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Troepie
Tant Mossie (Pseud. Joan Abrahams)
1989
Tannie Mossie
A very distinctive tradition of the Parabats involved 'Tannie Mossie' (English: Aunt Sparrow).
Tannie Mossie is Ms Joan Abrams, a teacher in the city of Bloemfontein. She chose the name after the legend of a group of women who requested government to put a sparrow on the smallest coin in South Africas currency denomination. The reference comes from the Bible in Matthew 10:29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father".
Tannie Mossie wanted every soldier to know that God will protect them falling from the sky with their parachutes. She handed every soldier a necklace, consisting of a half cent on a string of para-cord, before they were deployed for active duty, telling them the story of the women and of Matthew 10:29. She truly loved the soldiers and the duty they were doing for their country and took it upon herself to be a mother or loving aunt to all of them. She enlisted thousands of elementary school children to write letters to the parabats, usually titled: Liewe Oom Dapper Soldaat (Dear Uncle Brave Soldier).
These letters made an impact on many soldiers, not only providing a face of the innocents that the soldiers were protecting, but also much more. Even soldiers killed in action were found with some of these letters, tattered from repeated reading, folded inside their pocket Bibles. Lifelong friendships were found with families from these letters and an unknown amount of motivation came from them.
Apart from letters, Tannie Mossie made sure that paratroopers regularly got other mail, food parcels, visits and even published a few books which were mostly compilations of soldiers tales.
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