Short description
This title is a brutally frank and refreshingly honest account, seventeen years after the fact, of a teenage national serviceman's exposure to and experiences in the war in Angola.
Long description
This title is a brutally frank and refreshingly honest account, seventeen years after the fact, of a teenage national serviceman's exposure to and experiences in the war in Angola. It does not glorify or demonise war, but tells the real story of so many young white South Africans like Holt who were sent into battle against overwhelming forces less than a year after finishing school. This title will resonate with the vast majority of those men, now entering or in middle age. The timing of the title is extraordinarily fortunate, coming just as interest in Cuito Cuanavale is being revived, with moves afoot to arrange battlefield tours, and debates raging anew in military and veteran circles about who the victors and vanquished were. At Thy Call has the hallmark of a classic battlefield biography, as well as providing a window into the world of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a riveting account of how a government took schoolboys and turned them into killing machines.