Ops Medic: A National Serviceman’s Border War
by Steven Webb

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This book takes you from National Service basics in the SAMS Depot Potchefstroom to training as an ops medic in Pretoria and from there to the Angolan - South West African border where a counter-insurgency war had been raging for many years.
Published for the first time is the SADF’s Roll of Honour which lists almost 2,500 of its honoured dead killed on active service and the complete roll of the SADF’s Honoris Crux awards for bravery.

As a recent British immigrant Steven Webb was exempt from the compulsory two-year call-up for National Service that all white South African males faced when they turned 18. Despite this he volunteered for National Service in July 1984 and then volunteered to serve in the South African Medical Service. Following basic training he was posted to SAMS Combat Medical Operation Company (Ops Company) for six months of advanced specialist training. In the lecture room and later in civilian hospitals he learned the arts of stabilising patients, stopping bleeding, maintaining airways, suturing wounds, administering drips and performing minor lifesaving medical procedures.

On 1 March 1985 he was sent to SWA/Namibia, where he saw service in Angola until the SADF withdrew its troops a month later. From there he was posted to 53-Battalion’s company base at Etale. It was garrisoned by Owambo troops of the SWATF’s 101-Battalion and white National Servicemen.

He writes about border patrols conducted on foot and in Buffel mine protected fighting vehicles, seeking out SWAPO’s armed guerrillas who had infiltrated from Angola and the constant anticipation of ambush by an elusive foe. He tells of the stabilisation and casevac of casualties by helicopter.

In truth white National Service units achieved little success in the border war against an underrated enemy. As one senior officer put it: ‘In my view SWAPO, despite inferior weaponry, was ahead of us in most respects. We took a boy who had just matriculated, gave him a gun, two or three months of basic training — and threw him into the middle of a country that he didn’t know, people he didn’t understand and an enemy he had never seen. No wonder he didn’t do very well. Nevertheless, the young conscripts bore a terrible load, for which they received little gratitude.’

So this is not the story of elite and glamorous fighting units like the Reconnaissance Commandos, Koevoet, 32-Battalion, or the Parachute Battalions and the successes they achieved, but of young, white, conscripted National Serviceman, often straight from school, who were thrown headfirst into a guerrilla war in a country outside of South Africa and far from home.

Many National Servicemen, including 37 Ops Medics, died fighting in the Border War. Fifteen were awarded the Honoris Crux (two of the silver grade) for bravery — four posthumously.

Important note: Book includes the SADF’s Roll of Honour which lists almost  2,500 of its honoured dead killed on active service and the complete roll of the SADF’s Honoris Crux awards for bravery — both published for the first time.

Media Reviews

Webb, a Briton, volunteered for national service in the SADF and chose to serve in the SAMS, usually a ‘cushy number’.  He then volunteered for the Combat Medical Operational Company and after six months of further training graduated as an ‘Ops Medic’ and posted to Sector 10 in the Operational Area. There he was posted to Etale, a company base halfway between Ondangwa, home to an air force base of the same name, and the Angolan border. Etale was garrisoned by troops of the then SWA Territorial Force’s 101 Battalion.

The border war lasted from 1966 to 1989 but to date very little has been written about the national service experience of many thousands of young men and even less about the ‘medics’. The SAMS features in nearly every book written on the border war but always hovers in the background. Ops Medic breaks new ground, giving SAMS centre stage. Ops Medics enjoyed an enviable reputation for toughness ¾ their training was severe ¾ and competence in the medical field.

Webb’s war was more routine than action. His days were spent alternating between base and patrol, with the latter preferred as it took him away from Permanent Force oversight. The patrols with 101 Bn were mostly uneventful, barring a few minor contacts and lively interactions with the local population.

Webb missed the ‘big’ operations of 1983-84 and 1987-89. That was his good fortune. Other national servicemen did not and some paid the full price with their young lives, Some were scarred physically and otherwise. Happily only a small number of servicemen ever saw heavy action, but those that did, often saw war at its ugliest. Many of them were ops medics. In October 1987, for example, two ops medics attached to 101 Bn during Operation Firewood won the Honoris Crux (then the highest decoration for valour) for fighting off the enemy while saving wounded infantry while under fire. The battle itself, at Indungo, far to the north of the Namibian border has seldom been written about and never in great detail, Yet it marked the rare occasion when the SADF faced off  Umkhonto we Sizwe. At Indungo the enemy was a  Cuban tank and artillery element with MK motorised infantry. From the telling, both sides gave a very good account of themselves.

Webb records that 37 Ops Medics died in combat during the Border War and 13 were decorated with the Honoris Crux  The 101 Bn duo deservedly received the HC in silver. Three of the 15 medals were presented posthumously.

Ops Medic is a satisfying and nostalgic read for every ex-NSM and anyone who wants to know how it was.  Webb does not indulge in embellishment and tall tales. For that as an ex-101 Bn serviceman (1987-89) I thank him.
African Armed Forces Journal: November 2008

Steven Webb was a volunteer (he had been exempted) who nevertheless joined the SA Medical Service – now SAMHS – and completed two tours of border duty as an ops medic.

His understated descriptive style only heightens the impact of his story, with the inevitable absurdities  among the boredom, drama and occasional tragedy. Animal ‘walk-on parts’ include a drunken meerkat and a sharp-toothed genet.

Useful pointers for the uninitiated include don’t excavate your nose while travelling at speed, in convoy, along a possibly landmined, definitely bumpy, sand road. The resulting self-inflicted trauma can end up filling your staaldak with about as much blood as is left in your body.

Bonus features: the first complete SADF Roll of Honour for the border war years, plus a first full listing of Honoris Crux winners.
James Mitchell – The Star

Vrywilliger  vertel sy grensverhaal Hy was  lus  vir  ’n paar  avonture

 Erica Gibson

Die rol van nasionale dienspligtiges tydens Suid-Afrika se uitgebreide grensoorlog is vir lank misken.Argumente aan albei kante van die draad het dit al gehad dat die gebruik van duisende dienspligtiges nie noodwendig suksesvol was nie. As in ag geneem word dat hulle in die meeste gevalle jong matrikulante was wat nà drie maande se basiese oplieiding ʼn geweer in die hand gestop is, in ʼn land wat hulle nie geken het, ontplooi is waar hulle nie die mense of hul taal verstaan het nie, was dit te wagte.
Boonop was die vyand (met respek) nie een van die wêreld se bes opgeleide magte nie.Daar is al baie geskryf oor die heldedade van die oorlog, maar genoemde boek is vir  ʼn verandering bloot die verhaal van ʼn dienspligtige.

Boonop is dit die storie van ʼn Britse immigrant, wat nie eens nodig gehad het om diensplig te doen nie.Webb het soos baie tienerseuns lus gehad vir ʼn paar avonture en toe sy jonger broer besluit om vrywillig diensplig te gaan doen, het Webb dieselfde gedoen.
Hy het geen benul gehad van wat op hom gewag het nie – hy het nie eens geweet in watter korps hy wou gaan dien nie.Die SA Geneeskundige Diens het vir hom aanvaarbaar geklink omdat hy gemeen het die vyand sal nie sommer op mediese ordonnanse skiet nie...Hy’t nie geweet wat kommunisme beteken nie; Swapo, Plan, MPLA en FNLA was vir hom onbekende terme.“I had no idea who they were and I had no ambition to be a hero. I didn’t want to kill anyone and I most certainly didn’t want to get killed.”

Ondanks sy voorbehoude het Webb in die hitte van die stryd beland – aanvanklik omdat skermutselings aan die orde van die dag was en later omdat hy dit al hoe meer begin geniet he tom op patrollies saam te gaan eerder as om in ʼn kliniek te sit en wag vir gewondes.

Webb se storie is eenvoudig, sonder pretensies, soms met ʼn traan en soms oor die komiese sy van ʼn oorlog wat in die algemeen glad nie snaaks was nie.Hy vertel ook die storie van mediese ordonnanse, wat maar selde as gevolg van heldedade in die kollig was.

Tog het 15 van hulle destyds die Honoris Crux-medalje vir dapperheid ontvang. Vier daarvan is postuum toegeken. Die boek bevat verder, as ’n aanhangsel, ʼn volledige lys van die weermag se ererol van bykans 2 500 soldate wat in aksie gesterf het.
Dit is die eerste keer dat dié volledige rol gepubliseer word.


Erica Gibson is die militêre verslaggewer van Beeld.

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Ops medic badge used with kind permissionof Stan le Roux and www.opsmedic.co.za