merwe says the ladders have more than three steps and so we must have handrails or scaffolding before we can proceed, that’s in our South African Constitution, which everybody, especially the Germans over there, say is the best in the world.
C: Who the hell is Cpl Van der Merwe?”
S.M: He’s our shop steward sir, we must listen to him otherwise he’ll call them all out and it’ll be ‘down rifles’.
C: What about that platoon sitting down over there, why aren’t they formed up and ready to go?
S S.M:They’ve been on duty for almost 40 hours this week already so they must have time off now otherwise they will exceed the maximum hours.
C: Thats a lot of rot, get them to form up now!
S.M: Sorry sir, I’ve already tried and they threatened to go to the union.
C: All this is wasting time, we are already late for ‘H’ hour, tell the troops to fix bayonets.
S.M: Sorry sir, no bayonets, they were all taken away when the government enforced that law about carrying assegais and similar cultural weapons.
C: I’ve had enough of this bullshit, when I blow my whistle I want everyone to go over the top!
S.M: We’d love to come with you sir but its now 10h00, time for the tea break
Can you imagine Lady Minister how that Commander must have felt going into a hail of machine gun fire all by himself while all your gutless troops were thinking about was obeying union rules. I know old Van der Merwe has been the butt of a lot of South African jokes but he’s going to be hard pressed to beat the ones that are going to surface about you and your Army.
The papers say that you are still trying to get rid of 900 soldiers who staged a protest march to the Union Buildings last year. Are they on full pay? If not why not because you know perfectly well that every Government employee it entitled to full pay for at least 10 years while they argue their case.
A judge has now shot down the dismissal notices you issued just after the protest began by ruling these were unconstitutional. Didn’t I tell you that our Constitution was top notch? The SA National Defence Force Union is winning because the judge also said you can’t sack them until the Military Bargaining Council has heard their case. Hopefully we won’t have a war in the meantime.
According to the Commission’s report that you hung onto for so long they really had nothing to complain about. So I don’t know why you didn’t hand it over sooner.
The moral to the story Lindiwe, my girl is that you can never win a war against a Unionised Army.
Yours faithfully
Jon, Retired Field Marshall of the Old School.
* * *
VOTE FOR THE DA. Somebody’s got to put the brake on before South Africa goes over the cliff with the ANC at the wheel.
Civvy Street
. They were also clocking in for only an hour a day with
the knowledge of
their superior officers. It was just like being back at school.
Labour Court
if
they don't get time off now. You may have forgotten that today is Sunday and we are having to pay this lot time and a half now and our Government can't afford that and also pay all those millions into
the General's Swiss bank account in case we lose
the War.
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