The Emergency Bouzouki Player

Conscription in the SADF

By: Andrew Brel

Narrated by: Andrew Brel

The Emergency Bouzouki Player is the true story of a teenage conscript railroaded into the South African army for two years of national service at the height of the Apartheid War. A saga that begins in the small Cretan village of Sfakia, continues through leafy Johannesburg, visits dusty Kimberley, Boer War graves in Wynberg, 3 Military Hospital Psychiatric Ward in Bloemfontein, detention barracks in Voortrekkergoogte, 32 Battalion’s base in Rundu; Chetto, Omega, and Bagani front line border camps on the Caprivi Strip; and ends on a rainy morning at Heathrow arrivals.

The cruelty, the absurdity, and the mindlessness of life in the South African army are candidly described in this firsthand account by an unwilling and resentful conscript who, to escape the infamous Diskobolos Infantry Training Camp and its murderous instructors, claimed he could play the bouzouki in a subterfuge that was to have unforeseen, sometimes comical, and sometimes life-threatening consequences. Most of all, The Emergency Bouzouki Player depicts the way in which hope can carry a young person through the worst of times.

©2013 Andrew Brel (P)2022 Andrew Brel