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Condition: Good. Normal light reading wear, clean and tight.
Format: Medium softcover
Published: 1986 (Saayman & Weber)
Pages: 149
ISBN: 9780797100251
The author has written about a period in our military history. He starts at one point and works his way systematically through a series of events to arrive at another point. He succeeds masterfully in refraining from a cold and impersonal discussion of this segment of history.
With material like this an author can easily fall into the trap of and then this happened, and then that happened. The birth and growth of 32 Battalion is reported clearly and factually without it ever reading like a history textbook. The excellent way in which the author uses the language lends finesse to the book, yet every now and then Jan Breytenbach does surface and it is as if one is sitting under a camel-thorn tree listening to interesting stories told by this extraordinary and sometimes controversial man. His humour and distinctive style often gives one an insight into the extremely human soul of the Jan Breytenbach masked behind the rough and almost frightening exterior of the hardened soldier.
It goes without saying that the birth of a unit such as 32 Battalion has to be accompanied by the inevitable birth pangs. In Breytenbachs book the wretchedness, accompanying these pains, is often visible, but always sketched with a smile through the tears, and the reader is never confronted with the absolutely sordid.
To create an effective war machine out of an untrained, undisciplined group of men is no mean feat. One is always aware of the pleasure he takes in his work and that he is very proud of the result he has produced. This he does simply, and without being ostentatious. One never gets the impression of I did this and I did that, but still clearly notes what he has achieved. This is emphasized best perhaps by the often modest way in which he tells his story.
-- GENERAL J.J. GELDENHUYS, SSA, SD, SM (Chief of the South African Defence Force.)
