At Thy Call We Did Not Falter

 

This book is a brutally frank and refreshingly honest account, seventeen years after the fact, of a South African teenage national serviceman’s exposure to and experiences in the war in Angola. It does not glorify or demonise war, but tells the real story of so many young white South Africans like Holt who were sent into battle against overwhelming forces less than a year after finishing school. The timing of the book is extraordinarily fortunate, coming just as interest in Cuito Cuanavale is being revived, with moves afoot to arrange battlefield tours, and debates raging anew in military and veteran circles about who the victors and vanquished were. At Thy Call has the hallmark of a classic battlefield biography, as well as providing a window into the world of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a riveting account of how a government took schoolboys and turned them into killing machines.

 

Clive Holt

Softcover 256pp with colour photos

Book Code:  EX0760