RUNDU
SAMVOZA Veteran Mark Holder recounted his experiences from 1979
"Back at base [Rundu, on ops deployment] and after a few weeks, we were told we were having a Braai. Our section was tasked to collect some wood for the braai and nothing less than the hardest wood - from the Kameeldoring Tree: dark red, as hard as steel and burns for days.
So we set off, and not too far off we found an ideal specimen. A dry - and what seemed like - an old, dead tree. I shouted to the guys in the back that I was going to drive [the Buffel] over the tree and we could pick up the broken wood.
I hit the tree at about 30km/hr - and had a Deja Vu moment: back on the rugby field in Upington... The tree never moved. We all got whiplash and the top dry branches fell on top of us, and they were hard and heavy.
I was not very popular at that moment. Once we got ourselves brushed off, we collected as much of the wood as we could, but it was not enough for a Company Braai.
There were a few pieces about as thick as my leg that we could not break to get into the Buffel, so we decide to build a ramp for me to drive up because that should break the branches.
That never happened. That wood never gave an inch. We turned the branch over and still nothing. So we drove back to camp with these long, awkward, heavy branches propped up on the floor in the seating area and out over the back of the Buffel, with the guys holding on for dear life.
I’m glad the NCO’S never got it into their heads to give us “Pole PT” with those branches.
But what a fire... and it lasted for days."
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