A friend of my buddies over at TheBombSurf, Gary Green, has written a book called Stand At Ease – a hilarious account of Green’s time in the South African Defence Force.

Simon Burrow, over at LivingStylishlyWell.com (somewhere in the French Luberon Valley – poor thing) also served his time in the army, and gave it a fantastic review of Gazza’s book!

LivingStylishlyWell reports:

STAND AT EASE – A RARE TREAT

When the pillars of apartheid in South Africa came crashing down in 1994, one of the biggest pillars to fall was the military machine – the South African Defence Force.

From the mid-1960s, white males were subjected to firstly, voluntary and then compulsory conscription and sent away to fight the apartheid war. What started out as nine months and a few ‘camps’ turned into twenty-four months and a plethora of ‘camps’ fighting Cubans in Angola, SWAPO/ANC in Namibia and then, the lowest of the low, patrolling the Black townships.

Recently, there has been a steady stream of literature being published about this era. Many of them have been apartheid generals/historians justifying the insurgencies into neighbouring states and providing a chronicle for the military history libraries. Sound familiar?

One of the first publications to be written by the one of guys who actually did the work – the National Servicemen – has now been published : Stand At Ease by Gary Green (or Groenmannetijie to give him his army moniker).

It’s an often hilarious story of his national service spent trying to outwit the Afrikaans instructors, keeping away from the front lines, living in the most desolate parts of South Africa and attempting to get to Durban to surf.

For those of us who lived through the same experience, there are amazing parallels with Green’s story. He had Corporal Vorster for his basic training – we had Corporal de Witt (Kippie the c–t). Vorster could not grow a proper moustache and took it out on his recruits, de Witt worked his way up to Sergeant-Major and was on his way down due to physical maltreatment of troops. Same story, same experiences.

[read more here]

Be sure to check out more of the rosé-infused, often amusing, usually insightful, but always downright enviable LivingStylishlyWell ramblings, written from Menerbes, Provence (one-time home to Pablo Picasso – you can only imagine the setting..). A recent article with dream-like pics of the snow will make you cry.. It’s safe to assume that LivingStylishlyWell is a part of the “vibe”..

“Stand At Ease by Gary Green is published by Reach Publishers (www.aimtoinspire.com) and is available at all good bookstores in South Africa. Overseas readers should email reach@webstorm.co.za to buy online.”