In attendance at the in-house briefing would be all the staff officers involved with the operation as well as representatives from other departments and arms of service. The Air Force would be represented by the air liaison officer (ALO) dedicated to the deployment, while the medics would be represented by the OC 7 Medical Battalion. The plan would only be approved if all these elements were able to provide support.
As it turned out, my first briefing as mission commander to the GOC Special Forces proved to be more challenging than crawling into enemy-infested targets in hostile countries.
Commandant (the rank was later changed to lieutenant colonel) Ormonde Power, the Ops officer dedicated from Special Forces HQ to the operation, started with the introductions and presented the mission, and then Dave Drew covered the intelligence picture. By the time he introduced me I was almost paralysed by nerves. From the start my transparencies got mixed up, which caused me to start fumbling around with my notes, and I lost my thread. Eventually General Joubert stopped me.
“Stadler,” he said, “what’s this circus? You want to do this operation or not?”
I was nearly in a state of panic. All our hard work, the long hours of preparation and nights of rehearsals were at stake.
“Yes, General, we want to do it, and we are very well prepared,” I managed to blurt out.
“Forget your bloody notes; tell me the story,” he exclaimed.
Then, probably to help me save some face, he started asking me questions about the deployment.
“I want to hear your mission again.”
I ran through it without even glancing at the pinned-up mission statement.
“Now, tell me what it is you really want to do.”
General Joubert was addressing me like the mildly impatient father of a son who had arrived home from school with poor marks.
“Okay, now take me through your execution, step by step…”
This I could do well, since the map of our deployment was ingrained in my mind, and I had every single detail of the mission at the tips of my fingers. I took the general through every phase, explaining the details of the infiltration, execution and exfiltration on the map in front of them. Knowing that the Air Force would take issue with it, I explained the emergency procedures in the finest detail – our escape and evasion (E&E) route, emergency RVs, when and where we would like the telstar (comms relay aircraft) to fly if communications were lost, identification procedures and emergency extraction requirements.
At the end of the briefing General Joubert half-turned in his chair and, in typical fashion, stared at the staff, and then asked: “Any issues, anyone? Can you support the trooper?” I didn’t even blink at the sudden demotion. I knew I had stuffed up badly. But, aside from a few technical clarifications, there were no further issues and the plan was approved.
That, however, was not the end of my woes. Sitting quietly next to General Joubert throughout the presentation was the fierce and, I must add, much-feared Brigadier Chris “Swarthand” (Black Hand) Serfontein, then the second-in-command of Special Forces. As I packed up my aids, Swarthand walked up to me, gripped me firmly by the wrist and ushered me out of the ops room to his office.
“Where do you come from? Have you never learned to do presentations? Haven’t you done Formative?” he asked, referring to the leadership and management course all young Permanent Force officers had to complete. Now I expected the worst.
I started mumbling, but the brigadier forced me to sit down at the conference table in his office, and then walked around and sat opposite me.
“Do you realise that, now that the operation has been approved, you are presenting to the Chief tomorrow?”
Swarthand was spitting fire, his eyes boring into mine.
“Ja, Brigadier.”
“Are you going to stuff up as badly tomorrow as you did today?”
“No, Brigadier.”
“Now listen carefully…” he said pointedly. “Go and fetch your aids and bring it here. Let me show you a few tricks.”
To my surprise, Swarthand Serfontein then took the rest of that day to show me how to do an ops briefing, explaining the nuances of effective communication, style and language. He forced me to repeat every single part of the briefing over and over again, there in the privacy of his office, and patiently corrected me whenever he thought I could do better.
Late that night, at the Karos Hotel, I got a phone call from Dave Drew. “Koos, I hate to tell you this, but the general does not want you to present tomorrow,” he said. “I am to do the Int and the Ops briefing – on your behalf.”
I was furious, but what could I say? Dave was obviously just conveying the message from the general. I left it at that and went to bed, thinking hard about how I would handle the situation.
The next morning I phoned Serfontein. “Brigadier,” I said, “this is my operation. If anyone is to present it to the Chief, it’s me…”
And that was it. Swarthand Serfontein didn’t hesitate. “You go ahead; I’ll mention it to the boss. Just do your best,” he said and put the phone down. Just like that, no questions asked.
Dave Drew picked me up at the hotel and we drove together to Defence HQ. He thought it wise not to argue the point when I told him that I would be presenting the ops plan. We arrived early and set up maps and other aids in the conference room of the Chief of the Defence Force.
The General Staff took their places, and I desperately looked around for a rank that I could more or less associate with, but the lowest was a brigadier. The Chief’s aide-de-camp, a captain, was not even allowed near the briefing room. General Jannie Geldenhuys, then Chief of the Defence Force, entered and sat down at the top end of the table.
My moment of truth had arrived. As usual, Dave did a magnificent job of sketching the strategic picture and highlighting the enemy activity in our area of operations. Then it was my turn.
But this time I was prepared. I let the mission unfold on the map like some mysterious adventure, exactly as Brigadier Serfontein had suggested, then talked them through the resources required and ended off with a summary of the emergency procedures. Once I had finished, there was a brief discussion about the political repercussions if the operation failed, if a helicopter went down or if one of us got caught.
At the end General Geldenhuys sat back in his chair and addressed me across the room: “Lieutenant, tell me, what is your gut feel, is this going to work?”
By now I had worked up an overdose of courage, since, from the reactions round the table, I could sense that the operation was on. “Yes, General, we are very well prepared and I have no doubt that we’ll pull it off,” I said without hesitation.
The General seemed satisfied. The deployment was approved and the meeting adjourned, leaving Dave and me with a great sense of accomplishment. Back at Special Forces HQ Brigadier Serfontein called us in and congratulated us. He had been informed by the Chief’s office that we had presented an excellent briefing and that the boss was impressed by our performance – apparently one of the best he had ever heard!
I felt like an upstanding citizen again, and I am forever indebted to Swarthand Serfontein for lifting me up from the gutters of humiliation that day and for restoring my pride!
A C-130 brought Oom Boet Swart, Dave Scales and all the Tac HQ equipment from Phalaborwa and picked us up at Swartkop Air Force Base for the flight to Ondangwa, where we had a week for final preparations. The Tac HQ was set up in one part of the old jail in Fort Rev, and Dave wasted no time in setting up comms equipment and testing frequencies. The operators made final preparations to their kit. The Pick and Slurry were prepared and distributed among the teams. Each operator would pack a minimum of 30 litres of water, while an additional 30 litres for each would be packed to cache at the drop-off LZ.