The Dasilva Code

TOE THE LINE

THE FINE LINE BETWEEN THE  RIGHT AND WRONG SIDE OF THE LAW

22 February 2012

My life has been a strange journey, one in which i have met all manner of people and had the craziest of times. I have rolled with some of the wackiest people around and made friends and passing pals with some of the strangest, most odd of people. This is the story of those blurry lines that seperate us from one side of the law from the “other”.

I have written at length of the crazy crap i have done in my life in previous entries but this one is as usual all true and very factual. It tells of the other side of my life and the people i met and have shared nano seconds with while they were spinning in their own cycles of life, others are of my dad and the stuff he would always get himself into. I have the utmost respect for my father and those i mention here on in except for those that i vehemently and openly despise, they will be named as i dont give a noddy willy what the hell they think!

It started the other day when i was reading a book on Kindle by Mandy Weiner called Killing Kebble and the players and names brought back a flood of memories from way back when i was still hanging it out there over the edge so to speak. Nothing quite like the names who follow as they were “Legend” in the streets of the south of Joburg where we grew up. In the early parts of the book there are a lot of entries by Mikey Schultz and “Kappie” whom i knew fleetingly. Mikey was just the badest “MOFO’ in town and everyone was a tad frightened when he was in the vacinity. His reputation definately preceeded him. Kappie on the other hand was a quiet type dude who we got to meet at our favourite restaurant run by my very close friend Michelle. He would sit there and just blend with the local crowd that had made Ze`s restaurant in the Comaro crossing in the south of Joburg their home away from home. Kappie had a pretty white girlfriend named Petro who it seems had an ugly drug habit. She would every so often get up and leave the table under the pretense of going for a “shush” a colloquial term for taking a pee, but in reality she was off to take a “bathroom blitz”, this is to snort coke. We all knew she was a coke head and we also knew that it bothered Kappie, he made it quite clear on occasion. Kappie would sit there at the table with his Taurus 9mm nickel plated pistol jauntily perched in his pants and would join in with us when we broke out the then legendary “Turbo Vodka`s”. These were the standard issue Smirnoff spins with a double vodka and dash of Grenadine Added for the aforementioned Turbo kick. we would often get snot drunk on these abominations but it was Ze`s and we were a “tribe”. Kappie would pop in every so often in his BMW E36 M3 dolphin shape and we all were aware that the one he arrived with that day was most likely “hot”‘. He assured us that he just worked at a panelbeater and they were legit but we were always skeptical. We grew up in the south and werent entirely “green”. We knew that Kappie was a gangster but he was always so polite and restained that we never felt intimidated by him. I had a little bit of a reputation as being a loose cannon and was on many occasions referred to as “Joe`s crazy son”, i used to work in the private security field and had a few run ins with bad dudes and left them bleeding and dying. The difference was that i was on the “good” dudes side and i had slotted bad guys. My two grand claims to fame were the dude that i shot full of holes and filled full of lead in my parents house when three of them attacked and accosted my mother one evening, i had just gotten to my dads old restaurant “Del Sol, Madeira Bar” in regents park when i received a call from my ex wife that “something” was happening at my parents house. She had received a call from someone that was on the phone when these three bastards attacked my mom. I rushed to the house and after a shootout that i lead i had tagged one fucker six times with my .45ACP pistol and chased the remaining two off ( the clown i shot staggered off and died elsewhere, these bliksems are as tough as cockroaches). The detectives from booysens police station knew me as they used to sit and drink themselves blind at Madeira bar. my notoriety seemed to preceed me then and they called me besides crazy Mike or Joe`s crazy son, they also referrred to me as two gun Mike because i always carried my primary piece (.45ACP pistol and a smaller caliber back up pistol, a makarov or Czech made 7.65mm CZ). My second noteworthy shoot was a month later when i dropped a bank robber in the Standard Bank in Jules street in Malvern just around the corner from the Cleveland police station, i mention the police station as i would be visiting there a few years later when my father stayed there as a guest one weekend. That time too the detectives from Booysens police station were on scene and just told the others that i was a magnet for shit. If there is going to be trouble i would probably be there. I walked away clean as a virgin as it was a “christian” shoot, my friend and the dude i was backing up that day George Liverdos can confirm that. We did protection for trucks and money collection to a trucking company on bank day.

Kappie was a mellow guy as opposed to Mikey Schultz who was always on a razors edge, i met him once at the O Hagans in the Comaro crossing shopping centre and he was already blotto and was looking for shit. I had gone to the toilet after finishing a long sunday drive to the Swazi border following a truck with LG tv`s and stuff in it and stopped at the OHagans for a beer, it was about 5 o clock in the evening and when i turned from the urinal and went to wash my hands at the sink Mikey retorted from behind me that only okes with dirty cocks wash their hands after taking a piss! I didnt immediately realise who he was and my answer was straight forward ” what the fuck ever!” i left and sat at the bar. The bar man said to me “do you know who is here?” “its Mikey Schultz and he has been making kak all day”. I fucking froze and knew that if i stayed a nano second longer i was going to be in deep shit. i would have to shoot the dude if i wanted to walk out the place. i gulped my draught beer down and fucked off fast like. Mikey Schultz is one of those dudes you dont dare cross or make cross and i knew this hence my very quick retreat. Kappie on the other hand is a cool by the pool type cat. He would sit with us and drink and talk small talk without coming across as an axe murderer, he was really a nice guy. His chick Petro though was a tad course and rough around the edges and one day she really pissed me off no end. We were sitting at Ze`s as usual and talking shit as usual when she blurted out something that offended me to my very soul. I had met this “waif” like chick that worked at the nail salon and i was quite taken by her, at first i watched and took mental notes of her “MO” modus operandi and i thought that this could be a good girlfriend, she is a tad air head and smokes a ton of weed but she is quiet and relatively settled. I made my move and started the dude thing to try and wow her. I knew fully that we werent an item but the seed was planted, unfortunately she was also targeted by some fucko named Martin who was in my mind a gormless wanker. One evening he and this chick i was interested in went to her place to smoke a joint and she ended up performing fellatio on him in the bath of all places. Petro and everyone else got to hear of this episode and a month later i got around to asking this cherry out and we set up shack together. I arrived at Ze`s and the first thing Petro blurted out was ” so did you kiss her today?, now you know what Martins cock tastes like”. I fucking exploded and stormed off!  I fully understand that all people have sex lives before we meet them but to have it so crassly chucked in  your face bothered me a tad. A few days later i was at Ze`s restaurant and Kappie arrived in yet a different BMW M3 and asked me why i was so “narked’ , pissed off. I told him what his chick had said and he was furious, he left a little later and the next time i saw Petro she apologised for saying what she said and how she said it, look  it was true but the way she said it was blunt to say the least!   After that we were very uneasy in one anothers company and we never spoke too much to each other. Kappie showed again that yes he is a tough as nails dude with questionable associations and means of income but he is a “Goodfella” at heart.

The likes of Mikey Schultz,Lionel Hunter,Mitzi, Kappie are not your run of the mill type dudes with 9 to 5 jobs and they have done some freaky shit, but in the end they are solid dudes who live by codes of honour for friends few people ever experience. its a pity there arent more people out there with bonds of friendship and camaraderie like these gangsters have. People dont have to be inherently bad or evil, but if people were as honour bound as these guys are to pals the world would be a better place, except of course for all the freaky crime stuff. Look i am not advocating the shit they made and the crap they done but they are a cohesive unit which the civilian world just does not have. There is order amongst the chaos you just got to know where to look.

My dad. The man that defined my personality. My old man was a hard break your back working type and i looked up to him although i never really made it known or obvious. My dad was always looking to climb the ladder and make his life better. He tried everything and even when he knew that the risks were high he would persevere to his detriment sometimes. My dad started off Madeira bar in Regents Park on the border of Roseacre with his partner in business Luis, a self absorbed schmuck. Luis right from the outset seemed to be teflon coated as fuckall that he did that was illicit or illegal stuck to him, it seems my dad was the velcro part of the team and whenever the shit and cops came knocking, it was my dad that had to take a big bite of the poo sandwich while that fat fuck Luis always walked away all virgin like. Luis is a real neanderthal type porra and eats lke there is no tomorrow, he keeps his trophy wife caged up at home and never allows her to set foot in the restauurant, ever! He is a jealous sack of lard masquerading as a man in meat sack. I have zero time for this arse hole! I dont know where he is now or what he is doing but i genuinely hope he is fucking miserble!

My dad always allowed himself to be suckered into Luis`s underhanded plans and always bore the brunt when the cops came knocking. Luis had connections with some trucking dudes and they would arrive at Madeira bar in their rigs towing a container of what have you, offering it up for sale. This would happen frequently even while the aforementoned “detectives” or as i called them “defectives” from Booysens police staion were sitting there getting blotto on “Catembe”( wine, red or white and coke in a beer mug.) The onus would fall on my dad to take the load of whatever it was and keep “hijacked” stuff at his place or at a place my dad was associated with. By this time my dad had bought a house behind Madeira bar in the adjacent street and it was mine, apparently. My ex wife and i lived there and it was a great spot. i was quite happy, i would work at a company during the day running their security and follow trucks at night for a carrier delivering goods to Botswana and Swaziland. The money was good and i was busy as ever. One day my dad called me to Madeira bar in Winnie street to come and join him on a delivery, my main task was to buy Luis a new cell phone batterey for his then Erricsson at the nearest shop to where they were going. When i got to the Madeira bar i noted a “canter” truck as used by the cops to ferry suspects to and from the magistrate courts parked outside the restaurant, the truck was even painted in the police colours! I asked my dad what the truck was doing there?, he said that the Indian dudes they were doing business with had bought it at an auction and were using it to transport illicit goods “under cover”. I wasnt buying this cockamamey bullshit story at all! I looked at these nervous Indian dudes and they struck me as genuinely “dubious mother fuckers”. I was to be proved right later in the morning. My dad had asked me to not park in my garage the day before and he loaded it to the rafters with cartons that contained “heisted” designer caps of all things, destined for a renouned chain store in the upmarket stores in eastgate, northgate etc. The caps were branded on the inside with the stores logo. Its my dad and i comply but i start getting uneasy with this ‘ex police truck” and very jittery Indian dudes. We drove to Rosebank and turned off Oxfrord road into an exclusive property on the main road, what immediately struck me was the fact that the gates were open and left open when we arrived. I still told my dad that it would be wiser to close the gates so we had a tad more privacy. The gates were closed and as soon as they were, a million cops suddenly poured into the property over the gate and wall. They couldnt just waltz in as planned and their video surveillance was corrupted. We were all held at gun point and when they saw i was armed with multiple weapons and a plethora of magazines i was kept under very tight gun point. 2 dildo cops with R5 rilfles kept me pinned to the floor. Eventually we were allowed to sit on our knees and photos were taken of everyone on site and when a cop took my statement and found out that i followed trucks in the evening providing anti hi jack services he bellowed with laughter and retorted to the other cops that ” here is a dude that protects trucks in the evenings but hijacks them during the day”. All the guys on site were questioned and i was eventually allowed to go free as they deduced that i was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Indian dudes were arrseted and my dad was placed under ” investigation” but allowed to walk free this time. There were so many crooked cops hanging out at Madeira bar that i started to lose all respect for the law in general.

An example herewith follows of the corrupt nature of Booysens police station “defectives”. There was a particular arse hole cop that would frequent Madeira bar and would openly state that he was “investigating”the place due to the goings on. I concur that there was stupid decisions made at upper management level, like selling box loads of takkies (sneakers) right there in the restaurant to patrons while they sat and ate giblets and steak trinchado`s and consumed copious amounts of well priced booze. This particular stained cop had pressured Luis and my dad into buying him a new cell phone (top of the range back then) and he sat there and got shit faced eating for free and playing with his ‘new’ phone, then going to the toilet to take a shit and left the stall leaving his issue Z88 pistol on the cistern top. It just so happened i went to the toilets and found this meat sacks police issue 9mm lying on the top of the toilet, he was so fucked he didnt realise he had left it there when he sat to take a shit! I calmly unloaded the pistol and strolled up to him at the bar and slammed it down on the counter with the magazine and told him “YOU LEFT SOMETHING BEHIND!” and “maybe next time you should learn to fucking flush!” I was insatantaneously very unliked. The good thing for me was that i genuinely felt fuckall those days and i walked the walk as good as i talked the talk. we didnt see him back in a hurry! captain fucko was one of those that had bounded over the wall in Oxford road Rosebank with the cap debacle.

A few years later in 2004/5 i was working in my dads mini mart in a notoriously bad part of the south. We were in a street in Turfontein across from the Solly Kramers bottlestore and tavern and everyday was “boxing day”. i quite literally got to smack drunk floppy`s every day. One fucko stood there on a Friday at peak business hour and swore my mother, he told my mom ” jou ma se Poes” ( your mothers cunt) and i went beserk, i clouted this piece of shit right on the ear and he went down like a ton of shit. I had smacked him from the opposite side of the counter and then ran around and hoofed him a shot, then I dragged him out by his foot and swung the clown out the door of the shop. I went back behind the counter and served the next customer like nothing happened. The customer laughed and said in afrikaans “Fok, julle porras voel fok all ne?”( you porras feel fuckall hey) and he laughed at the crazy shit, i thought for a moment and i too laughed. This wasnt a normal supermarket and we catered for the lower income individuals. I became very agressive at the shop and pulled my .45ACP on new years eve on a throng of bozeys that wanted to kill some dude that was peripherally involved on a stupid assault on a black guy. The guilty party had seeked shelter from the throng in a place called ‘the midnight cafe”, a dive run by Lebanese dudes who used to break into shops and try sell the loot to other shops! The day my dad closed the doors and said he had enough of this shit shop was a good day. More than 10 break in`s and 4 armed robberies had changed his mind. My dad told me that he was done working like a slave for the criminals to take his money. Just before we closed Luis had a contact that was driving a truck transporting a shit load of booze and he told the driver to reverse into our premises to unload the swill. The truck was filled to the brim with Jack Daniel`s gift boxes and Absinthe. it was a load of note, a mother load! Unfortunately the pallets were tagged and the cops were soon sniffing around. Fortunately the pallets were sold to the bozeys in the area and the booze moved very fast so by the time the cops arrived there was no proof of the crime other than the drivers testimony and one broken Jack Daniel`s bottle, but seeing as the shop was once a restaurant with a current liquor licence the cops had squat. They did however take my dad off in an unmarked BMW and put pressure on, my dad was then locked up in Cleveland police station for the weekend as they knew that my dad would have to wait till monday to get released. The cops who were all skew were thinking that the weekend in jail would pressure my dad to talk and hand over the “brains”, that idiot Luis, but my dad just sat and walked out with no charges on monday evening but my dad was changed. He had enough of Luis and his apparent bullet proofness. my dad stopped entertaining Luis`s schemes and carried on with the shop until the final robbery and the follow up attack at the house. My dad had taken my mom to pay Luis his takings for the month in cash and then went home, unfortunately the low class afrikaans bitches that worked for my dad had cashiers had told their colured boyfriends (cops) that my dad travelled with cash home every night and these pieces of shit ambushed my parents at home. They all wore balaclavas and my mom recalled that all their pistols looked alike, she pointed this out to the fat fuck “defective” detective from Booysens when she saw his pistol. All cops are armed with either Z88 pisols which are copies of the Beretta service pistol or they have Vector SP1`s, these sacks of shit all had Z88`S. What are the odds that criminals all carry the same type of weapon? The one coloured “cop” still spilled the beans by saying that “the bitches at the shop said you keep cash at home?” My dad had to look into those whoring trash bitches faces when he got back to the shop, they had no idea that one of the assailants had slipped that nugget up. My dad fired them and told them that he would send “people” to fuck them up” if they thought they were tough. My dad was referring to me as i was a total loose cannon at this stage in my life. The shop had changed me! During the attack my parents were bound, beaten and pistol whipped, my dads skull was fractured and as a result he had a mild stroke, my mom was traumatised beyond belief as this was her second time to be attacked in the house. The first one ended with a dead dude and two others bleeding profusely. My mom was sexually accosted by these cunts and i went into the house with THE HATRED OF HELL in my soul. I wanted to kill people that night and i did! That night “HELL WALKED WITH ME”.

My dad never recovered from that attack and never stayed in the house again, he ended up taking my mom and stayed with his niece in Northcliff till he decided to leave the country and sell the house.That piece of shit Luis still had the gall to say that my dad in someway deserved it. I still pray today that that sack of puke dies a miserable fucking death! To say what he did to my dads face was unexcuseable and warrants the death penalty! Luis, I  wish you misery you sack of shit, you were always “lucky” and seemed teflon coated so that nothing stuck to you, i hope you are equally coated with Kevlar! You will be needing it. I have long since hung up my guns but someone is going to punch your ticket and to that man i raise my glass.

There were many other players in the “gangster” arena, those that posed as captains of industry and ran lucrative and legitimate security companies and then pissed it all away. I went to primary school with a guy named Luke Sleep and he founded SWAT SECURITY. He was very well off and even got engaged to a good friend of mine form another restaurant that i once worked for. he was a temperamental dude to say the least and always but always had his Glock 9mm tucked into the fromt of his jeans. he drove the best cars and even did the security stuff at my dads business and home. I knew him peripherally but we always chatted like pals when we ran into one another. At one stage he was cruising in  a BMW M3 as a company car and then a Hummer. His reaction officers had a fleet of VW Polo Tdi`s. the company was rocking and making money. Then the rumours of coke started circulating after he had busted his arm badly in a quad bike accident and it was down hill from there. One evening in 2001, December, he called me in a spin, i could hear that he was wired as hell and he asked me to meet him because some Nigerian Niggers had taken dope of his and he wanted to wack them. He told me he was off to get some guns he had stashed over the years and he needed a trigger person. He had heard of my shoots and figured i was a good enough gun hand to accompany him. I reasoned that my shoots were legal and above board and i emplored him to think before going into a situation hot and wired. The dude was cooking on coke and spoke like a runaway train, judging by the noise from  the motor of the BMW M3 he was possibly clocking 200+ on the highway and i enquired where “Cliffy” was, his business partner but he simply dismissed the question. So he basically wanted me to walk into a place with him and start wasting Nigerians and their whores! This was a tad much and i told him to rather go home and scheme his scheme through and call me in the morning. I wasnt about to stroll into a nigger nest in orange grove and start a gunfight over some dudes bad coke deal! Funny thing is, after all these years, my life has taken a total U turn and i dont have shit to my name, my fall from grace was a short one as i never truly had that much to start with, but Luke`s fall has been MONUMENTAL, i saw him a few years ago walking around Rosettenville without a job, no car, no hope, no dope. His fall was a far one and i dont know where he is now but i find it difficult to comprehend just how he managed to screw the pooch so badly? He had it all.

In conclusion, the point of this whole piece is to make people aware that the world is a funny fucking place and its inhabited by some of the wildest people imagineable. A place where today you are smiling and tomorrow there are tears, where today you frown upon those that you consider outies and evil but ultimately can be good guys when you need them. The Kappies out there have my respect, they show more honour to friends than most families show to their own siblings. Kappie, Mikey Schultz are todays “Goodfellas”, GANGSTERS we all love to hate. the wanna be porra types that hung out at Madeira bar were pussies with money. EG vic, charley etc. On a closing note, there was a chick that worked at Madeira bar after my dad left, her name was “Gypsy” a good looking goose but she and her husband had a terrible drug habit and when she needed to get high or buy dope she would “go for a drive” in Charley`s Lamborghini Diablo and suck his dick for the fix money. Funnily, she was very stoic when admitting to the event. Whenever she slid into the Diablo everyone knew she was “coming”home with dope money. these Porras believed they were tough nuts but in reality they were just Harley Davidson riding man whores.

I would rather choose to be associated with Kappie and those guys than the wankers at Madeira bar.

My dad was awesome, he did everything in his power to give my mom and i everything. Dad i owe you a debt of gratitude, you taught me to be honest.

Michael B Da Silva (never a gangster), just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

HERBAL
TEA WITH JOPLIN

A lost tale of the dangers of the
wacky weed

A week or so ago i had to catch possibly the world`s most uncomfortable bus to Durban for my recently deceased mother`s memorial service, it was 24 hours crammed into a 60 seat box on wheels. I figure that when people go to hell they may be sent on the greyhound citi liner.

As i was admiring our truly beautiful countryside out the window i noted a sign that brought back a flood of fond memories of a long weekend spent in Leisure Bay on the far South coast of Kwa Zulu Natal back in 1991 with my then usual suspect pal in crime, Deon and an air force mate named Sheldon Gordon. He was Jewish but was definitely not a hard core practicing Kosher fellow. He thoroughly enjoyed toasted bacon and egg sandwiches when away from the Jewish crowd in Rosebank where he lived. For our journey to Leisure Bay we crammed the car full to the rafters with beer, Jack Daniel`s, Amaretto and our trusty boom box. We invited his sister and her boyfriend along as well seeing as it was at his parents holiday house on the beach where we would be staying. The trip started off in Brixton Johannesburg after uplifting Sheldon`s sister and her boyfriend from the gym where he worked
and pumped iron profusely. It is noteworthy mentioning that Deon and i would both have not minded “pumping” Sheldon`s sister as she was a belter of note. It was a long and tedious journey of about 16 hours due to the constant stops to pee. We drank solidly from Johannesburg all the way down to Port Edward. The boom box pumped out the Great White song Congo Square repeatedly and we never tired of listening to it over and over, it kinda struck a chord with us and the rock  n roll trip was on! I cannot recall Sheldon`s sisters name but i know it began with an M, so i will simply call her Melissa from here on in. Her boyfriend`s name was easy to recall as he too was a Michael. Poor Sheldon was the only sober one in the car as he was the designated driver by process of elimination, Deon and i were already tanked when we arrived  and Melissa had no licence and Michael had no option but to get up to speed and catch up to us, thus meaning he had to drink hardcore. Melissa jumped straight in to show solidarity for her boyfriend`s  task at hand and also arrived in Leisure Bay cooking.

• Deon at this stage
  was still in the police and was attached to the notorious John Vorster square security branch although he had the unenviable job of working “undercover” at the post office going through mail coming in from the Netherlands and Australia in support of the then still un trusted  ANC. We hit Leisure Bay like a hurricane and immediately went for a swim at around 2 AM pissed as coots except for Sheldon who was only now getting his first taste of our dwindling supply. We were up at around 7AM and the heat was murder, we had drank ourselves lame and the mere sight of booze turned me green, to make matters worse was Deon`s idea of a healthy breakfast. He staggered onto the porch with a bowl filled with rice crispies  and beer.  We had by now decided that since we were in the wild coast we too must be wild, a sort of when in Rome do as the Romans so we tasked Deon the security branch cop with his 9mm service pistol jauntily shoved into the front of his jeans to source us some wacky tabakky. Deon being too trashed to drive was then driven by Melissa to the Southbroom golf course where he approached the local population and demanded a checkers bag of Durban poison, the pistol sticking out the front of pants waist line seemed to do the trick and the black dude disappeared in a rush and duly returned with a huge packet of stash. We were now going to smoke us some monster slow boats. I must just mention that i am not and never have been a smoker and i do not advocate the use of mind and reality altering narcotics but as i said before, when in Rome. Deon arrived back with our weed and we set about getting rid of all the pips that explode if left in the joints and i clumsily rolled huge spliffs and we did our little nursery rhyme which went “ROLL ROLL, ROLL YOUR JOINT TWIST IT AT THE  END, LIGHT  IT UP TAKE A PUFF  AND PASS IT TO A FRIEND”.  We then blazed away in grand fashion that
  would have made Cheech & Chong proud, that was till i had a “Zol malfunction”  and the burning ember on
  the end fell down my shirt and burnt an enormous welt on my chest. I must just add that i am a hairy dude, think Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars and you get the picture i am sure. The smell of singed hair was pungent in the air and
  i was the instantaneous source of amusement for my goofed comrades. I decided that this smoking story is just not my cup of tea and that`s when i had the light bulb moment and it dawned on me to make “herbal tea”, man in my mind i
  was having an Einstein moment that was surely worthy of some or other accolade. I made the brew strong and strained it at least four times to remove any offending particles and then we sat there and drank from teacups our marijuana
  tea and we even ate biscuits with it, the British culture was rich within us as we sipped our tea with the obligatory pinkie finger outstretched.

Now we had been boozing heavy and then smoked mighty joints and add to that a couple cups of herbal tea a piece and it is understandable that we were all goofed out of our trees however we were under the impression that we were all still “sweet” and in control and headed off to Port Edward to a little pub and restaurant called “The Web”. It was a small dingy type place with a huge clay pizza oven on which a big spider`s web was painted,  Deon used
his superior police skills to deduce that this is the reason for it being called
the web, we were amazed at his super  sleuth like abilities. After a few more beers, whisky`s, vodka`s, ciders etc  we were amazed
to see what we thought were the dudes from the 80`s band Bros walk in the door, we all immediately retorted to these two chaps “when will i , when will i be famous” and we rolled around in our own perceived funnyness. It wasn’t long and we were startled when Janis Joplin WALKED IN, now i know she has been dead for donkeys  years but this chick was the spitting image of Joplin and we started to feel eerie like we were in the twilight zone, this woman looked like her to a T and even had the clothes to go with it. We were now starting to freak out and that`s when we noticed the poster of Uncle Sam pointing with his left hand and next to that was the same picture but pointing with his right hand, you know probably where this is leading? We marvelled at the ingenuity and arty brilliance of this painting  but then we started to notice the rude fuckers sitting at the other end of the bar making fun and gestures at us and we were readying ourselves for a fight, even Melissa was pumped up and ready to scratch the bitches eyes out that was checking out her boy friend.  After what seemed like an hour but in reality was more like a minute (time stands still when you are this high) i sat back in the stool and said to my companions, “its a mirror dude” . we had been picking a fight with ourselves in the mirror on the wall on the far side of the pub behind the bar counter. The Uncle Sam wants you poster was simply reflected in reverse! We started laughing and Deon still managed to fall off the bar stool with his Beretta 9mm flying across the floor, we were stoned as coots and
we knew it. We awoke the next morning at around 10AM and none of us remembered  the trip home, the last we remembered was Deon
doing backstroke on the bar floor. We lost about 8 hours and for all we know we were abducted by aliens.  After eating an enormous breakfast we ambled down to the beach and put our camping chairs in the water and passed  around the bottle of Amaretto, it was a freaky weekend and one that i wont forget in a hurry. Driving on the bus going through Port Edward on the 22^nd of January this year brought those memories flooding back, what a monumental Jol!

Moral though of this story is stay clear of the electric spinach, the mountain cabbage it will make your name arse in public like we did at the Web pub where we are convinced we saw Bros and Janis Joplin and picked a fight with our own mirror reflections.  Even years later when i ran into Sheldon in
Rosebank we still spoke of the night we saw Janis Joplin, i am telling you she
was there that night.

Michael B Da Silva  (now refrains from mind altering substances)

WHERE
ANTELOPE PLAY THE BLUES

ENTER THE DRAGON

Walking the line between right and wrong is a tender footed affair fraught with hidden agendas, two sides to the same silly story, finger pointing, character assassination, embellishment, self serving discontent and is a proverbial mine field littered with unexploded lies waiting to be used on an unsuspecting individual at the others bequest. I know this and I am living it daily, I accept that I am not a choir boy and have oodles of faults, short comings and hang ups but I am neither a liar nor an assassin of souls.

My life has been full and I have lived many fantastic adventures and rolled with really good people and I am very unhappy with the latest turn of events in my life. It is leaving me with a sour taste in my mouth and an acid sting in my psyche. Being thrown out unceremoniously is on nobodies agenda or wish list and then being expected to thank the person for disenfranchising me was a bridge too far and I cannot believe the gall and lunacy of this person who lives so firmly entrenched in their “bubble” world that they seriously think they have done me a grand favor by giving me 20 minutes to pack my bags in front of my very confused and worried mother all the while reminding me that she is on the line with her attorneys and if that I do not comply to her every whim, she will lay some sort of cooked up charges against me. This person is as deranged as they come and I seriously doubt that she qualifies to be able to raise rattlesnakes let alone children and yet here she is pretending to be doing this for the good of her child! Balderdash! What makes it worse is that she out and out lies to her own husband by telling him that I have a job in Johannesburg and that she is dropping me at the bus terminal so that I can go off and work. I must just clear up that I was given somewhat of a choice of either Durban or Johannesburg as a destination and had to give my answer then and there. She went into the Checkers and purchased a ticket and handed me R1000 and left me at Cape Town station. I am standing there still in a state of shell shock and the last 9 years, 8 of which I was the provider has come down to a blackmail payoff of one thousand rand!

I travelled the 20 hours on the bus to Johannesburg and used this time to organize temporary accommodation with a good family who opened their home to me and provided me with food and shelter. These are humble good hearted people unlike the deranged person who turfed me out like old trash. I had no job waiting like she lied about to her husband and others who  have been propagating this blatant untruth as well. If they say its so then they will believe it and thus their conscience is clear, but the fact of the matter is that the LIE is still there but has merely been glossed over and polished up so as to save their image within the community.  By the time I reached Johannesburg I had been contacted by another person who was aware of what had transpired and offered me Spartan shelter and a temporary job back from where I had just left. I said that I should at least stay a few days and see if anything beckons in Johannesburg but that I would by all likelihood take her up on her very kind offer. This just went to prove that there are still wholesome, kind people in the world who will go to lengths to assist those that are down trodden by the maniacal woman who lives in her empty castle. Yet another woman came to my assistance and all the way from London has opened her heart and wallet to assist me. I am standing in queue to work for or on behalf of her company in a west African country the moment all the paperwork has been finalized and I am told to pitch up at the starting line. Muslims and Christians came together and have been a lifeline to me in my time of need and confusion and the one who emptily sprouts absolute nonsense about God and praying is the very one who started all this in the first place. I resent those that use God as a crutch and faith to cleanse their own lies and unholy ways. Those in Johannesburg are solid down to earth people and showed true humanity as is the person from Cape Town and the Lady from London. I thank you for your gracious help and open hearted charity which I will repay through any which way I can. I am back where I started this journey 2 weeks ago Monday and I am working albeit for a very humble wage and I have Spartan accommodation but I am quite contented and I am very appreciative of the open heartedness of genuinely Christian people. I owe them a debt of gratitude and will never forget that they stepped up for me in my time of need and without question offered me help and shelter. I have not lied in any way to them and neither have I made any comments to bring undue or unnecessary perceived bad mouthing or libelous slander upon the person who has decided that sending me away is the answer to her problems. In other words, I am not talking shit about her, I am simply telling the truth and maybe she should do the same, its quite liberating and cathartic, however I don’t think she will as she is incapable of keeping the facts separated from the fiction and this is an inherent trait of a bi-polar individual.

 To the unstable woman who has thrown my life into disarray I have only discontent and utter dismay for you. You lied to your spouse and have perpetrated nothing short of a crime on not only me but also your own grand son, daughter and your name. I hope you are happy. May misery smile upon you in abundance. Just remember the Karma wheel always turns and today`s elation is tomorrows misery, but I suspect you know all about the rollercoaster that is the  bi-polar express.

 “the world is like a carousel, spinning faster you better ride it well, its heaven and hell”. “the world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams, its heaven and hell”. (RJD)

 there is no place in today`s  world for tyranny, misery and oppression, just look around and see for yourself how it is changing and please don’t use God and religion to perpetuate your lies after all if you actually bothered picking up the little black book and paged to Exodus chapter 20 verse 16 it clearly states in the book that you love to say you believe in that you shall not give false testimony, in other words spelled out in layman`s terms “you must not lie!!” I detest those that pretend to be holy and of good heart but lie so openly and destroy those around them with impunity because they have money. All the money in the world cannot buy class, humility and secure you your place in heaven. Everyone has their day when we must stand and be counted for what we have done, I am quite comfortable in the knowledge that my day will be a doddle and my spiritual higher entity will not be too harsh on me, I have made peace with my past and openly shared them for the whole world to see however I don’t think I will be standing in the queue that you will be in. there is no hell other than the dark recess of your own being that will torture you internally and that is a fate worse than any person can imagine. Old age is creeping up on you and it is those that you have downtrodden that will someday have to take care of you when once again you are in diapers. Now I sure as hell wont be there to clean up after you but I am alluding to those whose lives you are destroying that are going to be there and that is when payback becomes a bitch. This has happened all too many times and half the time it is because it is deserved. I truly believe you will have a miserable old life. If you are indeed a Christian person as you say you are I really suggest you get praying real hard , real soon and real seriously for your god to forgive you your sins. If you don’t you will “enter the dragon” alone.

Michael B Da Silva. (disenfranchised, but not for long)

2001: THE
YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT.

      THE YEAR OF
LIVING DANGEROUSLY

2001 was the beginning of the end in my private security business and
the start to a whole new world as we know it. The 9/11 attacks spun the world
upside down and caught the INTEL community with their pants collectively around their ankles. 2001 was the year i lived dangerously and it all  culminated with the near dismemberment of my penis! Yes it was that hardcore!

I had a very financially viable security consultancy private business
and from time to time i utilised friends to fulfil tasks such as armed escort
support and on banking runs for clients. We were entrusted with a lot of cash
and my clients trusted me fully. I unfortunately could not reciprocate that
trust in my utilisation of friends in the field. One was an ex police man who
had the “street credibility of working for the security branch at John Vorster
Square in Johannesburg “ and was also involved in Angola with me on the
Executive Outcomes  contract from 1993/94. Deon was a good guy( once )but suffered from the inability to keep his shit wired tightly and was a lush. I am saddened to have to admit this as he was my best friend but he just never could distinguish between work time and drunk time. Anyway, i digress and should stay on the path of the storyline and tell it with absolute truth and accuracy. I had after leaving EO in 1994 worked at first for a dude who owned a security company but had grown way out of his ability to run it as a sole proprietor and sub contracted me to help him out with the day to day operations of his very profitable little operation.
This should have been my first red flag about the security industry in South
Africa and the lengths that those involved in the industry will go to, to make
money at the expense of those actually doing the graft. i worked on the ground in uniform as an example to the guards as how to look and conduct themselves while on site and we were in Joburg town the day the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party  got all busy with each other where
many Zulu Impi`s were shot full of lead. My boss and i were in the next road
providing added security to our biggest  client at the time, the chaos was absolutely amazing. A motorbike traffic cop came riding passed and had no helmet on and was screaming unintelligibly that the “munts” were killing each other! He had no weapon in his holster and we took it that in the chaos he had lost it. It was crazy and fun as hell all at once and we were living large running around toting our weapons and shooting our guns in the air like cowboys. This was bat country and law was secondary to everything else that day. Time went on and the groups involved “kissed and made up” and the elections loomed like a sword of Damocles over the country. Stories and rumour was abound and everyone was stockpiling for the imminent civil was and it was now that i was contracted to protect some very naive dilly Italian journalists covering our first “democratic: elections and i had roped Deon in to help me with the contract. Deon has had a drinking problem since school and was effective but trying all the time as we were doing serious work and his predilection for booze did pose many headaches while we were busy on the ground with our clients from Italy. It all went off ok in the end and Deon managed to keep his demon at bay, only just. I would later work with Deon on the Rolling Stones tour to  the country as VIP drivers and we drove the band members around for two weeks without major problems although booze was a mainstay and overriding factor to Deon as it would prove to be in the future.

After many years of crazy shit and getting wild we ended up working for
the same security company in Johannesburg where i was employed as the
operations manager and Deon  as a supervisor. We were very effective at our jobs and proved that our prior training was vital to the professionalism we showed at work. Unfortunately Deon could not entirely disengage himself from the bottle and would start arriving at work hung over and sometimes still pissed. It is worthwhile noting that in 1997/98 Deon and i worked for a company called Duchini and this is when he met his future wife and mother of his first born. This is also the time when i finally got divorced from the most miserable woman ever to stalk the face of the planet. The company ended up in liquidation and Deon was sent to work at the retail shop they had in Joburg town where he was supposedly the manager. I remained at the companies head office and stayed there till the liquidators paid us out. At this time Deon`s wife was many months pregnant and went to Baragwanath hospital to give birth to her child. We weren’t that close as friends prior to this and she and i had a mutually tolerant relationship due to my friendship with her husband. This would change when Deon would ask me to fetch his wife from the hospital when she was discharged  and take her and his new born child home as he was in a pub closed to his work place and didn’t want to waste good drinking time. This persisted when i was asked to drive his wife and son to the clinic for the initial check ups. His wife and i simply began to grow closer together. Eventually i was driving her to work and picking her up from work while Deon was too focused on drinking. As it would happen they were told to vacate their flat due to non payment of rental and i said it was cool that they stay in my house  a i had recently separated from my ex satanic wife. This was win, win for everyone. We would all frequent my Dad`s restaurant next door and talk while watching our favourite television program
“The Soprano`s”, well it was her and my favourite program while Deon sat and stuttered at the bar. Our relationship was all but set in stone and she and i were connecting on a level that far super ceded  her  relationship with her own husband. One evening we decided to go home and put Deon`s son to bed and left Deon lurching at the bar and i and his wife were suddenly overcome by the necessity to jump each others bones which we did with much vigour. Little problem here, Deon decided to sway home and walked in while his wife was riding high up on the horse Rodeo style. I panicked a tad and ejected her off to the left and Deon then did the manly thing and threw the keys at me and launched himself over the bed and for some unknown reason to me grabbed my still erect penis and tried to yank it out from the root. I was horrified , mortified and felt all kinds of violated! He then punched me on the back of my head whereby i retorted that i would like to fight him like a man and pulled up my tracksuit pants and attacked this clown that had broken every written and unwritten rule in the mankind handbook! The fight soon degenerated into an all out one for one slug fest and the he broke a pottery plant pot on my head, this i didn’t take lightly and proceeded to use his general facial area to break the pots pieces into smaller pieces. We were worse than a WWE  smackdown match and we were soon exhausted.
Problem with Deon is he tends to bleed like a pig and was oozing haemoglobin
from his mouth and nose all over my carpet in the room. All the while this was happening his wife sat there in a corner stricken with panic. He then made his way to the kitchen and i was worried he was retrieving a knife and on his return to the “battlefield” i smacked  him on the left temple with my expanding “Fitzwilliam” baton which had the desired effect of  instantaneously putting him down and out of the fight. He made his
way to the bedroom he was renting in my house and his wife who was using a
small broken piece of the plant pot as an ashtray went off to join him and his
child who was sleeping in its cot. I was concerned about his swelling head due
to the blow from the expanding baton and called the paramedics. On arrival the paramedics asked me if i had been shot due to all the blood and i replied that it wasn’t mine and let them in. The paramedic noted the for sale sign on the gate and complimented me on the tiles in the lounge and dining room, i
volunteered to show him around and try flog the place to him. Deon was treated and his head wrapped in a bandage, his head resembled a planet and was immense.
The paramedics left and told us they would not report the assaults that had
taken place after seeing pictures of Deon and i from Angola on the bar wall and said it was just water under the bridge. The following morning Deon was sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and was brandishing a large screwdriver in his left hand and told me to take his wife and leave my house and when we get back he will be gone. His wife and i went off to the Jazz Cafe at the Glen shopping centre for a draught beer and this is when i informed her of the violation perpetrated upon my person by her husband. We laughed and the  seriousness all but evaporated and i chalked it up to another one for rock n  roll. Deon had that morning answered me when i asked how he felt and i was  alluding to his swollen head and he misunderstood and answered me “how do you think i feel, seeing my wife impaled on my friends dick?” and this is where my alter ego “VLAD THE IMPALER” was born, I did the Transylvanian accent and all.
The months after “the incident “were great except when Deon got drunk and stood by my front gate chucking stones on the roof and screaming obscenities like trailer trash and this occurred plenty . She and i dated for a while but like
all things it came to an end and we moved on. I suppose it all boils down to
shit happens?

While we were working for the security company where i was operations
manager and Deon was the supervisor i had an event that was to change my path in life quite a bit. One Friday i was off duty and was moon lighting with a
company doing cash trips to the bank with a guy named George Liverdos who was the contract liaison so to speak. He would call me up and  if time permitted i would follow trucks to the borders for extra cash or do these Friday banking runs. It was July and it was the last Friday of the month, the bank was packed and when we approached we didn’t notice anything strange till we actually got inside and the reality set in that we had just walked into a bank robbery in progress! The atmosphere was heavy and the first batch of robbers were leaving with a hostage as we entered through the magnet controlled booths. The robbers were allowing people in but allowing anyone to exit and they were telling the clients in the bank to remain standing very still in the queues so as to not raise awareness. This obviously worked as we had not noticed this happening, we were too busy scanning our surroundings and people passing by on approaching the bank. One of the staff members was ushered past me just outside the bulk teller booth and i said to
her “what is going on?” she replied with terror in her eyes that they were
being robbed and this is when i noted the robber walking directly behind her
with a .38 special revolver in pointed in the small of her back. The bank
employees name was Rhea and she was panic stricken. The robber took no notice of me or George and marched her to the doors which work by magnet release and some idiot outside was holding the door ajar so the outer door could not release. The robber shouted angrily at the security guard to open the door but he couldn’t as a member of the public was preventing the magnet from closing the circuit thereby allowing the door to open. By now i had drawn my .45 ACP pistol and was fast approaching the robber who had a bag draped over his left forearm which contained cash and the .38 special in his right hand firmly pressed against Rhea`s back, i shouted loudly for him to drop his weapon. I was now only a few feet from him and i kept closing the gap aiming directly at his face. I tried to make a grab for the .38 special and with my right hand i smacked this clot on the head with the butt of my gun which shook him quite a bit, he then got very mad at me and started to bring the .38 special to firing point and he was fingering the trigger, i  was busy bringing the second blow down onto his head with the butt of my
pistol when i noticed this was going to get messy so i tipped my .45 ACP and
placed the muzzle directly against his head and squeezed off the shot! The 180
grain Winchester silver tip hollow point penetrated his skull on the top left
side and a piece of the jacket exited his right cheek. The robber was
instantaneously incapacitated and went done like a sack of potatoes. His head was smoking from the muzzle blast which was at contact distance, this is the muzzle was against his head when the shot was fired and his brain tissue was
‘mushrooming” out the hole. It is noteworthy mentioning that it was still
winter and i was wearing a big black and white camouflage jacket and donning ray bans inside the bank as i had a terrible eye infection in my right eye. I turned and immediately shouted the command for everyone to lie down immediately which was followed to a T as if they were all members of a rhythmic display team.  I immediately asked who was armed
as i didn’t want any surprises and one black dude volunteered that he was
packing, i asked him sternly what the hell his story was and he replied that he
was a police man. This was entirely plausible as the bank we were in ( Standard  Jules street Malvern) is less than a hundred metres from the Cleveland police station and it was a Friday and the end of the month so it was
completely possible that there would be cops in the bank doing their banking
requirements, this particular “cop”  was in civilian attire but i was thinking quick and my mind was racing with all the possible eventualities and i thumbed the safety on and holstered my piece telling the cop to take over on scene. He then jumped up and dashed past me and out the bank. I suspected he went for backup as it wasn’t two minutes and police started descending on the bank from every angle, hell there was even a helicopter circling outside. I gave my statement to the detectives that arrived on site along with about 20 members of the public, George and the branch manageress along with a very shaken Rhea. The branch was closed for further business and the customers were sent to the Bedford centre branch if they still had to conduct their banking requirements. George and i were allowed to leave the branch and we too made our way to the Bedford centre branch as we had not yet conducted our tasks. When we arrived at the Bedford branch we were greeted
by a wall of security guards who immediately parted and allowed us entry. They had no doubt heard of this crazy white man wearing sun glasses and shooting robbers was coming to their branch. George and i entered and we noticed a few  of the Malvern branch customers who on seeing us enter the bank left their spot in the queue and left the bank altogether. This was one hell of a day and when my boss found out at the security company , he
told me to take the evening off as he didn’t want someone still wired with
adrenaline on duty that night. I took this opportunity to take Deon`s wife to
dinner at an Oriental restaurant. This shooting was not long after another in
which i had entered my parents house while my mom was being held at gunpoint by three home invaders. That story ended with one of the bastards chest being  “ventilated” 5 times by my .45ACP pistol, he however still managed to stumble off and die elsewhere.

2001 was a crap year in the big scheme of things and it nearly cost me
not only my life but i was just about “de horned” like a Rhino. I am still
shocked after all these years that Deon would do something so dire such as try
and yank my tally wacker out by root!

 Deon if you ever read this. “WHAT
THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?”

2002 had its share of really good times which were all spent at a
restaurant called Ze`s in Oakdene and was run by a woman who i still have a
deep almost cosmic connection with.  Michelle and i ran what we called our tribe and it was just a load of pals who would get together and party till the cows came home. This was the last drive so to speak before mediocrity and what feels like old age set in. It has been a long time since i have gone APE (Animalus Particus Extremis) and i dearly miss the days at Ze`s with Michelle and the tribe and our very strange traditions and practices including the odd one called “bite club”.  i was basically used as a chew toy. Michelle had bitten my arm one evening with so much ferocity  that it left a scar that was visible for a few years thereafter. We were very much like the Bohemians of the Moulin Rouge.

 It was one hell of a cool year and unfortunately the last great party.

Its sad to grow old and live miserably!

Michael B Da Silva (former wild man desperately seeking one last hurrah)

http:michaelbdasilva.blogspot.com

http://thedasilvacode.com

LA VIDA LOCA THE ART OF THE PARTY ANIMAL 

              Going ape , a guide

Before we start on this journey i feel obliged to warn you that what follows is a hard core journey deep into the heart of the wildest of all animals: Animalus Particus Extremis known by its acronym APE and that therefore may clear up any confusion when i explain that we went APE shit etcetera. These stories
are all true and in some instances may still be considered illegal. I will
change the names of some of those that partook in these wild rambunctious
shenanigans to “protect the identities of the guilty”. Others i will name as i
don’t really care what they think or they`re dead. This story is a compendium
of various parties and generalised wild life instances throughout the years
spanning 1982 up until 2002 when i abruptly stalled into mediocrity and middle age.

Part 1. The adventures of
CAPTAIN CUPBOARD..

So, to start the ordeal off that you are now part and parcel of, lets take a journey in Marty Mc Fly`s 1.21 jiggawatt flux capacitor powered De Lorean and go back to the future. Date time group, 1982 when at the tender age of 12 i discovered the  wonderful  world of the emerging male patterned libido. I was pals with “an older woman” who lived down the street and she was 15 and in high school, i was a tender foot and in my last year of primary school. She was blessed with gargantuan boobs and legs that spanned endlessly up in to the stratosphere, it didn’t hurt either that she had a soft spot for me and i, a well hard spot for her and we would spend many hours exploring  all the fun aspects of playing house ,house. I lost my cherry to a girl named Karin and man she was adept at the art of fornication! One afternoon my German buddy and i cooked up what we though was a sure fire plan for us to both “stoink” Karin by utilising a cunning plan which entailed super stealth perfect timing for it to be a success, the basic idea was for me to get “jiggy” with Karin as per usual in the lounge and my pal would hang back in my room and then all of a sudden like stroll into the situation where in i would suggest a ménage a trios and knowing Karin, i suspected she would be more than agreeable to this turn of events. I got very busy and was diligent to a T with much huffing and puffing going on. I awaited my pals entrance as all this was getting tiring and i could use a beer break but the German was nowhere to be found so i assumed he must have gotten cold feet and made a bee line for home. Once we were done we took a bath and much soap lathering was done by myself, i was seriously enjoying myself and was pooped by the time she went home. I went to my room to put my clothes and while i was putting my shoes on  and was startled by a rustling sound in my cupboard! I was flabbergasted to witness the German getting out my cupboard! What the hell had he been doing in there and why did he climb into the cupboard in the first place? The idiot was supposed to help tie this one down and he left me dangling out there to fend for myself against this freaky nymphomaniac. The German would hence forth be known as (cue the dramatic super hero music) CAPTAIN CUPBOARD!!!!    I
went into high school very wise to the ways of the fornication and captain
cupboard i suspect was very wise to the way of the hand! I still wonder what
the hell he was doing in the cupboard for more than an hour and a half?  I suspect he may have been canoodling with himself and choking his chicken!

Part 2 THE FORMATIVE YEARS.

Standard 6 was typical run of the mill affair with every male trying to snag a piece of the competition who were of the female variety and the sneaky beer drinking was practised at every opportunity. By all accounts i was a nerdish dude in the first two years of high school and spent most my spare time at my friends house where we drank copious amounts of booze and getting the “stink finger” action on with my pals sisters. It was all within the accepted parameters that we lived by.  Standard eight was an awakening moment when i made acquaintance with what would be my closest friends
for the next three years. We were a tight group and partied hearty at every
opportunity. We were a co-ed group and stood by one another like comrades in arms and sometimes we were in each others arms quite literally.. we were
divided into two groups within the main group as some of the group did art and the others like myself , Clyde, Deon and other wild men did Biblical Studies. None of us had any ideas of becoming ordained men and simply chose Bib Studs because we sucked at art and the teacher was a drop dead bomb shell named Mrs Ferguson who had the longest legs i had ever seen, coupled to that the tight pants and i was sold on this whole Biblical studies story. We threw the wildest house parties at my folks house while they were out and it always degenerated into a drunken melee and someone puking in the garden. My pal Clyde had a horrid budgie yellow Audi 100 from standard 9 onwards and this car although ugly as sin was the epitome of rebel cool. every beer we drank we would chuck the empty can in the back on the floor so it was a case of empty beer cans avalanching out the door every time we opened the doors, how we did not get arrested still eludes me ! this car signified our individuality and reckless couldn’t care a shit attitudes , we were the coolest dudes we knew and didn’t care what others thought! The metal music rocked and our school bags stood testament to such greats as Dio, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, KISS, Motley  Crue, Poison , Metallica, Man O War  and King Diamond which were all festooned on our bags. It is only with the advantage of hind sight that i now see that poor Mrs Ferguson must have thought she was being punished by having all these metal heads in her Biblical Studies class. We were not the sneaky types and would sit
on the field at break time and enjoy a beer with our sandwiches at lunch time,
there was not a malicious bone in our bodies but we just ran with our own set
of rules within our very close knit group. We would gather at my parents house and on one occasion once the booze was all but drunk we even got into smoking the Rooibos tea bags and our Matric year end blow out at one of the girl`s house was legendary. We drank till the cows came home and even a condom covered carrot was brought into play and was used as a phallic substitute with fellatio being mimicked on its “person” so to speak. It was hilarious  and the photographs speak volumes. The constant partying and bunking school left little time for learning and studying and really was a bothersome annoyance that i suppose we had to endure, to be
perfectly honest i cannot believe we passed matric at all! Shortly before the
end of the year we threw a monster party at my friend who was in tech`s uncles flat and it proved to be one of those memorable evenings that were remembered for years to come. It was akin to a sixties love fest and the women weren’t to shy and coy at all, these were a different group than our close one at school. They were all a tad younger and were keen to hang with the matrics as we had street “cred” so to speak as being wild and untamed things. I was quite taken by one particular chick named Jackie and she seemed game so it all began. My pal Larry was entertaining a girl called Charlene and dazzling her with his wit and command of the beer can and i was going cave man and dragging a very willing , giggling Jackie off to the open plan bedroom area, i was soon joined by Larry who had by now secured Charlene. We got busy right there in front of people standing around not seeming to care none too much. We had a speed race to see who could screw fastest and someone had a camera popping off pictures. I truly hope they never surface. Once it was all done and dusted Jackie and Charlene upped and left with other people, my friend Lionel ended up with Jackie and shame he was left to deal with my sloppy seconds. It was all sport
though and no one was hurt or did anything they didn’t want to do. Lionel was
being a naughty boy as he had a steady girl friend called Claudine and here he
was shagging some other skanky ho. I must just explain that Claudine and i had some shenanigans of our own so she wasn’t all innocent either. Her sister
Charlene ( not the one from the wild Party) was juggled between Larry and i
when we couldn’t find alternatives for the evening.  

PART 3 THE ANIMAL EMERGES.

High school was a mish mash of various parties copious imbibation
of alcohol and a lot of sexercise. All in all it was all very educational. The year after i left school i spent 6 months prior to my military call up partying like a true professional bedding anything with a heartbeat.
Here enter Daleen  and her very own special personality. She was what is known as a “clingon “, you know the type that constantly hangs around and gets all crazy when you make advances on any other woman even though you are not a “parcel” per se. This clinginess however does not apply to her though and she is a very free agent who does the rounds among the circle of friends very willingly. Safe to say that she is all kinds of complicated.  One moment she is ready to scratch the eyeballs out of some other females skull because i may be checking her out and then the next moment she is taking care of my friend Mark or Deon or the afore mentioned “Captain Cupboard”. This crazy shit persisted all the time i knew her. One evening in particular we were all hanging out at a mates place where we were gathered in the pool room enjoying the musical mellow styling`s  of Metallica and AC/DC. I had
been partaking in much imbibing of the nectar of the gods and my bladder was near rupturing point so i made my way to the toilet to unleash the rivers of Babylon, as i left the pool room i slid the sliding door closed behind me and
turned to head off to the toilet when all of a sudden i was startled by a huge
thud behind me. I turned to see Daleen  sitting flat on her arse with a dazed and confused expression on her face and a large red impression on her forehead, the dazed and confused look was different to her standard one that she sported everyday. She had jumped up to follow me to ensure that i was not leaving to whore about with some other chick and had not noticed that the door was shut and had run full tilt into the luckily reinforced laminated shatter proof glass. She quite literally sat there with her eyes spinning around in her head, it was hilarious and she was embarrassed as all hell, she did not take much to the fact that i was hosing myself at her and she duly stormed off with one of the other guys to “play finger hockey with”, i believe it was Deon. Later that night we had another catastrophe brewing when another pal Lionel climbed to the top of the spot light tower at the perimeter of the show jumping arena. I suppose it is worthwhile explaining that the house we were at was on the same property as a stables and show jumping training facility owned by a friend called Dean`s parents. Around the show jumping training arena there were high towers with spot light for illumination, obviously. Anyways , back to the Lionel debacle that was unfolding. Lionel had been trying very hard to snag Daleen all day but she was just not into Lionel all that much and kept brushing him off and hanging onto either myself or Mark and when he was busy elsewhere she would be attached to Deon. Lionel was besides himself that she didn’t want to know his story so he clambered to the top of the flood lights with his beer and lamented loudly as if in a Shakespearean play at how unfair life was that this chick
wouldn’t shag him. We were more entertained by his production than concerned that he would fall and bust his neck. Daleen stood there at the bottom pleading seriously with him to climb down and not jump. We were by now besides ourselves with laughter. She even agreed to providing him with a “mercy fuck” iF he complied and got down from the perch. This mercy shag never materialised because i was later rolling around with her on some fibre glass which made us itch like a bitch, to cure ourselves we took a swim in the pool and made like “fishes”. There was much moving and wave making in the pool. Lionel eventually climbed down and staggered off home to lick his proverbial wounds and besides he had Claudine waiting at home.  These parties persisted unabated and X rated for the entire 6 months, i am truly surprised that i did not drink myself into a coma quite literally . in all it was one hell of a time.

PART 4 THE DARK SIDE OF THE
MOON

After my time spent in the military i was unleashed on the general populace once again and i embarked on an assault of biblical proportions. Mark and i were flat mates and the flat  was turned into party central.
Old faces were still cruising through the doors with Charlene, Daleen et al
still in the loop but we had expanded our repertoire to include many new female faces. Mark had his girlfriend from Cape Town with him but their relationship was not doing so well as she was a very reserved church going over the top Afrikaans goody two shoes type and she could not stand me and blamed me for being a bad influence on Mark. One evening after going ape shit at Bella Napoli and partying like wild and untamed things we
decided it was time to go home and get at least 2 hours sleep before
getting up for work on Saturday. At the corner of Claim street and Pretoria
street the paw paw hit the fan in spectacular fashion when we were cut off by
two black dudes in an Opel Monza 2 litre GSi and i was very vocal in my
unhappiness with these two “bananas in pyjamas” and swore them and their
heritage. Uncouth louts could have caused an accident! The one black guy
produced his police ID card and gestured to it, i immediately flipped him the
bird and told him to observe my ID and then i hung a right turn with my Mazda 626 2 litre SL and floored that sucker, the chase was on! In the car i had in the back seat Mark and his then girlfriend Minki and my co pilot for the trip was Deon who was a cop attached to the security branch at John Vorster square where he worked “undercover” at the post office going through post destined for the ANC, he would intercept all manner of post cards and letters containing names of those that were to be i suppose kept tabs on by the security forces as undesirables. Undercover at the post office! Break my balls! Its an oxymoron if there ever was one. Anyways after negotiating the right turn and stabbing the pedal to the floor i took us on a high speed car chase down Claim street with the Opel Monza hot on our tails, i shot red lights and at one time had the car up to 160 km/h. All the while i had Minki sitting in the back between the front seats screaming non stop in total terror! Mark was giving me a constant update of the cops behind us with Deon looking out for obstacles ahead. We were a slick team except for the ear shattering  screaming emanating from Minki. At the bottom of the hill just before the cinema complex called Ster City i negotiated a hard right turn and sped away, the cops overshot and had to do a Uturn in traffic to follow us. We
stopped on the corner of Delvers street and Market street to let Minki out the
car who was by this time frantic and we had to take a leak. Suddenly the Opel pulled  up and the one cop jumped out brandishing his police ID like a shield to which  Deon produced his police ID and informed these two black cops who were in civilian clothes and in an unmarked car of his mustering in security branch.
The tone immediately changed and the cops became very meek and then we noted that the one in the passenger seat had a beer in his hand and so naturally we took the moral high ground and frowned upon these two members of the police partaking in such irresponsible actions like drinking and driving and we demanded their names, rank and commanding officer! To this the cop hopped back in his vehicle switched the headlights off and turned right into Market street and sped away up a one way against the traffic flow. We had gotten away with it, phew! I still however had to endure the squealing of Mark`s girlfriend all the way home and listen to Mark`s half hearted attempts at consoling her. We had a blast and it was yet another crazy arse story for the vault. Mark and i did venture back to Hillbrow the following week along with Deon as usual however this evening , Mark had made an alternative arrangement to get home which left Deon and i to terrorise the bar at Bella Napoli until 02h00 when we decided it was time to go home. On arriving at my car i noted that my crappy parking earlier had punctured the rear right tyre and as Murphy and his laws would have it, my spare tyre was also bereft of air and inflation. We decided to drive on the flat anyway as it was only 20 clicks or so to get home. Deon dropped off into unconsciousness due to the inordinate quantities of alcoholic beverages he had consumed during the evening, i was driving at approximately 20 kilometres an hour and was freaked out by a guy riding a bicycle with clothes pegs clipped on his pants to prevent oil from the chain dirtying his smart pant. He pedalled past us and the mere thought of this clown on his bicycle at 03h00 in the morning beating us drove me quite literally insane! I pulled up next to the “mini land” park and climbed out the car, drew my  handgun and started to shoot the
offending  flat tyre. Deon woke with a start and dove out the passenger window and crawled for cover, he was under the impression we were under attack from ANC gunmen or something. When we eventually arrived at the flat i parked the car and went up to get much needed sleep. In
the morning when i went outside to check on the car i noticed that i had parked half on the pavement with the driver door still ajar. Only then did i see the three bullet holes in the wheel arch, i retorted to Deon and Mark who had
dragged himself downstairs that i had killed my car dude. It was one hell of an
evening and the miracle Mazda as i fondly called it had gotten us home in one
piece.

 A few weeks later Mark and i decided to frequent a house of ill repute and make as much shit as we could. We had watched some or other movie and wanted to replicate the whole rock star room trashing thing, i believe we had recently watched Pink Floyd`s  The Wall at the Mini Kine in Hillbrow and
were quite taken by the lead actor`s character when he trashes his hotel and
chucks the tv out the window. With this embedded in our subconscious along with a bottle or two of bourbon we head off the Royal Park Hotel in town to chase up some shit. It was not long before we were led up to the rooms, i was one floor above Mark`s floor and i immediately started with the rock star trashing routine. Once i had chucked stuff around to my hearts content i then decided to throw the vanity stool through the window onto the road below. There wasn’t a television in the room so the stool had to suffice and it flew fantastically. The large Nigerian types downstairs  at
the door  immediately made their way towards the lifts and immediately made my way down the staircase to call mark.
He was already pulling up his pants and i shouted at him that we were there to trash the rooms and not shag the whores! I was truly bothered by this! Did he have no self discipline? We leaped and bounded down the staircase and exploded out the door of the hotel with what sounded like a tribe of Philistines chasing us! We got in the car and i negotiated a “Steve McQueen- esque”   getaway with the Nigerians shooting at my by now out of range weaving miracle Mazda. These Nigerians couldn’t hit a barn let
alone us driving like stuntmen. Once again the miracle Mazda saved our bacon.

PART 5 RAISING HELL

Friday the thirteenth
was a strange day in our calendars as we would frequent various cemetery`s  for some undefined reason or rationale entirely. It just seemed like a good idea and whenever Friday the thirteenth came around it was guaranteed that we would wind up in a cemetery somewhere talking shit and drinking beer, oh and on one occasion we decided that the two
crosses adorning some ancient grave site would make groovy ornaments at home and thus we departed the cemetery that night with two crosses in hand. One was placed on the floor of the car and the other on the back seat and covered with my army poncho. That night Deon and his brother Johnny were with me and on the way home we noticed two chicks hitchhiking
on the road in Glenesk  Southern Joburg which is a shitty area even back then. I did a near perfect hand brake turn and sped back a few hundred metres and did another stopping right next to these two females. I retorted that it is dangerous to walk at night and that there are weirdo`s out there that could do them harm, i still had the gumption to ask them if they are mad! In retrospect i suppose i was warning them about us. They accepted our courteous invitation to be dropped at their home and sat in the back with Johnny. The one chick in horror reported to her pal that there was a tombstone on the floor of the car( lying on its side semi covered by the
poncho covering the one the other chick was sitting on). The other chick then
with a warble in her voice asked what she was sitting on and i just could not
resist and with my best Jack Nicholson accent i told her “its my grandmother”
the chick screamed in terror and we hooted with laughter. She was all over the inside of the car trying not to sit on this tombstone. Shame, she must have
been terrified but i am very sure they never ever hitchhiked again. We left
them very shaken and very stirred at their parents house and set off  to deliver Deon, Johnny and the two tombstones at their house at 100 Tramway street Turfontein which was directly across from a church. The next day Deon called me at work and told me we had to get rid of the tombstones with immediate effect as his step father had during a marathon drinking session crawled to the cupboard where the crosses were hidden and when he opened the door  was quite freaked out. I arrived at the house and duly carried the offending tombstones to my car and dumped them in the boot ion full view of the congregation across the street milling around after the church service, i can only imagine what they must have been thinking. I drove down Tramway street and leaned one cross up against a tree in the middle island between the two sides of the road and the other i left lying on the bowls club lawn as an ominous reminder to the old dodgers that their time was nearing.

One evening Mark, Deon and i were bored and decided to set a traffic cops car alight and it was magnificent. He parked his car on the pavement outside his house in daisy street Rosettenville  and was one of those true punk cops that loved writing tickets and busting peoples chops so we have no guilt for this act of necessity. I had a two litre coke bottle brim full of petrol and casually poured it over the car and struck a match and watched that sucker light up. The car was not totally burned but the siren light had totally melted to the roof and the outside of the car was burned black but was still driveable as he did drive it like that to work. I wish i were a fly on the wall to hear the excuse he gave at work, that would be priceless. We were also the instigators of a little fire at our old school and the shooting of 15 holes in a blackboard. We also did try and steal a putco bus as we wanted to ramp it into the Wemmer
Pan lake but some do gooder on the ball security guard put paid to that
plan. I can neither confirm nor deny the events of one evening that saw a
vehicle ending up in the Wemmer Pan  lake. I will leave it at that.

Mark was a hooligan
but a totally solid guy and would stand by your side no matter what and i am
saddened by the events that led to his untimely death. He had wanted to go out and party hearty as his then wife was 8 months pregnant and he wanted one last hurrah so to speak and had asked me to join him but i was not in the mood that night and stayed home with my now ex wife and step son. Mark disembarked on an assault of the bars and ended up at a real dive called The Captains Cabin 100 metres   or so from the flat and he must have been
chatting up the wrong chick because when he walked home he was shot twice in a drive by shooting. He died there on the pavement less than 40 metres from home. His killer was never found. After this event i decided to hang up my crazy hat and quieten down a tad. At Mark`s funeral Deon was apall bearer and had to fuck up on the day. When he rested the coffin on the straps he stepped back three steps not noticing the green carpeting covering the half filled grave alongside from the service earlier and in all his brilliance fell into the grave next door to Mark`s grave. It was like something out of a movie. We hooted with laughter and even Mark`s folks laughed and said that we couldn’t even get the funeral right without fucking it up. Deon was always the casualty and i am seriously surprised he is still alive today as he is his own worst enemy.

PART 6 THE WIND DOWN

We partied hard and some paid the ultimate price. These are a few of the wild parties we had but one that really was funny involved Fernando, our stuttering session drummer who could sing excellently with out stuttering but could string two words together in conversation. He was drinking at the flat one evening and got himself totally pissed and managed to bump the braai skottel over the balcony along with all the meat and then decided he had to puke and ran for the toilet. Little did he know there was some chick taking a pee at the time and had her skirt hiked up and panties around her ankles when Fernando burst into the toilet and unceremoniously yanked her from the throne and vomited into the toilet. She was standing there in shock and peed all over her legs, she pulled the skirt down and had kicked the panties off and ran out the flat and we never saw her again! Thanks Fernando,  that was one that got away!

I have lived a wild life and now have become somewhat reserved and dull ass boring and i hate it! I need one last hurrah!

Michael B Da Silva.
(old man)

OUTCOMES OF THE EXECUTIVE SORT.

 .September 1993 – January 1994.

127 days in the best PMC to date

After my stint in the military and my two camps which i “was called up for” nod nod wink wink i was back in civilian street and hating it. There were many hard core parties and life at “party central” , the flat i shared with my friend was all cool and stuff with much crazy shit happening and a plethora of women cruising in and out of the place on a daily basis, we were living like man sluts! All in all it wasn’t all that bad really. I had some dreary dead end bull shit job selling filing systems. Like i cared! It was just a salary toward the next piss up and a way into the next woman`s panty( not that i was wearing the panty ). We basically lived at Bella Napoli night club in Hillbrow occasionally visiting the dive around the corner called The Summit Club where chicks were GUARANTEED if you get my drift. One evening we were drinking hard at the bar in the Summit club at” Nero`s bar” and i was certain that my aftershave must have been spiked with aphrodisiac as i was literally surrounded by willing chicks on all sides. It didn’t hit me till a little later that my pal Mark and i were being set up by a Madam sitting at the bar. She had noted the thick payday wallets and despatched her ladies of leisure to set us up for robbery. We were led off by the smell of perfume like the proverbial pied piper to a block of flats in Van Der Merwe street Hillbrow. Unbeknownst to the two scarlet Ho`s was that i had collected my .45ACP 1911A1 hand cannon at the security desk on the ground floor entrance of the summit club while Mark regaled the chicks with all manner of bullshit stories. We arrived on the 8th floor and were led to their flat, we entered to find ourselves confronted by two very large buff Nigerian fellows. It is worth noting that this was before Hillbrow had totally become overrun by the Nigerian hoodlums. The one turned to us and in a heavy accent said “ you gonna give us money man or we gonna fuck you”. The reality suddenly dawned that we had been duped by these two bitches! I recoiled backwards and immediately drew my .45 ACP which no one had anticipated and fired three rounds into the concrete ceiling above me( leaving only six rounds in the weapon) but i didn’t care as i had the definite initiative now. The two bitches dived for cover behind the couch and the shocked Nigerians made a route for the bedroom. Without further ado Mark and i made a “tactical” retreat from the flat and went back to Nero`s bar to compose ourselves over six or so beers. This had been a close call and we weren’t keen on a repeat unless we were firmly in the drivers seat so to speak. It was with this type of ongoing craziness that i met a guy called Gary at our favourite watering hole in the South of Jo`burg called Torino restaurant. He sat there all cloak and dagger and listened to our near escape and piped up if we were interested in working for a company in Angola protecting oil fields? I immediately was interested and wanted to sign there and then, but Mark was more guarded and didn’t want to consider anything crazy as he was dating his future wife. I thought this to be stupid and dilly. The following day Gary phoned me and gave me an address in Randburg near Fountainbleau where i was to meet with his step dad Bryan Westwood who was in charge of signing up logistics personnel. I produced whatever credentials i had and signed a provisional contract there and then. A few days later i went to a house in Centurion and signed the contract and was informed of my Book Number, mine was 32. It was the first of September 1993 and a dude named sergeant Pelser had just made my day. We weren’t entirely sure of exactly where we would be going and the exact amount we would be earning but it was somewhere in the 2000 Dollar region and back in 1993 this was a shit load of money. We found out that we would be working for a guy named Eeben Barlow who was ex military intelligence and most notably ex CCB(civil co operation bureau) and his second in command Lafras Luithing, also ex military and CCB. I didn’t care who i worked for so long as i was paid. I was utilised for a week as a run around as i had my own car and ran errands to and from Lanseria airport and gave lifts to people, i also recruited two of my pals. One was my high school friend Deon who was ex SAP security branch and a childhood family friend Paul George who was able to communicate in Portuguese and was an ex National service signalman. Basically a radio operator, both were signed up in no time. I was booked to fly to Angola first and left about 10 days before Deon. I arrived at Lanseria airport with my old army balsak( duffel bag) and milled around the departure hall with 7 other guys not entirely sure of what to expect or where to go, we tried to simply look mean and all knowing. Our passports were stamped with exit stamps and we boarded a small king air 200 with the registration of N91TR and was piloted by aviators associated with Crause Steyl and they became fixtures in Cabo Ledo Angola, our new home.it was a cramped 6 hour flight and we landed briefly in Rundu Namibia to refuel, i used this brief stop to quickly go and check out what became of the ops room and the rundu bar and shitingura. I was dismayed at what i found and the destruction of the base disheartened me along with the squatters living in the former ops room where i had so fantastically overdosed accidentally on 30 nivaquine anti malaria tablets. We got aboard the king air and left what was left of a once proud base called air force base Rundu. We travelled out to sea a bit and circled the runway at Cabo ledo Angola once before coming in to land. The landing was bumpy and the runway was overgrown with weeds and had holes in it. We were picked up by two dudes wearing FAA(Forces Armada Angolana) camouflage fatigues and brandishing mean ass beards. They drove us back to our part of the base which was inside the 16th regiment commando base. The first guy i saw other than these two bearded bush Santa Clause types was a buff muscle bound guy wearing a bandanna and what seemed to be tailored cammo pants jogging up the road past the fuel dump. His name was Brett Cleaver and he was known as the best dressed Merc in the world. He had apparently done stunt double work on the Dolf Lundgren film Red Scorpion filmed in South Africa so i suppose it is safe to say “nuff said”. We were taken to the barracks which were a crazy pinkish / salmon colour that had been done by the Cubans and Cabo Ledo was indeed an ex Cuban base that Mig fighters had lauched from to attack South African targets during the bush war. We were officially fighting for our old enemy and being paid handsomely to do so. We thought we were super cool and adopted the “i am meaner than shit” attitude. We were very green in this field and would shortly find out what happens to those that thought they were the bees knees. We were full of very misguided bravado and mouthed off ten to the dozen about just how cool we fancied ourselves to be. There were those that were watching and listening to our bull shit with dismay and would soon exact retribution and discipline us accordingly. We worked daily packing fresh bottled water from one place to another in what seemed like silly PT with no real value other than pissing everyone off. Our trips to the beach were great and we ran around like tourists splashing and cavorting in the sea. It must have been around the 9th night when the Recce`s had, had enough of our collective nonsense and after many beers they formed a pack and visited our sleeping quarters. I was awoken by a stiff slap to my face right through the mosquito net and i immediately jumped up. This was taken as a belligerent action and i was told that if i raise my arms i will be “fucking killed” quote un quote. I took this advice very seriously and i stood with my arms bent up against my chest while i was given alternative punches to my face. After what seemed like ten a side the recce got pissed off and went berserk and proceeded to throttle the shit out of me banging my head repeatedly against the cupboard. I knew that if i went down they would stomp me to death so i hung in there and tried to remain as upright as possible. Eventually a guy named Wayne Ross Smith walked in brandishing a bayonet and told the two recce`s having a field day with my face that i had, had enough. They moved onto the next bungalow and tramped the shit out the next fellow and so on. On leaving the bungalow one of the recce`s named Rich Nicholl switched the light off and retorted “ have a nice evening gentlemen”, i stupidly replied “thank you”. The light came back on and terror filled my soul! He asked if i was trying to be clever and i assured him in my most calm voice that it was merely a natural response and that i was not trying to be wise. The light went out and the recce`s moved on. I sat on the edge of the bed a leaned forward spitting blood a pieces of teeth. The mosquito`s were going ape shit and it was pointless to try and wave them off, these were persistent mozzies that seemed to form a squadron and dive down at me in waves, it was almost like pearl harbour! If you listened closely you could almost hear the high pitched voices shouting “Tora Tora Tora”. I eventually accepted that i was most likely going to get killed that evening and i lied down to await the inevitable. The recce`s ran around the bungalows stomping their feet and some were throwing what i surmise were detonators that made loud bangs, there were some dudes who could not take this and were openly crying loudly and one guy calling for his mother( and no it was not me) . The recce`s eventually went off and left us alone and in the morning there was a very tense air hanging over the camp. One of the officers that had also received a slap or two had possibly relayed the events back to Pretoria and it wasn’t long before Lafras Luithing who had been in Luanda some 90 odd clicks north was on base to assess the situation. We were all interviewed and the list of those resigning was long. I told them i did not want to resign but i was in excruciating pain and my jaw was fractured. It was decided to fly us all back to Pretoria and take things from there. Lafras drove me to Johannesburg and dropped me off at my dad`s restaurant, my dad was over the moon to meet Lafras and didn’t seem too perturbed that my nose was three times its original size and smeared across the side of my face. Lafras instructed me to meet at the office in Centurion the next day where i would be taken to a dentist and fix a couple of my busted teeth. I knew i was working for the right company and fully trusted those i was employed by. The following day i drove around with Lafras to Midrand and waited while he had a meeting with someone at a house just off the main road, this was all very cool and cloak and dagger.

I frequented my favourite watering hole in the evenings and met up with a friend of mine Paul George De Sousa he was signed up as translator and radio man for the company and i spoke to a guy who would also join as a sapper, his name was Loedie Voges. So i now had at least three pals in the deal with me and this was cool in that we had a gang of sorts, my school buddy and ex SAP security branch cop Deon Partridge made up the gang . i returned to Cabo Ledo 7 days after being flown down and on arrival i was greeted by both Rich Nicholl and Simon Witherspoon whose fists i had stopped with my face, they both greeted me and said that i had at least had the balls to return as quite a few of the guys had run like bitches and resigned including Gary the logistics officer named Bryan Westwood`s step son. Bryan was furious at his step son`s sissy boy approach and openly chastised him in conversation. It was Bryan`s stepson i had originally met in the bar and took me off to Bryan`s house in Randburg to apply for the position within Executive Outcomes. We were issued weapons and life carried on quite nicely without too much drama as we now had our jobs to do and left the chest heaving to those that were duly qualified to do so. The whole beating debacle had come about as a lesson to us to show exactly where everyone fitted into the pecking order and was indeed a necessity. I accept that my bravado and big mouth had gotten my person beaten up and i deserved it. We had to know where we stand and understand the parameters and severity , gravity of the situation we were in as this wasn’t a holiday camp. It was deadly serious work and we were expected to do a job and maintain our professionalism. It wasn’t long before i was transferred to Rio Longa base about 80 or so clicks from Cabo Ledo to clear an area to serve as a heli pad but that never came to fruition as the ground was deemed to uneven and the brush too dense, so we were tasked at digging long drop toilets which i soon became a professional at. There were rumours of mine fields and that in the wet months they basically become “migratory” as the mines shift along with the wet loose soil, how true this is i cannot confirm but i can confirm that there were literally dozens of AP`s (anti personnel mines) lying in the shallow waters on the banks of the river at the bridge. Our arrival at Longa was akin to arriving in a jungle base in “Nam” and it was well, cool as hell. What we noted first was an Angolan soldier being disciplined by the FAA (forces armada angolana) for what we were told was deserting, this sod was strung up by his feet and dangled over the river from the low vehicle bridge, his hands just touching the water. He was obviously told that the crocodiles were going to snack on him and he screamed non stop, this would not have happened as there were literally thousands of FAA troops utilising the river as a big washing and ablution area. This shocked us and equally amused us a bit but it had nothing to do with us so we minded our own business. The long drop toilets were a necessity as there were obviously no facilities in place and we went about this task with much seriousness.( we had a little ditty we sang when walking off to dig the shit holes and went a little like this” hi ho hi ho its off to work we go, with a pick and a spade and a hand grenade, hi ho hi ho”) . One idiot that had just arrived went and took a dump in the unfinished hole while we went to lunch, we were fucking furious and demanded he climb back into the hole and remove his turd immediately ! we were still digging the hole to the at least 5 to 6 foot depth and did not appreciate this big log lying there in all its splendour in the hole we still had to work in. We had dug 4 of these crappers and were adorned with what is known as a “go kart” which is an upturned empty wood weapons case ( the big box that our AK47`s and RPG7`s (rocket propelled grenades) came in. We would cut a neat hole in the top and place the go kart over the hole, sandbag the rim all round and hey presto , a shit house ala king. Every so often we would pour a bit of fuel into the hole and set light to it to “disinfect the contents and kill the stench a bit, one evening i was perched atop the bush throne which we had “built” on the top of a small hill to allow for the stink to bypass the encampment, i was busy turning my daily coil when some FAA soldier got creative with his AK47 and was shooting into the darkness. I could see muzzle flashes over the hill at the FAA camp but i don’t know where this clot was firing all i know is that i immediately cut my loaf off and grabbed my AK47 and was aiming in the general direction of the firing coming from the FAA camp, i had visions of being slotted while sitting on the crapper so i hastened my visit and retreated to the relative safety of tent town. Needless to say i never used that go kart in the evening again! At lunch one day a new arrival who said he was an ex parabat was mouthing off at how mean he was and that the bats were a far superior group to the recce`s and 32 batallion and that he was basically Rambo`s cousin. We knew what was coming and sat there and waited for the inevitable. One of the recce`s strolled over to him and whacked him a shot that put him into lala land, it is noteworthy mentioning that this tool had arrived the day before and was on the plane back home the following day, Some warrior! During the hottest part of the day we would take a siesta to get out of the sapping sun and usually we would conduct basic maintenance on our weapons, on my return after my arse kicking episode i had brought along a comprehensive gun cleaning kit and so i always had a clean weapon. There were four of us billeted in the Chinese army tents and we had steel cupboards between the beds which contained our odds and ends. A new arrival that was ex navy marines (this was not a unit that worked out so good for the South African navy) was regaling us with all his weapons knowledge and Uber coolness forgot to remove the magazine from the AK47 before cycling the weapon in order to remove the dust cover plate and then remove the working parts and rotating bolt. For some unknown reason while he was babbling on, he cocked the AK47 then removed the magazine and squeezed the trigger. The round discharged and the bullet went through the cupboard hitting a can of deodorant and exited the tent between myself and the guy to my right ( i am convinced it was my pal Paul George) . A dust cloud was kicked up and all i could say was” it wasn’t me, my weapon is field stripped”, a nervous laughter broke out but came to an abrupt stop when Blue Kelly a very crazy Aussie sergeant major stormed into the tent and bellowed “ who the fuck did that?!” the culprit immediately fessed up and apologised for his stupidity. Blue retorted in his very own subtle way “ if you ever do that again i will fucking kill you myself!!!” , needless to say we believed him. The navy marine had lost all his credibility with us and we were pleased at his decision to seek another tent to call home. Daily we would all trek up to the training field and observe the FAA receiving training from the recce`s and other instructors, these poor FAA dudes did not know what had hit them and the fact that they were so badly fed by their own commanders didn’t help the situation either. Some were so weak that they could barely run 100 metres without collapsing from exhaustion, needless to say this sad state of affairs was corrected after intervention by the company and decent soldiers were being turned out for service by the EO staff. The Brigadier attached to the FAA was a brutal bastard and i and a lot of the others had no time for this repugnant pig of a man. His approach to discipline was cruel, swift and final. I truly hope this man has met an untidy , miserable and painful end! He was not a good man and i will leave it at that, i amongst others including some of the instructors witnessed his brand of discipline one day on the training field and it was uncouth to put it mildly. Brigadier Viliarano was a pig!!

After a month i was transferred back to Cabo Ledo to carry on doing my job which was as part of the air wing, i was a refueler and marshaller , i also maintained basic flight line safety and conducted very basic runway maintenance. We did not have oodles of material to utilise in repairing holes etc in the runway so we used what ever we could find to fill holes that were considered high priority. My other duties included basic weapons maintenance in the weapons store ( i would clean the weapons of those going on leave), some of the guys had zero respect for the maintenance of their weapons and because of my keenness to maintain my weapon i was duly drafted into cleaning and logging all the rifles. I also stood beat at the boom that was the entrance to our little part of the base within the FAA base which had been a Cuban base previously.

This duty started shortly after Rieme De Jager the RSM`s dog Leo was shot by a FAA soldier standing beat at the boom. Riema fas furious and equally heart broken. Leo was no ordinary dog and was part of the company like everyone else. Every morning i was tasked with the important job of dumping our garbage, this i did in the field at the bottom of the base outside the fence line. We were told by a FAA sergeant not to go too far into the field as the Cubans had apparently mined the perimeter of the base years before. We gingerly reversed the Chevy Cheyenne pick up truck into the field and got the local labourer to empty the dustbins over the side of the vehicle. We started to call these garbage runs ‘breakfast at Tiffany`s” as the FAA would always pitch up in numbers to scratch through the rubbish for anything edible. My 24th birthday was coming up soon on the 12th of November and i had secured myself leave time, i boarded the King Air N91TR and was off home for my birthday, i was stoked to be joining my friends for a piss up of note. Deon had already flown down and Paul George was to follow a day after me, our rendezvous would be at a small pizza place called Biella, the bonus part was that Bryan Westwood would also be there as he too was home on pass. After being airborne for about 4 hours the pilots received a call that there had been an accident on the Longa training field and that there were casualties, we were unfortunately too far to turn back and would not have had the fuel to make it back to Cabo Ledo, so we were flown the remainder of the trip which was about two more hours to Lanseria air port. There was no one from passport control to stamp our passports back into the country and we were told by some lesser official type to come back the next day. The air craft refuelled and left same day to collect the injured staff members. We were taken to the house/ office in Centurion and asked to be on “call” the following day when the injured would return. Naturally this would not be a problem and we then went home. I had flown down on the 10th of November which was a Wednesday and it was on Wednesday in Longa that an accident that should never had happened took place. The guys were sussing out the Russian and Chinese fabricated hand grenades and more importantly try and decipher the Chinese/ Cyrillic writing on the detonators so as to know the delays on the fuses. A grenade from what i can gather was tied to a small tree and a line run to the pin, this was to allow the pin to be pulled from a safe distance. Apparently the pin did pull out but the spoon didn’t properly release from the grenade. When it did the guys were dangerously close and to add to the situation the detonator was a “zero det” commonly used in booby traps. The closest person to the blast was Wayne Ross Smith and he had turned away slightly and was hit by the shrapnel in his back and the back of the head. A few others also suffered shrapnel injuries. My friend Paul George flew down in the plane with a critically injured Wayne and others including the doctor. Unfortunately Wayne died shortly before the plane landed at Lanseria airport and judging by the state of the interior of the plane it must have been a difficult six hours for Paul George, he seemed to have changed somewhat. I drove Paul George home and met up with Deon where we discussed this tragedy, we were all friendly with Wayne and his death was a tragic affair. Wayne was a good guy and well liked and respected by all within EO. My birthday went off as planned as was attended by Bryan Westwood and my two comrades. It was a nice enough time but spoiled by the unfortunate turn of events. I had visited three other friends of mine and asked them if they wanted to join EO as they had military background with mortars and served in 61 Mech and the other was ex police. I was dismayed at their uniform answers that they could not due to their girlfriends. What a bull shit, lame arse excuse! I was disgusted by their seemingly sissy attitudes and have never really maintained contact with them. My flat mate Mark had just gotten married and i sort of understood his reluctance to go to Angola, but i was still a tad disappointed by his negativity and his words “ i am not going to go to Angola to get myself killed”. ( It turned out that a few years later he would get himself shot twice in a drive by shooting after pissing someone off, his wife was eight months pregnant with their first child. ) A couple days later we returned to Cabo Ledo and carried on with our jobs. There were the negative noddy squad that resigned from EO in the wake of the accident that claimed Wayne Ross Smith and complained that there wasn’t enough space in the plane to evacuate the guys quickly enough if anything happened or we were attacked. Apparently these idiots were not aware that they were working in a country at war. Around this time there was a lot of rumour circulating about us being arrested for being mercenaries on our return to the Republic and that there was imminent war brewing within South Africa due to the elections that were supposedly going to spark all out civil war. I commiserated about this possibility at length and was fraught with worries that the ANC were going to go on an all out wholesale killing spree. With this in my mind i went into December 1993 with doubts and trepidation.

Eo proved to us once again that the welfare of the men in their employ was of great importance and number 1 priority by supplying us with what seems a small gesture but made us really feel like we were appreciated. The company had flown us a whole pile of “Xmas care packages” that contained all sorts of nice goodies, we dined like kings. There were a lot of guys that had gone home on leave so we had way too many Xmas parcels and these were donated to the FAA dudes in the vehicle section, little did we know that this would lead to all kinds of bother. Apparently one of the FAA soldiers had grabbed two parcels and would not share them with one of the FAA instructors who when he woke up from siesta demanded he receive one. An argument ensued and the instructor shot the FAA soldier in the stomach with his AK47 and sauntered off firing as he went. This Xmas parcel had obviously meant a lot to him? He walked out the vehicle park and marched towards our part of the base down the straight tarred road. Soldiers poured out the FAA vehicle park and were taking pot shots at the FAA instructor who was wearing a bright red T shirt. What is amazing is that he was only hit in the leg after about 20 or so shots had been fired in his direction, he would calmly turn and squeeze off shots in retaliation every few steps. The instructor fell in audible pain after the bullet hit him in the calf and exited the shin. It was a bad wound by any account and he yelled in pain. By now i was standing at the medics to get a Voltaren injection for pain in my lower back i had sustained after being pulled off the wing of N123PW also a king air flown by Crause Steyl and his merry men, i had been refuelling the plane and was seated on the wing with the hose resting over my leg to protect the wing when the guy that started the fuel truck to allow the pump to supply fuel hopped the truck forward a few feet and i was unceremoniously yanked from the wing and landed flat on my arse. Anyways back to the FAA instructor and the Xmas day parcel debacle, i immediately grabbed the nearest weapon which belonged to a guy suffering from cerebral malaria and was hallucinating about a big bear attacking him, i suspect he had been given some seriously strong sedatives. Paul George piled out the bungalow carrying my RPK ( i had since swapped my AK47 for the RPK with one of the recce`s who wanted a lighter weapon on the training field, Paul George went to ground and was lying prone, i was in a kneeling position and rounds that the soldiers were firing at the instructor were hitting inside our base in the dirt close by, we were not sure what the hell was going on and we thought we were being attacked by surprise using Christmas day as an advantage to sneak an attack. Pine Pienaar came out the ops room and told us to hold our fire as this was not our fight. He (the FAA instructor)started crawling up to our boom gate when a Chevy Cheyenne with a Caucasian Portuguese FAA Colonel pulled up and he casually strolled up to the instructor, drew his pistol and shot him! What i found amazing was that the guy that was wounded by the instructor was being pushed down the road from the FAA vehicle park in a wheelbarrow! There were at least 50 Chevy Cheyenne`s in this vehicle park and the Colonel had just rolled up in one and despatched the instructor then loaded his body on the back of the pick up and disappeared. The wounded fellow was being rushed to the medics in a wheelbarrow. This was bizarre to say the least. We returned to daily life and went to the bar that evening and discussed this funny event at length, pushing a dude to the medics in a wheelbarrow! The next day we went to the medics side of the FAA base where we had a refrigerated container that had unfortunately run out of diesel a few days earlier and December in Angola can be quite hot. I was standing on the back of the Chevy and as soon as the one guy tried to open the doors of the container the FAA soldiers milling around the medics started to throng towards the container and were dead keen on looting its contents, i fired a few rounds off into the air to keep the walking wounded at bay but this was not necessary because as soon as the doors swung open the stench of rotting meat and fish hit us like a sucker punch. I recoiled and puked. The FAA troops even moved off in a hurry. The door was closed and i never went back there. The smell that emanated from some of the injured FAA soldiers also made people ill, they were walking dead and just had not realised they were supposed to fall down. One particular guy had a dirty stiff bloodied browning bandage wrapped around his stump that was amputated just below the knee and man did this guy stink. I would voluntarily have rather sniffed a skunks arse than the foul rotting stink that emanated from this poor guys had been leg. Till today i have a serious problem with foul odours and the gag reflex kicks in when i smell anything similar. The smell was so strong you could almost taste it. The 31st of December rolled around and we were all relaxing and catching up on much beer consumption in the bar area and generally shooting the breeze about any old thing. It wasn’t till one guy decided to stir the shit pot by saying that 32 battalion were superior to the recce`s and parabats combined. This started to rub the recce`s the wrong way and it was not long before someone got a snot klap (bitch slap) and it all went seriously pear shaped from there. Some weapons were cocked and us support guys evaporated back to our barracks. Shit thing is that i slept right by the frikkin door! I lay there that night with my RPK next to me in bed while we waited fro the shooting to start. The guys were very aggressive and none of us wanted a repeat of the hidings from September, only this time we were all armed both with weapons and booze. It did after a few hours wind down and the guys went to bed. We sighed a collective sigh of relief . I had by now already made my decision to resign and go back to the Republic so that i could assist my country when the war broke out. Naturally this did not come to fruition and the only trouble we had was between the IFP( inkhata freedom party) and the ANC( African national congress) outside the ANC head quarters. I at that time was working with a guy who owned a security company and he contracted me to assist him. We were in town at one of our “biggest” clients protecting the business which was a block away. That was a hoot and the excitement was palpable during the 1994 elections i was contracted by an Italian concern to protect Italian journalists covering the elections for RAI tv. Deon and I escorted these very naive journalists to the bomb blasts at the then Johannesburg international air port and it just so happens that Eeben Barlow had just arrived at the air port, we did not know this and i only recently became aware of this after reading his book. It is funny how coincidences work.

I duly wrote out my resignation letter and handed it to the personnel officer in Cabo Ledo who in turn sent it on to Thys Pelser in Centurion. I further more requested a letter stating i had resigned and indeed served with Executive Outcomes. I received this letter on my last day in the employ of Executive Outcomes which was the fourth of January 1994, i spent a total of 127 days working for the company which was the most life altering experience in my life. I started very young and green and left a much wiser individual. I have the utmost respect for Eeben Barlow the founder of EO and Lafras Luithing the second in command. I was sorry that i had left and tried to reapply in 1995 but i was not able to slot in anywhere, i still have the letter sent to me after applying to rejoin the company. I was saddened by my stupidity of leaving in the first place. Executive Outcomes had a very positive impact in my life and even after my beating in the beginning i admit openly that i was acting like a horses arse and deserved to be issued corrective slaps, this was of vital importance to ensure i know exactly where i stood within the framework of the company and that cowboys will be a liability to those in the unit. The recce`s were the real deal and we were support and we had our job which was vitally important to the company as a whole even though we weren’t special forces and operators. Planes need refuelling, weapons need cleaning, garbage needs to be cleaned out, convoys need protecting, beer needs to be unloaded etc. I am very proud to have been a small cog in a big machine and we did our jobs well. Eeben Barlow wrote an excellent book titled Executive Outcomes against all odds and it tells in depth the job the company had and the successes it had in ending 30 years of civil war in Angola and later also turning the tide in Sierra Leone. His book also goes into detail describing his career in the military and then in the employ of the CCB( civil cooperation bureau) and is a must read. Eeben also has a blog site that he keeps updated with interesting articles . http://eebenbarlowsmilitaryandsecurityblog.blogspot.com/

Once again i thank Eeben Barlow for the opportunity to have worked for his dynamic company which was to become the first real PMC (private military company) and the bench mark that those that sprung up have tried to emulate. What made EO unique was the emphasis on the well being of its staff and the professionalism of the operation as a whole.

In later met up with Rieme De Jager who was our RSM (regimental sergeant major) in Cabo Ledo in Randburg and had signed on to go off to Angola on separate contract in the diamond region, where i was to be a supposed “tractor mechanic” although i had zero clue about mechanics and my visa was duly authorised and entered into my passport but at the last moment the whole project seemed to go haywire and we never went. I was very upset by this turn of events and went on with my newly found lucrative career in the private security field.

Michael B Da Silva (book number 32)

BIRD ON A WIRE & THE CANNABIS
CULTIVATION COPS

Air force camps to air force Pietersburg
(1991) & air force station Nelspruit (1992)

On completion of my National service i wandered off into civilian  street in
search of gainful employment and to face the big bad world head on. It was a
daunting prospect and i was not convinced of this whole civvie street  usiness.
I scoured the papers and left my basically blank c.v at all the personnel agencies. I was busy, busy , busy doing nothing. I eventually found a good work for really good people and what turned out to be the best boss i had and have ever worked for. He owned a Portuguese restaurant in the south of Johannesburg and his daughter had been working there since birth it seems, she is still there today! It was honest work and i worked long hours and made good money. I entertained myself by sabotaging the idiot manager who apparently “worked” there. He was a total waste of skin. I would on a regular basis put tooth picks inside his steak and rub a thin layer of tobasco sauce around the rim of his glass of wine he had stashed around the restaurant that he would sip from every so often. I once threw the contents of an ice bucket over the toilet stall door. He was groaning and grunting like a pig while cutting his daily loaf and i just couldn’t resist. The work although financially viable did get mind numbing and i desperately harked for the military life, so one fine day i subversively made a phone call to Waterkloof ops room and requested they consider me for a camp. A month back in uniform sounded like the medicine i needed. My only requirement was that they don’t call me up for duty in Pretoria! The military duly sent my call up request and i was advised to be at air force base Zwartkops where i would be flown to air force base Pietersburg  and report to base ops. I was delighted to say the least as i would still receive my civilian salary for the month i was away and i would get army pay. It wasn’t much but the army pay would be sufficient to pay for my month long drinking binge. I duly stocked up on essential kit that i would need to take along on my “deployment”. I had two bottles of Jack Daniel`s in my balsak (duffle bag) and a case of beers packed loose amongst my clothes as emergency stock. Life at Pietersburg was run of the mill at first while i sussed the guys out i was working with. I was tasked as the designated driver and was issued a Toyota hi-ace mini bus that i would drive the guys to and from the ops room, this also allowed me the use of the military vehicle for other “recces” around town. I would take myself and some of the others out to town where we would pub crawl and frequent the clubs till the early hours. One day a new permanent force member fresh from basics and course arrived and i know he definitely rued the day we made acquaintance. For reasons of fuzzy memory i will call the “newbie” permanent force recruit “Johan” as i cannot  remember his name and besides i am sure that he would appreciate the anonymity.  One evening after lodging serious complaints in the mess hall comments book about the seriously lacking  wholesomeness of
the fare on offer  and likening it to the slop served up at establishments such as Auschwitz  and calling this grey goop death camp cuisine, i ambled over to the hi ace mini bus and headed off to the accommodation block to round up some guys who felt like going out for something decent. I had Kentucky Fried Chicken in mind. I would load the vehicle with people so as to not raise suspicions at the gate as to why i was utilising the vehicle alone. Being a camper i did not require the silly gate passes and other paperwork and those with me in the mini bus were thus also immune from requiring paperwork as we were obviously working.  I suppose the guards at the gate must have
thought we had “official” business outside the base even at 20h00. On my
arrival at the accommodation block i got initially sidelined by some of the
dudes watching a video of the recently released film titled “Bird on a wire”
with Mel Gibson and one particular scene grabbed my attention . Mel and Goldie Hawn were escaping from some villainous types in a BMW 3 series E30 cabriolet by driving on the train tracks, this must have somehow resonated with me in my subconscious, this is easy especially after a dozen beers and a couple shots of Jack Daniel`s . Anyways, back to the story at hand. I went around and tried to recruit some followers to join me in my quest for decent chow and head off into Pietersburg town, however money was low tide for most the guys except for Johan our fresh faced clueless farm boy. He was still busy unpacking all his stuff  and had missed dinner time so he was keen to go out to the KFC and get a chow. We sped off in the mini bus and made our way through the streets towards  town.  As i approached an unguarded level crossing the imprinted memories of the movie from earlier kicked in and i hung an immediate left turn onto the tracks. The wheels fit inside the tracks and we trundled head on for about a kilometre before it occurred to me that this is an active train line! I started looking for  somewhere to try and negotiate a U turn, Johan was by now completely frantic and babbling incoherently amidst screams of pure terror imagining a train killing  us. I eventually sussed out a spot that i perceived was a “level-ish” piece of ground on either side of the tracks and i started to turn the steering wheel and hopping the mini bus forward to mount the track. We were inside the tracks and it sort of guided us, it was near impossible to get over the slippery train track but after much effort and wheel spin i got the front left tyre over the track and i floored the mini bus only for it to nose dive straight down resting on the front bumper with the tail gate end up in the air along with the rear wheels. The rear wheels were no longer on terra  firma  and panic set in. I had not seen that the “level” ground was just long grass and that the train track was in fact  on an elevated “hump”. Johan and I scrambled
from the vehicle and conducted a quick assessment of the situation, we came to the conclusion that we were in the shit! The headlights were shining directly into the dirt and the tail lights looked like landing beacons glowing red way up there in the air. I did the responsible thing and duly turned the hazard lights on, after all  safety first!

Here is where the story goes tits up! We rocked the mini bus and Johan hung from the back to try and get the wheels to come into contact with the ground where i would floor the accelerator and hopefully attain traction to drive the bus out. That was the theory anyways but it was not working so well as the chassis was resting on the slope of the hump. We noticed that there was a piece of old exhaust pipe attached to an old silencer box ( it had obviously been replaced and the old piece put in the back as proof i surmise).
There was also a flat tyre still on the spare rim so we had tools to work with.
I amended our plan and told Johan to put the flat tyre under the mini bus and
when i gun the accelerator he must jam the silencer box into the gap thereby
giving me sufficient traction to hop the mini bus free of its quandary. In my
mind this was simplistic and was sure to work easily however what followed next was not in my original plans. I gunned the throttle and Johan jammed the silencer box into the gap where the spinning wheel was whizzing around at top speed. I then heard an almighty thud and in the left side view mirror saw a flash of something airborne. I jumped out the driver side and ran around the back of the mini bus to see Johan lying there writhing in agony and blood gushing from a huge gash in his obviously busted nose, the silencer box had flown out at near supersonic speeds and smacked him right in face. I started to discombobulate a tad and ran around the front of the mini bus to do i don’t know what and i slipped on the grass and fell into a small  barbed wire fence that ran along the side of the train tracks, something i had not noticed earlier . i was cut by the barbed wire and had cuts all over my hands and forearms as i tried to cushion my fall. Now we were both casualties. Once i had composed myself  and calmed down to a bitch panic i went back
to Johan who was babbling and spitting blood, i am sure he was annoyed by me, i cannot be sure but i had a niggling suspicion that he may blame me. I helped  him to his feet and we set off on foot for the hospital for medical attention. I was wearing my browns and Johan was still in his full blues uniform. We must have been a sight to behold! On arrival at the hospital we were tended to by a two pip lieutenant  doctor who turned out
to be a camper doing his last camp for the military. His first words were “
what  kak did you two get up to?” i gave him a brief  SITREP (situation report)  and informed him of my status as a camper which immediately changed the dynamic of the whole affair. The doc was all too happy to assist a fellow camper out the shit, so after dressing the wounds on my arms and hands and sorting out some “augmentation” for Johan`s nose he took us off in his old land rover series 2 or 3 to help us recover our stricken vehicle. We got to the edge of a large veld and i pointed out to the blinking lights in the distance. He turned to me and reported that i had not mentioned that i had taken a long drive down the train tracks, he was under the impression i had maybe strayed a few metres onto the tracks due to my “night blindness” as i had said. All i could say was “watch the movie bird on a wire” and left it at that. Johan climbed up onto the bonnet of the landy and sat in the spare wheel which on these land rovers is on the bonnet. Johan`s job was to act as  a message relay station  while i walked ahead and was to warn of obstacles and holes,  the lieutenant slowly drove through the veld, the last thing we wanted was another stricken vehicle. After much effort and sweating we managed to drag the minibus free and towed it out to the road where we thanked the doctor and headed for base. This ordeal had begun at around 19h00 and it was now around 02h00. 

We returned to the barracks and cleaned up,
got a few Z`s and readied ourselves for the upcoming uitkak parade. We got our story correlated and decided to spin the following set of events as fact. We told the Commandant that i had gone out drinking and got pissed and while
negotiating the staircase at the barracks i fell against the walls which are
rough ripple plastered and therefore caused the cuts and scratches on my hands and arms. The Commandant seemed to believe this set of events and found my story plausible. Johan`s story however he found suspect to say the least and did not believe for a second that Johan had been busy making his bed and tripped over the blanket falling and smashing his nose open on the steel frame. The Commandant believed we must have had a fight with each other or with other parties and that the bed making story was simply too far fetched to believe. We stuck to our story and did not waiver and we were suddenly brought back to reality when all hell broke lose out on the runway. The ATC  (air traffic control) were in contact with an inbound Impala mk2 and if memory serves right were instructing the pilot to conduct an overshoot and abort landing, however something went pear  shaped and the Impala mk2 crashed on the runway killing the pilot who had not had the time to eject. We all jumped into first gear and despatched emergency services, got a helo on standby and did all the necessary paperwork and signals. It was however too late for the pilot as he was killed outright. The Impala mk2 `s serial number was 1008 attached to 85cfs. It was February 22<sup>nd</sup> 1991. Chaos ensued as everyone was surmising and spreading rumours of the Impala maybe being victim to an rpg7 or brought down by ANC gunmen etc. The truth is that it all was attributed to pilot error on landing. The Commandant congratulated the ops team for our professional conduct and following  our SOP`s (standard
operating procedures) to a T. I used this interlude to bring to the Commandants attention the horrid state of the mini bus taxi and its un roadworthiness and that i was not keen on putting the guys lives at risk in this shoddy bucket of bolts! Without further ado he sent me off to the “MT” (motor technical i think it is) section to get an appraisal on the mini bus and was phoned by a very concerned mechanic that could not understand why the chassis was so damaged and there was grass stuck inside the gearbox and the engine block had a hole in it and was pissing oil. The Commandant crapped all over the mechanic as if it were his fault and demanded a replacement vehicle for the ops room immediately. Later i drove the guys back to barracks in a brand spanking new hi ace mini bus. We had
gotten away with writing off a military vehicle! The moral of this story is
simple. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANYTHING YOU SEE IN THE MOVIES! On leaving
Pietersburg  , the sergeant asked me what had happened to Johan , me and the Hi Ace mini bus. I told him to ask Johan once i had flown back to Zwartkops and was a civilian again. He laughed and said that he knew there was more to the saga.

My next camp was the following year in march
of 1992, i had once again volunteered for the camp so as to go on  a paid holiday . i stocked my balsak  (duffle bag ) with travelling essentials such
as Jack Daniel`s and emergency beer. It was off to the train station and i
boarded the train along with 4 other campers off to Nelspruit which did not
have a dedicated air force base but only what is called an air force station. The
journey on the train was a wild drinking session which culminated in me “train surfing” , i have pictures where i am hanging out the door and one where i was hanging out the window. I knocked on the compartment window ahead of our and asked a very traumatised old couple for the time. We were moving at speed and it was night time, the expressions of horror on the old timers  faces were priceless.  I was attached to the intelligence division
and utilised as a dagga spotter ( we were actively engaged in finding weed
plantations) along with SANAB (South African Narcotics and Alcohol Bureau)
these were cops that dealt with drug issues and booze etcetera. We were flown from a sports field just outside of Nelspruit town and deposited at a tiny aerodrome just outside Malelane. This was to be our home away from home away from home. We would overnight two nights and then head back to Nelspruit air force station to complete SITREPS and catch up on filing of flight plans and hours the pilots had flown.  During our time back in
Nelspruit we stayed in the army side of the base and shared quarters with army campers. I had befriended a dude that lived in Evander  and he had a banged up brown  Daihatsu charade which he would drive at the
limit into town to assault the bars. The most happening spot in town was the
Mike`s Kitchen and one evening  i was sitting in a “lotus type” position on the bonnet ( why you ask? Hell i don’t know,  it just seemed like a good idea at the time) we pulled up outside the front  door  and i slid slowly down  and off the bonnet and then  at a fast pace walked right in and sat at the bar, ordering a beer without pause. The locals were amazed at this entrance. I was officially the maddest dude in Nelspruit!  My pal and i regaled the waitress and her friend with mindless bullshit and set the tone for the evening. We were going to snag these two broads most definitely. By the end of the waitress`s shift we were “low flying” and horny as all hell so we needed to get the lovelies into the mood, this we did by going to the city hall and taking a swim in the fountains. All this rebel without a clue stuff impressed these small town chicks no end and off we went to their place where we naturally got “jiggy wit` it”. The fornication persisted long  into  the wee hours.

On return to Malelane we were taken out by Oryx helicopter to an area between malelane and Mahlati kop to spot and correlate with SANAB any dagga plantations. We struck pay dirt early and found an  enormous plantation that would have made Bob Marley proud. The area was filmed using a simple hand held video camera and the tape given to SANAB. A few days later we were called up in a hurry to investigate an over border incident that had been reported by an infantry platoon along the “sissa” line on the South African / Mozambican border. Apparently a gunship had flown into South African airspace in the Kruger National park and fired rockets and heavy machine gun at people crossing into  the Republic. We were flown out
along with army intelligence personnel to conduct an investigation on the
ground and i was once again utilised as the designated camera man. Trees were pocked marked with shrapnel and large holes. There were casings and linkages strewn all over the place. It was all very cloak and dagger as we gathered evidence and filmed everything. This was turning out to be a cool camp. Between hanging out the door of an Oryx helicopter looking for dagga plantations to “hush hush” intelligence work was cool. SANAB (the cannabis cultivation cops) had made a huge find and burnt tons worth of dagga, the smoke cloud was evident for miles around and junkies were lamenting this  horrid unfairness. The highest ranking air force officer was invited to join the SANAB crowd at a celebratory braai in thanks for the air force`s help. I was asked to be the designated VIP  driver for the Brigadier as i was a camper and therefore more responsible. I was on my best behaviour as we drove to the SANAB camp. On arrival it was evident that the SANAB cops had definitely been inhaling when they burned the dagga, they were all goofed and pissed as coots. Gun play was actively being practised and the Brigadier instructed me to not come across as ungrateful in any way and accept whatever the cops offered. Low and behold the Brig was right. It wasn’t long before i was plied with “polisie koffie” ( quadruple brandy and a dribble of coke) and i got pissed beyond repair, even the Brig was ticking and when it came to leave. I ended up being driven back to Nelspruit  by the Brig!  The following day we were to report to the ops room for an important briefing pertaining to the future of the Republic. We were instructed by the Brig that with the upcoming  referendum on the 17<sup>th</sup> of march we are expected to vote “YES” to keep in line with the new dispensation and with De Klerk`s vision for South Africa.  So much for politics and voting  being a personal choice! We were effectively ordered to vote “yes”. Naturally i shook my head in agreement and then went a made my X in the “NO” column. I did not support De Klerk`s vision for the future but i decided to quietly do what i felt to be right but loudly voiced my agreement for these idiots to simply keep the peace. I voted at a sports ground in Nelspruit wearing civilian clothes so as to not be looked at by the CP (conservative party) as being a menacing  Government operative there to coerce people to vote for the NP(national party).

My camps were a jol and i miss them, so that is why i am considering joining the reserves at air force base Ysterplaat (iron plate) here in the Western Cape. It will be great to be in uniform once again. However before that i will relay the story of a chance encounter in a bar that led me to Angola and in the employ of a company whose “Outcomes” were advertised as “Executive”.
It was  a journey that led me to a greater understanding of military matters and a darn fine salary to boot. That would however be next year in September 1993.

Many thanks to Gloria at Restaurant
Parreirinha for being so understanding when i was “called up” not once but
twice in successive years  by “surprise” to serve my country! Yeah right!

Michael B Da Silva.

KALAHARI ROCK AND THE PEACE PIPE

                TALES FROM UPINGTON AND
SODWANA BAY 1989/90

The military was a  gas. I enjoyed the entire event from start to completion in 1990. Along the way I learned a lot about discipline and camaraderie and of how to do what is known  as the “fuck around”. It was every National Serviceman`s duty to perfect this art form like it is every POW`s (prisoner of wars) duty to start planning their escape if captured. I duly excelled in this particular “art of war.” I got up  to mischief of the near legendary sort. I was indeed a “legend in my own lunch time”.

My border duty had wound down and the mundane monotony of life at air force base Waterkloof  base ops after the 7^th of may 1989`s “little” incident was mind numbing. I therefore jumped at the request for a volunteer  to go with 12 squadron (the Canberra bombers) to Upington on operation Golden Eagle 2. I was to be their dedicated squadron operations clerk and handle all their flight plans and correlate all radio chatter between the pilots and ground crews. I was super stoked and boarded the 28 squadron C 130 Hercules for the deployment to Upington. We arrived in late October and it was sweltering! The heat was restrictive and the duty of setting up tents was murder. The days passed by and the beer was a welcome respite for desert parched throats. We imbibed the beer with much gusto. It was official, UPINGTON WAS A KAK PLACE!!. Even trips to town in the evenings  was dreadful. The local bar in town had a bar lady that should have worked as the bearded lady in the freak show circus and everyone sported a moustache, bar lady included. Granted it wasn’t as thick and obtuse as those of the local men but it was nevertheless  impressive for a woman! The 12<sup>th</sup> of November was upon us and it was my 20<sup>th</sup> birthday, it also just so happened that there was a huge “sokkiejol”( South African equivalent of the famed American “ho down” or jamboree) at the local co operative grounds where sheep et al are auctioned off. The army dudes were there in force from the local infantry base all kitted out in their step out uniforms and browns with  “putties” (ridiculous white plastic things worn around the top of the boot). The air force contingency  was there in civvies and in varying degrees of drunkenness. Being my birthday it is redundant to mention that I was well on my way. Sobriety had long since been dispensed with.  The
local females that turned out were dressed in their Sunday best, hats, corsages and all. Apparently these sokkie jols are a big deal in Upington. We invaded the hall and immediately laid siege to the bar area, sussing out the female  talent in the “area of operations”. The music was pumping from the mobile deejay on duty, i cannot remember ever hearing Kylie Minogue`s  the locomotion played so many times back to back and witnessing desert windsurfing  practised with so much seriousness. It is truly a bizarre thing to behold. Watching  people dancing as if during Baroque times but to the locomotion. This type of dancing persisted throughout the evening. It was horrible! We were getting tired of this Kylie Minogue torture and a pal of mine approached the deejay and requested he play a song by the band U2, the song he requested was “where the streets have no name”, quite fitting for Upington! It was my favourite song at the time and it was my birthday. We should have taken heed of the deejay`s disco name “KALAHARI SHAKE SHAKE” and to add to the misery of this tragic name were two palm fronds standing on either side of the “deejay box”. He duly agreed and carried on with the most hideous music yet committed to vinyl and cassette tape. After what seemed an eternity enduring some sort of cruel Chinese torture and about 10 more beers my friend went back to the deejay box and was by now getting a tad vociferous and harsh in his request for this elusive U2 song. The deejay gave the thumbs up and we sauntered onto the dance floor ready  to dazzle these farm chicks with our suave moves. The deejay then spoke… he reported that he had a special request for a U2 song, we were by now cheering, he then said in a terrible heavy Afrikaans accent that, “I have been asked to play U2, but i don’t have any U2 , but i do have Irish music”. He then proceeded to play The Blarney Brothers! The hatred and unhappiness was palpable, we jeered and cursed all the members of his family, extended family, his pet dog, the cockroaches in his kitchen and his ancestors. We regrouped and conducted a tactical retreat to the local bar in town where we were amazed and dazzled by the bar ladies impressive moustache. The following day after sorting our hangovers out with a hair of the dog we made our way to town once again to this time try our luck with the girls at the local water world. They had a huge super tube and it promised to be fun. This wonderland of fun was known as “die eiland” the island. Just keep in mind we are effectively in the middle of the desert and its a “warm” 45 degrees Celsius outdoors. The kids were having a rip of a time running up the stairs to the top of the super tube and launching themselves onto it for what should be a raucous ride to the pool waiting at the bottom. PROBLEM: for a super tube to work it needs a constant flow of water running down to assist the user to achieve a frictionless fun ride to the bottom. This particular super tube had no water( due to a dry spell to say the least)  and thus the kids were not going anywhere in a hurry. The sound of dry skin squeaking on the ultra hot plastic super tube must have been torture. What a load of wally this town has turned out to be! The only saving grace this sandy dump of a town had was the “drive through “ bottle store. Yes, i bull schtein you not! They had a drive through liquor store, it had a window at which you could purchase your beer and brandy,, it was GENIUS! Sadly it didn’t do much for the don’t drink and drive campaign. After a month of this dump we were happy to get back to
civilisation and the Castle bar in Pretoria till the boredom  sets in again.

The next “bush” trip that came up was in the month before i was to clear out all together and rejoin civilian life. I had met a woman that i though was the bees knees and i was in the middle of one of those moments where i had to decide whether to dump my school sweetheart for this new “hotrod’. I decided to go on this next journey to Sodwana bay on an exercise known as a MAOT and i was member of a TAU. That`s army jargon for Mobile Air Operations Team and i was officially attached to the Tactical Air Unit although we were convinced it was actually a Tent Assembly Unit.  We erected tents till the cows came home. The work was enjoyable and in all it was a better place than that shit hole Upington. We were at the sea side and we were groovy. ( one guy even took a surf board with). The bar was naturally one of the first parts of the base that were established and we weren’t afraid to make use of it. We worked in close cooperation with the ATC air traffic controller who was a very young green lieutenant fresh out of officer`s course. Only the air force in its infinite wisdom would take a serious stutterer and make him an air traffic controller. This poor dude would stammer even worse when put under pressure sitting in his little mobile ATC trailer atop the hill. We were by now known as “oumanne” old men and had “min dae”,  few days left of National Service, so we were allowed certain liberties and our indiscretions while in the “bush” were all but overlooked. Drunkenness, untidy uniform
incorporating  civilian clothes were also tolerated so long as they  didn’t affect
our work.

One evening i was contemplating this whole should i dump the long term girl friend for the new fangled hot rod model or not? I was doing this deep thought process over a few beers sitting at the foot of the hill that the ATC tower was on and the stuttering lieutenant joined my pals and i for a few cold beers. We were sitting next to a Sakem recovery vehicle ( a mine protected tow truck) it has a huge ground clearance  and when it started to drizzle
we scooted under the Sakem to get out of the rain. The evening was upon us and as we were on an exercise we had a lights out policy so as to ensure we were not seen by the opposing soldiers  partaking in what were war games. One of the guys wandered off into the darkness and got into the “Bulldog” an armoured personnel carrier similar to the Buffel, the difference being that the bulldog was utilised by the air force and its driver cab was in the middle of the vehicle as opposed to on the left side like the buffel. As no lights were
allowed he made use of Cyclops night vision goggles brand new to the defence
force and was called a Cyclops as it only had one “eye piece” jutting out
front. I believe it made use of mirrors and stuff to reflect to one view. It took
a bit of getting used to but worked magically. Anyways, while we were discussing the pro`s and cons of my dilemma one of the guys produced a monster joint. It was some of Durban`s finest Zol. We stoked it up and passed it around.( we broke out into the updated nursery rhyme that went a little something like this

 “ ROLL
ROLL ROLL YOUR JOINT, TWIST IT AT THE END, LIGHT IT UP ,TAKE A PUFF AND PASS IT
TO A FRIEND).  

 What we started to notice was that the lieutenant was starting to speak  luently. The stuttering had been cured! Hallelujah ! we just made a medical break through. It must have been about two hours( i cannot confirm this as by now we were experiencing time loss). The twilight zone was taking its toll. In the distance we heard the familiar rumble of the approaching bulldog, we could not see it but we could sure hear it. We had now moved out from under the Sakem as the drizzle had abated and we had run out of pipes to pull out from under the truck, there was fluid leaking out everywhere. We had another big slow boat circulating and the driver of the bulldog just about flattened us when he pulled up to an abrupt halt. He had been following the huge red ember being passed around as a navigation “beacon” to the RV point ( the place we were sitting).  He jumped down from the cab still donning the
Cyclops eyewear and had a big plastic packet chock a block with more Durban
Poison weed. CANNABIS GALORE! He had visited the local population and procured
us the stash, we got goofed right out of our trees wholesale.

 ( JUST A FOOT NOTE
: i do not  condone the use of hallucinogenic drugs and i do not take drugs, hell i don’t even smoke cigarettes but we were in Sodwana Bay and it was what one does when in Rome apparently, i just don’t recall seeing the Colloseum  but i attribute this to the fact that i was soooo stoned, I do recall vaguely that everything was  just so greeeeen man)

The following day we were all suffering from “green fever” from way too much weed and the heat and humidity didn’t help much either. My tour in Sodwana wound down a week or so later and i made my way back to Waterkloof. The trip was an absolute raucous time and i maintain fond recollections of those crazy military days. I did dump the long term high school sweetheart and i pursued the “hotrod” leading to a later failed engagement. I was back at Waterkloof for a few weeks and i cleared
out with my friends. We were ecstatic to be in civvie street  and went and partied for a month non stop to celebrate our freedom. Or was it freedom? Civilian street is more of a prison than the army ever was. I missed the military so much that i volunteered to be called up for a camp the following year so that i could escape the monotony and treachery of civilian life. Monotonous in having to go to a dead beat job everyday and treacherous because of the underhanded , callous , self serving  social climbers. These civilian types have zero loyalty and don’t practice team or unit. They love to harp on about team and unity but its all a lie!

I volunteered for two camps successively until the air force cancelled all camps for air force personnel. I was destroyed!  However  more on those camps at a future date and my employment by a PMC (private military company) Executive Outcomes.

Michael B Da Silva 85639201BT
Lance Corporal South African Air Force Intelligence corps: operations
(seriously that was my mustering)

ANTI
POACHING

      I WANT TO HELP

Good day . my name is Michael B Da Silva and I currently live in
Somerset West. I have just about had enough of this slaughter of our national
heritage and future generations natural assets. With every rhino poached yet
another cycle  within the already fragile
system is put at risk of collapse. Soon we will only have pictures and videos
left to prove that rhino exist. Our future generations will never have the
chance to see these animals in person.

I want to get offline and inline and on the ground and utilise my
knowledge and time to help in the fight to save our animals. I am a man with
real world responsibilities and requirements and thus cannot offer my services free of charge. It is truly great that there are those who can offer their time free or at a bare minimum rate. Herein lies a part of the problem that perpetuates the poaching problem. Poachers are well funded, well respected men in society and are running a business whose sole intent is to make a profit. They arm their poaching teams  well and they reward them with incentives aka(wages) which are obviously not low.
Collusion is easily bought and the well meaning ranger can be pumped for
information or Intel on rhino whereabouts in exchange for financial reward. The poachers also need Intel to know where exactly the “crash “ of rhino are or where the easiest target is. This Intel will be paid for and so it is logical
that programs must be put in place to gather Intel and subtly investigate the
staff at the ranches. From there it is vital to embark on a “hearts and minds”
approach with the local population in surrounding villages. Offering support
and even embarking on a reward system for accurate  information pertaining to the movement and possible activities planned in the area. Locals are invaluable in garnering Intel as they are in contact with poachers on a daily basis- (they frequent the same taverns for example) the poachers are not strictly imported units and need to infiltrate the community to gather Intel of their own and find the weak link in the chain, then they use whatever means they have at their disposal to get the information they need, pass it to the “wallets” in charge(the business men) and execute their tasks from then on. It is ridiculous to think that poaching teams are independent entities acting as such. What we need are highly mobile units who can intercept and ward off attacks and more importantly arrest members of the poaching teams. They need to be interrogated and all information garnered disseminated to the security forces for further investigation. It must be noted that once the poachers have culled the animal and removed its horn , they have
to have information and a rendezvous point with someone higher up who is then going to pay the poachers and carry the horn from there. We need this Intel and then need to keep following the chain of command as far up as we can or we then hand over the Intel to the police. We are not here to engage in military actions but must have people who are willing to do so if the need arises. We cannot have wide eyed bushy tailed youngsters or people who fit the profile as weak links in the anti poaching teams. The poachers are armed with automatic weapons and are not in business to be arrested, so they will defend their “freedom” vociferously. Anti poaching teams need the use of vehicles which are utilised as “mobile command posts”. The area of operations (the park) should be divided into blocks or sectors or whatever term is best suited and the team with vehicle sets up a temporary base camp and conducts foot patrol in a radius from there. I accept that vehicles make a noise but i am not suggesting driving around all day. The vehicle is a mobile command post from where patrols are despatched, the vehicle is also useful as shelter in the event of adverse weather or the presence of other wild life. The poachers definitely have transport waiting somewhere as i am very sure they do not “hump” all over the place carrying potentially thousands of Rands worth of highly valued rhino horn in their possession. The vehicles are valuable tools in the pursuit of poachers in order to effect “ arrest and interrogate” principles. The vehicle also allows teams that may be overwhelmed the ability of cover and aid in “escape and evasion”, moreover the vehicle also allows for the carrying of medical supplies and naturally can be used to ferry sick or injured members out of the area quickly. A broken ankle for example can be problematic for team members. Carrying kit and an immobilised comrade will “knacker” the whole team. Radio`s are great but the ability to move independently is of vital importance.

These principles are basic “COIN” counter insurgency principles that
are employed similarly by military units. This may not be war but the
ideologies remain the same. The ability to move at speed in pursuit of the
poachers, intelligence gathering from the locals and effective vetting of all
staff that work for the ranches. The poachers employ this tactic to their
benefit and the tally of rhino culled to date stands testament to a well
planned and executed slick operating machine. I am afraid to say that the anti
poaching units are currently on the back leg and the de facto losing team. This
can be attributed to internal politics and “chest heaving” which is allowing
the poachers free reign while red tape and the employment of incorrect tactics allow the poachers to constantly hold the upper hand. Collusion of staff who are not paid market related salaries can be attributed to the perpetuation of information being disseminated to less than scrupulous individuals and there is at least one instance of a rhino being killed whilst in a safe area at a reserve, apparently shot at close range with a hand gun. There the investigation should start with the immediate staff and branch out from there. I am a man with real world responsibilities and have knowledge about tactics and Intel gathering, i am also fully aware that pursuing poachers can get hairy to say the least and that it is potentially very dangerous. We need to
primarily understand that we are not a fighting unit and we are not here to
shoot `em up. This attitude is damaging and will result in arrest for any
member who thinks they can embark on a “Rambo” type approach.  The approach must be professional and more
over one that is what I call  “PRO-ACTIONARY”
as opposed to purely reactionary which
anti poaching has become. Pro-actionary is simple. It combines the principles
mentioned above with the emphasis on Intel gathering from the local population and the hearts and minds practice. Be this helping with building a church or rendering basic medical assistance. These types of practices also have a viable and positive spin off for the reserves who are looked at as simply being a money making enterprise. Yes you are in business to make money but you need the locals on your side.  Actively teaching the locals that it is beneficial to them to volunteer information on potential poachers and their activities will in the long run provide not only the reserve/park with tourism but also keep the locals gainfully “employed” through the sale of curios etcetera. If the rhino are poached, the only group benefitting are the poachers who will be paid for their effort and the business men who are utilising the poachers to ingratiate their pockets and the park now has lost its “draw card” thus there will be a down turn in eco tourists and the locals too will feel this slump. They are not only helping to  save some animals but are actively helping
save their potential incomes. A reward system( cash) must be paid to those who provide Intel  that is beneficial to the anti poaching initiative, this is a human anomaly and is vital i the garnering of the information we need in the tracking of poaching cells. Pay someone and they will talk. We must remember that once we have long left the area, the locals will still live there and thus any Intel garnered must be kept strictly
confidential to avoid reprisal attacks for any information received. It is also
very plausible that locals can be drafted into poaching units as guides
etcetera. Poaching units are a cohesive unit and have some degree of military
training and have proved to be highly mobile and thus “migratory” predators who will need the use of locals for shelter and as guides in unfamiliar terrain. If the tactics and other evidence left behind at varying poaching sites are
investigated  and correlated, i am very sure it will become evident that there is proof that one team is responsible for multiple attacks in different parks and provinces. Modus operandi , tactics and weaponry used is the key to confirming and linking a team to many attacks.
It is logical to launch an attack and cull a rhino in for arguments sake in the
northern cape and a few days later strike in the Limpopo province then take an animal down in the northern province after that. Its collectively known as
“shoot and scoot”. While the ranch is reeling from the attack and all eyes are
on the northern cape the poachers travel freely to their next target. It just
makes sense that tactics like this be employed. The anti poaching units are now strictly reactionary and running around in the wrong region. It all comes down to intelligence gathering and dissemination. Paying for information is neither illegal nor morally repugnant, it is a mutually beneficial reward program. It is not bribery but a reward based initiative. Without this there would not be intelligence gathering. I have written a release prior to this one where i have stated these points, it was done for an initiative . A group tried to get up and running but was fraught with teething problems from the outset and i was saddened and dismayed by its inability to get running. It seems that everyone wants to save our animals but no one wants to loosen the purse strings a tad to provide funding. I have therefore dispensed with the notion of a group or company set up and believe that direct employment by a game park is the only answer right now. Another approach is combining forces with other parks and farms to spread the financial load of having to employ ground staff. There are others who are capable and willing to carry this initiative through on the ground. Small teams on the ground within the pool of reserves/ parks gathering Intel and actively pursuing leads and poachers when the need arises is financially viable if the parks although in competition with each other  over the tourism business must combine forces
to combat what has become a losing war which the poachers and their “wallets” are winning. When the rhino have all but been eradicated the poachers wont simply pack up and go home. There is a huge supply and demand infrastructure in place and thus they will simply change from rhino to any other animal with a horn. Once ground down it will still be shipped as rhino horn to an ignorant consumer who will not know the difference. More species will end up being poached in order to keep the profitability of this industry going. The business men wont simply turn their backs on the very profitable trade when the rhino
cease to exist, they will simply change tactics and species. Their financial
bottom line is at stake. Nothing short of imprisonment and or professional disgrace in court will stop the “wallets” behind the slaughter. The poachers on the ground are an asset these business men utilise and there will never be a shortage of recruits to fill their ranks to compensate for those arrested or
killed by security forces or anti poaching units.  This is due to the appalling state of the market place and the stratospheric rate of unemployment in the country. The locals need to be educated about the importance of conservation. No eco tourists means that they (the locals) will suffer too. We are not only saving a species but our means of sustainability as well. The game farms will have to combine forces in such a way as to allow a mutually  beneficial  professionally courteous symbiotic co existence free of competition and bureaucratic wrangling. There is currently an eco tourist industry but it is under threat and the bottom line is that some money will have to be spent in order to fight this scourge that is poaching. It wont stay with the rhino exclusively and will migrate to other species( anything with a horn). That is a definitive!

I want to work and do my part in staunching the slaughter. I am not the
only one. I do however require a sustainable income , as do the others that are willing to get out their lazy chairs and get offline and inline. We all have
responsibilities (rent, bonds, children etc) and cannot work for love and fresh
air alone. We have military experience and are all dedicated to ecology and to
stop the un relentless  carnage we see and hear of daily. We are all aware that we will be acting under the legal framework of the Republic of South Africa and will conduct ourselves professionally as none of us are willing to sit in prison for contravening the laws of the Republic.

I will attach the original release I had penned  hereafter. It does in an abbreviated form
what i have gone to lengths to explain here. The use of vehicles is imperative
in the effective patrolling and pursuit of suspicious parties. Arresting
potential poachers is important in order to glean information of those higher
up in the chain of command and of the meeting places where the rhino horn was to be handed over. The poachers sure as hell don’t go to the local post office and post the horn. It is given to someone higher up in the food chain so to speak. It is noteworthy mentioning that the addition of dedicated individuals on the ground will also ease any concerns that prospective visitors to the park will have and could be a beneficial marketing tool. The tourists from outside the country want to feel safe when on game drives and the fact that you have assets in place employing tactics aimed at ensuring real time and effective Intel  will put your visitors concerns to
rest so they can have a care free holiday comfortable in the knowledge that you the game farm/ park are making concerted efforts to stop the butchery and provide a safe environ for your guests. As it stands the poaching syndicates are currently in the “driving seat” and are making a lot of money out of poaching. I am not entirely sure of the exact amount the horn fetches on the black market or in the open Asian market but it must be beneficial to the syndicates to send their teams into the field repeatedly. Spending for
arguments sake one hundred thousand rand to make a million is good business. The totals I am sure are a lot more and I am simply using this as an examplefigure. THE POACHING TEAMS are most definitely being paid for their services and are as I have previously said. Well armed, well trained, have access to vehicles so thus are highly mobile and dedicated to their “job”. They are not doing this for love of the environment obviously. It is time for the anti poaching units to start employing COIN principles and stop being run as armed response which they currently are. The syndicates have the upper hand and it is high time that the anti poaching units employ a similar mindset or face failure to launch as is currently being experienced. The poachers are winning hands down and while finger pointing amongst the conservationists persist the animals are going to be slaughtered. Stop the red tape and excuses and start paying for the problem to be effectively tackled. This is what we want to do, others like myself. We are from all walks of life and socially diverse backgrounds with differing socio economic hurdles of our own. We still however want to be
beneficial to the projects in place in combating the pointless  barbarism that is poaching. We are ready to start and make a difference by proactively approaching the anti poaching field with a fresh set of SOP`s (standard operating procedures) . these are not empty words but a promise of a new approach to this problem. We have a lot more to lose than money.

I have military experience within the South African Air Force where my
mustering was intelligence/ ops. My primary tasks were the tasking of air
craft, the monitoring of these aircraft, the prepping of flight plans and the
organising of CASEVAC procedures (casualty evacuation). I worked in both a base operations capacity at Air Force Base Waterkloof and also in the operational area of the then South West Africa at Air Force Base Rundu. I also was utilised in bush tours within the Republic as a FACP (forward air command post) member and TAU (tactical air unit). Further more
I worked for Executive Outcomes( PMC, private military company) in
Angola  as a member of their Air wing. My duties included refuelling , marshalling of all company aircraft , maintaining flight line safety and basic runway maintenance  as well as duties in the weapons store providing small arms, (weapons) maintenance. I will attach all necessary proof of employment to verify my credentials pertaining to my ex mil ( including a recently dated official service certificate from the SANDF which states my start date and termination of active reserve date and my mustering) I will also include my PMC  experience and details confirming employment
within Eeben Barlow`s now shut down company Executive Outcomes.  My strong background within the private security industry is also beneficial and I will also attach my complete c.v. as proof of experience. My c.v. is also available online on my info web page at  www.michaelbdasilva.20m.com

My contact details are as follows:            I currently reside in Somerset West.

Cell: 0789489847

Email. michaelbdasilva@gmail.com

Email. michaelbdasilva@yahoo.com

Rhino Anti-poaching Press Release

“Poaching
in South Africa has reached “epidemic” proportions with the almost daily
slaughter of our natural resources and future generations heritage.”

Michael
da Silva

If we
don’t step up and do something now, we will all but witness the extinction of
big game as we know it and be collectively responsible for allowing the
butchery to have happened unabated. The time has come to take a stand and
change the way we approach the “disease” that is poaching and also get up and
stand unified in the fight against the senseless killing of our big game.

ANTI
POACHING is not a new concept, we are not selling a new product nor are we
claiming to have all the answers to poaching. What we do stand for is a new
approach to the anti poaching industry through proactive actions as opposed to
purely reactionary. This is , we are not merely here to keep a tally of the
already slaughtered animals but to actively investigate , interact and pursue
those guilty of propagating the slaughter. We propose to install teams on the
ground that can investigate and interview all those personnel that could be
open to collusion with poaching syndicates, interact with the local population
through a hearts and minds program to gleam information on the movement and
intentions of potential poachers in the area, the pursuit and arrest of the
poaching “foot soldiers” for questioning and intelligence gathering of those
individuals bank rolling the poaching operations and finally to ensure the
intelligence gathered be disseminated to the relevant authorities for further
investigation and arrests. The “organizers” of the poaching groups must be
identified and brought into the public arena. The need for affecting arrests of
poachers is of utmost importance for a successful outcome and imprisonment of
guilty parties. This task will not be without its dangers and therefore
dedicated, loyal and previously trained professionals will be utilized in the
field. We are not a military/militant unit but will if the needs arise defend
ourselves within the constraints of the laws governing the republic. We are
average ex military personnel who have decided to stand up for our natural
heritage and do something about the senseless slaughter of Rhino’s within our
countries borders. This will be a daunting task and will be both physically and
mentally/spiritually demanding on the members of the anti poaching teams who
are under no illusions as to the discomfort, dangers and distances they will be
from their own loved ones. The reality of the situation is that if we don’t do
something immediately to stem this eradication of our big game we will have
nothing to show our future generations other than pictures in books.

It is
time we stand up and do something and that is what we as Rhino LAPS
propose to do. We are leaving the safety and comfort of our homes and online
discontent pertaining to the poaching dilemma and are physically moving into
the field to meet the challenge head on. I have stated before that we are not a
militant unit but we are under no misgivings that there is a very real risk to
the unit and will defend ourselves within the legal framework. Our mission is
to arrest those involved in the on the ground killing with the sole purpose of
garnering information of those higher up the ladder and ultimately bring them
to justice. Poaching is big business and therefore we aim to eat at the bottom
line, this is; make it a non profitable enterprise for the poaching “bosses”. A
business’s sole purpose is to generate profits and if we can hamper the
profitability of the business it will cease to exist. We are under no illusions
that this is not going to be an easy task or walk in the park and that the
teams lives could invariably be threatened but it is something each member will
fully understand and accept. We are doing this for more than financial gain.
Our natural heritage is at stake.

Michael B
Da Silva

http://michaelbdasilva.blogspot.com

http://thedasilvacode.com