I Am Soldier of Fortune

by Brown, Robert, Spencer, Vann

  By chance, McNair, whom I had been corresponding with over a couple of years, was just returning from a six-week patrol in the bush. We met and spent several days together, during which we reconned the terrorist-infiltrated northeast front area around Mt. Darwin. Heavily armed of course.

  McNair’s story of how he ended up hunting terrorists, or “terrs” as the Rhodesians called them, was one of resolve. He had alternated several semesters in college with race car driving in Australia and England. Finally giving up on the books, over the next five years he jacked around as a longshoreman, offshore roughneck, deep-sea diver and professional hunter.

  He decided combat would be good to test his mettle, but was rejected by the U.S. Army because of arthritis. Then he heard of Rhodesia’s bush war. He was rejected by the Rhodesian Army’s Officer Candidate School for being over-age. He flew to Rhodesia at his own expense in hopes of obtaining a waiver on his age, but again was turned down. So he joined the Rhodesian national police, or British South Africa Police, a title the Rhodesians had carried over from their British heritage.

  Though McNair had no formal military or police experience, he was only required to complete four weeks of counter-insurgency training because he had experience with small arms. After six months of police duty, McNair requested transfer to the BSAP Support Unit. Somewhat unique in the annals of military history, this elite unit was staffed with 30 to 40 European volunteers and 300 black Rhodesians. Their sole mission was to track down and eliminate terrs.

  “I received an immediate approval on my transfer request, as the local Support Unit instructor had seen me operate in the bush,” McNair explained. “I also had a reputation of being a damn good shot.”

  McNair commanded eight Africans as an acting section officer. During the next year, he and his section spent most of their time on six-week patrols in the desolate, wild Zambezi Valley, which counted more rhino, Cape buffalo and elephants than humans.

  In the ensuing months, McNair had a steady diet of hot, dusty patrolling, interspersed with short periods of violent action. On 18 September 1973, his Land Rover hit a mine while he was leading a reaction force to come to the aid of a white farmer’s compound. Though it demolished the vehicle, McNair escaped with just a slight concussion and a temporary eye injury.

  Let me dispel a stereotype no doubt fabricated by those who’ve never left their offices. The word mercenaries, or “merc” as they are called in Southern Africa, conjures up a picture of a grizzled, devil-may-care trooper who fought in the Congo, Biafra, the Sudan and other African hotspots.

  However, the Americans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and Europeans serving the Rhodesian armed forces received the same pay and benefits as a native Rhodesian, and were subject to the same types of rules and regulations utilized by any modern army. Much like the 20,000 Canadians who joined the American forces and served in Vietnam.

  Hardened white merc veterans who fought in the Congo in the ‘60s initially staffed the BSAP Support Unit. At first, the unit’s mission was riot control, which then evolved into providing security and ceremonial functions when Rhodesian leaders determined the unit’s personnel had quelled riots with excessive force. With the increase of terrorist activity, however, the Support Unit was committed to a full-time anti-terr mission. Normally they spent six-week patrols in the bush followed by one week at BSAP headquarters in Salisbury. While in the bush, they lived out of their 60 lb. packs and supplemented their dried rations by shooting game. No chopper resupply like in Nam.

  As is the case with most low-level insurgencies, the terr war in Rhodesia found most of the counter-insurgent forces frustrated by the continued game of hide-and-seek with the enemy. Weeks and months of daily patrols and nightly ambushes often resulted in nothing more than sore feet and a distaste for dried rations.

  Obviously, it was not a job for the faint of heart, nor the impatient.

  A BSAP superintendent told me, “Most recruits are obtained by word-of-mouth as the U. N. sanctions against Rhodesia precluded establishing recruiting offices or advertising in foreign countries.” He further noted, “After we put together a comprehensive file on a volunteer and he is approved, he is invited to Rhodesia. We pay all travel expenses in advance or reimburse the volunteer once he arrives.” He went on to say, “If the volunteer fails to pass the Recruit Selection Board, we refer him to the immigration department. If he cannot find employment or desires to return home, the Rhodesian government will repatriate him at government expense.”

  The BSAP depot, home of the Support Unit, consisted of a large complex, housing some 3,000 personnel including families with a sports field, recreation areas, an auditorium and training facilities.

  Training courses varied in length. Regular patrol officer recruits attended a basic course of four and a half months, which was followed by a two-week driving course where one learned to handle both Land Rovers and motorcycles in all types of terrain.

  Basic training covered physical exercise, hand-to-hand combat, close-order drill, police procedures, accident investigation, counter-insurgency, first aid, radio procedure, typing and riot control.

  BSAP personnel served tours with the Police Anti-terrorist Units (PATU), which consisted of teams of four European officers and one African constable. They received extensive training in small unit operations, patrolling, ambush and counter-ambush tactics before going to the bush. PATU teams remained together during advanced training, which included bush craft, map reading, terrorist procedures and immediate action drills.

  Speaking of volunteering for the Rhodesian Army, Major Nick Lam-precht, Recruiting Officer for the Rhodesian Army, told me all volunteers had to pass a two-hour interview conducted by five field grade officers.

  SOF IS BORN IN THE BUSH OF AFRICA

  I had met up with an American, Bruce McNair—a member of the Rhode-sian police. Over Lion Lagers one evening, in the upscale Monamatapa bar, one of Campbell’s buddies mentioned: “When our contracts are up with the Rhodesians, some of my mates and I are going to sign on with the Sultan of Oman.”

  At the time, Oman was suffering a low-grade insurgency sparked by Yemeni rebel tribes. The British Army and the Royal Marines had been in Oman off and on to protect the Sultanate from tribal rebellions and invasions. Mercs of different nationalities supplemented a number of British officers “seconded” to the Sultan.

  “Mitch, can you get me the address for the Sultan’s Defense Minister?” I asked.

  “No problem mate,” he replied.

  When I got back to the states, I sent an inquiry letter with my resume and DD214 to the Defense Minister of Oman and received a reply in a couple of weeks. Along with a contract I received 40 mimeographed pages describing the pay, benefits, the insurgency, culture, climate, etc.

  Although in between odd jobs that included private investigator, cement foreman, freelance author, roofing laborer and other unsavory gigs, I didn’t fancy running around the desert after some “ragheads.” But, just but, I thought, “Maybe this info can be turned into a money maker.”

  I put together a cheap ad that ran in Shotgun News about four column inches long, which read something like,

  “BE A MERCENARY IN THE MIDDLE EAST! All necessary info including pay and benefits. Forty pages. Send five dollars to . . . “

  Orders started pouring in from all over the U.S.

  Then Newsweek published an article, included in its international edition, featuring Vinnell, the first U.S. corporation that had signed a contract with the oil-rich Saudi monarchy to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard. The feature included a sidebar on mercs. Some editor with a sense of humor ran my printed ad as it appeared in Shotgun News for a graphic. When Newsweek hit the stands worldwide, the response was overwhelming. I received requests from Greece, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and of course the Anglo countries of the United States, Canada, Australia and Britain. Many of the Americans were Vietnam vets.

  SOF was born! Having realized the audience was out there, I
decided to take a big leap and go from selling packets of merc info to publishing a magazine. I kicked the concept around with my Nam buddies and finally decided to roll the dice. I started running small classified ads in gun magazines and spreading the word by mouth.

  I sold the merc packs for a profit that came to about $5,000.

  I also started selling subscriptions. In no time, I reached my goal of 4,400 subscriptions at $8.00 apiece for $35,200, which would allow me to publish four issues of SOF during the year. I did not have to send back the uncashed checks stashed in a shoebox that I was committed to return if I didn’t meet my goal. All the other adventure magazines, like True and Argosy, that were very profitable and popular in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, had gone out of business. So, I speculated, maybe, just maybe there might be a market for a hard-core adventure magazine that supported Vietnam vets. I discussed the concept over a period of months with a number of his Nam buddies.

  An article, entitled, “American Mercenaries In Africa!” was the lead article in the first issue of SOF back in the summer of 1975, and immediately aroused the disapproval of the powers that be, including our Congresslady from Denver at the time, “Peppermint” Patty Schroeder, the bane of defense spending and general liberal sniveler. She subsequently initiated an FBI investigation as to whether SOF was recruiting “mercenaries” for Rhodesia. No luck, bitch. No laws violated. We were simply publishing information. Now granted, it was true we provided info on how to join the Rhodesian Police and Army. We even provided the Rhodesian Army Recruiting Office address. And in future issues we published a full-page, color copy of a Rhodesian Army recruiting poster, complete with addresses. Once again, just publishing the facts.

  Now just because Major Lamprecht told me in 1980 that, of the roughly 450 Americans who served with the Rhodesian armed forces, around 75% joined up because of articles we published in SOF, recruiting it is not. Ha, ha, ha on you, madam liberal tightass Congressperson Pat Schroeder and the left wing Denver fraud who formed some ineffective, bloated anti-mercenary committee.

  And, of course the left wing loons of the U. N. had to stick their noses in the situation. On 29 March 1976, a little slimy punk, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesdada, the Cuban Ambassador to the U.N., held up a copy of SOF while condemning it. Buzz off, Ricardo.

  A number of young men who drew their first blood in Rhodesia came back to the States and had a successful career in the U.S. Army. Command Sergeant Major Kelso, who joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry for a tour and retired from the U.S Army as the CSM of the Army Infantry Center at Ft. Benning, Georgia, comes to mind. Kelso said he became aware of the Rhodesian Bush War by reading about it in SOF.

  Al Venter, a very creative, aggressive dude, based out of Joburg, was our main correspondent, though we had other contributors like the famous pistol guru, Jeff Cooper, and a Nam veteran of SOG who left his right leg in that disastrous conflict, Tom Cunningham. Tom, after he left SOF, went to become a successful lawyer and judge in Connecticut.

  SOF HEADS FOR THE BUSH WAR

  In 1976, I packed up my kit, and with John Donovan, a Special Forces acquaintance who was on the SOF masthead as our Explosives and Demo -lition Editor, went back to Africa. By this time, I had figured out a gimmick of how to take a duffle bag full of guns to Rhodesia, circumventing federal regulations limiting the number of guns you could take out of the country. One was required to bring them back upon return, a regulation implemented with hunters in mind. Yes, the guns were designated for hunting, but for two-legged game—and they weren’t ostriches.

  I had met Lou Lowry, a former kicker for Continental Air Services (CAS), which did covert and not-so-covert work, along with Air America, during the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia. When CAS, a subsidiary of Continental Airlines, closed out its operations, Bob Six, who owned Continental at the time, did his best to find employment in his organization for his air spooks. Lowry ended up in charge of security for Continental’s operation in Denver. Whenever I took a load of guns to southern Africa, I would call him: “Hey, Lou . . . “

  He interrupted me, “Yeah, yeah, you only call when you’re headed to Africa with too many guns.”

  I replied, “Come on Lou, it’s for a worthy cause. I’m not making a nickel on these guns. They go to the white farmers, some of which don’t have anything but rocks to throw at the terrs.”

  “OK,” he said. “What’s your flight number and date of departure?” I would tell him and he would meet me at the Continental ticket counter and tell the agent, “You don’t need to check his baggage and don’t charge him for excess baggage.” And away went my baggage, guns and ammo, checked all the way through to Joburg and then to Rhodesia. I figured I smuggled enough small arms to outfit a reinforced platoon. Thanks Lou, wherever you are.

  9

  THE BETRAYAL OF “GENTLEMAN JIM”

  Since southern Africa offered some of the most interesting and intriguing opportunities for the professional adventurer, Soldier of Fortune decided to send a team of staff members for an on-site inspection. Also, we all had great admiration for the Rhodesians who were thumbing their collective noses at the U.N., the disloyal Brits and most of Africa, as well as a plentiful helping of tawdry, hypocritical third world buffoons, boobs, bums and thugs.

  Explosives and Demo Editor John Donovan, Roving Correspondent, another unnamed correspondent (who “roved” over Port au Prince, Haiti in 1969, napalming the presidential Palace from a Super Constellation) and I laid over for a day in Rio de Janeiro. We managed to get stoned by a couple of shoeshine boys. Donovan was rudely dumped off in the slums by a cab driver who didn’t like gringos. So much for Rio. Our intrepid crew linked up with SOF African correspondent Al J. Venter in Johannesburg, where they agreed it might be more adventuresome to travel by vehicle to Salisbury than by Air Rhodesia. Of course, at that time terrorists had yet to shoot down two of Air Rhodesia’s civilian passenger planes and bayonet all the survivors. At the Rhodesian border, customs officials indicated that there had been no ambushes in the area so they decided to proceed north without the benefit of convoy. Anyway, it would be interesting to see if the terrorists’ marksmanship was as bad as reported.

  We arrived in Salisbury without incident though our adrenalin level spiked whenever we encountered cattle or sheep on the highway, as terrorists often blocked roads with livestock in conjunction with ambushes.

  In Salisbury it was business as usual even though terrorist operations had escalated in the border areas. Police were seldom seen and still did not carry sidearms, which indicated to us that the African populace was not as “oppressed” as many of the Western liberals liked us to believe.

  We bunked in at the luxurious Monomatapa Hotel, which had been dubbed “The Claymore” by the Rhodesian “troopies” due to its semi-circular construction. A few phone calls and a couple of hours later, we were quaffing Lion Lagers with three members of the Rhodesian Light Infantry in the hotel bar who gave us the scoop on the foreign fighters. For obvious reasons, all foreigners who served with the Rhodesian security forces were given a nom de guerre.

  Bob Nicholson, 29, from Fortune, California, spent eight years in the U.S. Army, including four years in Nam. Airborne and Ranger qualified, Nicholson left the Army in 1975 because of its rampant drug problem and lax discipline. Bored with civilian life, he simply packed his bags, flew to Rhodesia and enlisted in June 1975.

  Chris Johnson, 26, from Houston, Texas, served two tours with a Marine Recon Battalion followed by a five-year tour with the French Foreign Legion’s Second Parachute Regiment. After his Legion discharge, he returned to Houston, where a Houston PD officer told him of the opportunities in Rhodesia. Within days, he was on his way.

  The third member of the trio was Andy McLease, 26, from Scotland, who served nine years with the British Parachute Regiment. He opted for Rhodesia after receiving glowing reports from several of his buddies who had already made the move.

  “I simply couldn’t handle civilian life,” McLease recounted, as he s
ipped on his Lion Lager. “I’m satisfied. There’s action and a lot of bloody good people in our unit.”

  McLease’s basic training unit consisted of 28 foreigners and five Rhodesians. The Rhodesian Light Infantry, which consists of three assault companies, one training company and one support company, had thirty to forty percent foreigners, most of whom had come from the U.S. and Commonwealth countries.

  We spent the next five days hunting and talking to local farmers and troops. One of the farmers Al Venter introduced us to was Art Cumming, a strapping, cheery fellow whose farmstead was located about 50 kilometers from our safari camp. We were with Cumming and his wife Sandy, the week before in Rhodesia’s northwest operational area, codenamed “Operation Ranger,” when their farm was raided by terrorists.

  What made no sense about the attack is that while it was made in the name of terrorism, few families in Rhodesia enjoyed such excellent relations with the blacks who lived on their farm as the Cummings did. A week after our visit, terrorists attacked the Cumming farm. Chillingly, Arthur Cum-ming told us on the last morning we were with him: “I’ve grown up among these people. So did my dad and his dad. They know us as we are, and we know and accept them in the same way. There is trust and understanding, so why would they try to kill me, or my wife or brother or mother?” Why indeed.

  A pride of lions that had come across from the Wankie National Park had attacked Cumming’s cattle and Arthur was eager to drive them back to the sanctuary. It was our job to kill one or two members of the pride, which had accounted for the loss of at least a dozen head of cattle during the previous week.

  Our routine was the same each day of the hunt. Each morning before dawn we would arrive at the Cumming estate atop a small hill overlooking the nearby railway line. There we would pick up the local tracker, a man named Tickey, who had been with the Cumming family for more than 30 years. If only we had known that Tickey was already playing a pivotal role in the events to follow.