Border-line Insanity - Tim Ramsden

Border-Line Insanity offers the reader an insight into the life and times of a conscripted whie soldier i nthe ranks of the South African Army during the border war fought in SWA/Namibia and Angola.

In 1984, as an 18-year-old high school graduate, the author was thrust into a world of strict order, discipline, character building and a subtle brainwashing that moulded him into the soldier he needed to be for his mandatory two-years National Service.

The author takes the reader through his training and explains the unbreakable bonds of comradeship that developed between the members of his platoon. Eventually his platoon was deployed to the SWA/Namibian-Angola border. Here the author learned saw and smelt death and experienced the insanities that went with it. The platoon was then deployed to the Mozambique border to stem the flow of refugees, where three of his comrades were captured and imprisoned by the Mozambique army.

The book is richly illustrated with photographs taken illegally by the author, who covertly carried a camera with him wherever he went, despite it being a chargeable offence. This provides probably the best published photographic record of South African National Service.