Young Eagle
South Africa's Military Trains for War
1. Young Eagle
There is often a heavy focus on the world's elite forces. Paratroopers, Special Forces and fighter pilots often claim the lion's share of the media spotlight. But in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), these units are just one small cog in the larger engine of a brigade-sized exercise such as Young Eagle. The troops of 9 South African Infantry (SAI) Battalion don't have daggers to slit throats, and they don't drop out of the air like ghosts. They sit, hot and cramped, in armoured vehicles and hump it across the Northern Cape. For line infantry such as 9 SAI, there is not much glory to long road convoys and intermittent halts. But for the infantry, they represent the foundation upon which the rest of the defence force relies.
Join ADR's team as they hoof it across the Northern Cape scrub with 9 SAI on an extended convoy and live fire drills, forming part of the larger Young Eagle exercise.
Exercise Young Eagle is really a combination of military training events held over a single period. Involving around 5000 soldiers, hundreds of armoured vehicles and over a dozen aircraft, Young Eagle was this year the catch-all name for the combining of Army, Air Force, Special Forces, Navy and Medical Health Service exercises (like Winter Solstice and Red Lion) into a single joint exercise.
The Exercise follows a simulated ‘crisis’ in which the Republic of the Northern Cape (RNC) is being threatened by the Republic of the Western Cape (RWC) and a sympathetic rebel group. The African Union has tasked South Africa with intervening on behalf of the RNC and restoring order from chaos.
While this may sound dramatic, for the troops of 9 SAI, and most soldiers of low rank, this means weeks freezing in the bush chasing simulated targets. Spanning the month of August, the exercise has many different components, ranging from training and basic drills in joint warfare, to large-scale attacks on airfields and other targets.
2. Rolling Out With 9 SAI
9 SAI is a motorised infantry battalion that represents the average South African soldier’s view of the SANDF. Transported in Casspir mine-protected vehicles, these soldiers began this phase of Young Eagle at the crack of dawn, moving out from a staging area in Bloemfontein.
I've barely slept. The cold desert air biting at my nose, my lips, my toes. Any inch of skin that isn’t covered.
It’s 4am. Nearby, I can hear the grumble of engines, muffled by the wind. 150 or more vehicles begin to start up. Big vehicles. Combat vehicles. The battalion is Oscar Mic: On Mission.
Exercise Young Eagle has officially begun. 5000 troops start to make their way on force preparation exercises across the world’s second largest military training area. Built in 1978, the site spans 158 000 hectares. We are about to trek across it, in full military operation mode, as we advance on an imaginary enemy, and initiate a full scale attack on them.
At this time of the morning, the cold Bloemfontein air doesn’t chill your skin, it makes your bones ache. Your fingers hurt, constantly, and take ages to warm up. It makes finding focus in the dark on my camera lens and pulling the trigger difficult, let alone maintain the grip on the cold metal of a standard issue R4 assault rifle that these soldiers are carrying.
I have only been awake for 30 minutes and as I stand here shivering, these soldiers, some of South Africa’s elite, have already eaten, washed, prepared their gear, and reported in for their mission. I am out of my depth.
I roam around the armoured vehicles as soldiers, silhouetted by the rows and rows of Casspirs, Ratels, and Rooikat, make their way to their designated vehicles, white clouds rising from their mouths as they bustle, some sucking mouthfuls of hot tea or coffee from their billycans.
It’s not long before the battalion is ready to leave. The vehicles begin to dispatch in groups of roughly 40 every 30 minutes. Since the SANDF use public roads, they practice this courtesy towards other motorists, making sure their column doesn’t take up too much of the road and inconvenience other road users.
The first vehicles to move off are the Rooikats. Armoured anti-tank wheeled machines, these 28 ton beasts are capable of travelling up to 120km on tarred road, firing 76mm shells at targets with deadly precision while moving. Securing the front of the column, these frontrunners will be supported by artillery, their forward observers situated at the front, transmitting orders to their guns kilometers away. Then there is air. The legendary Roovalk helicopters, one of South Africa’s bragging points.
As the sun begins to rise, the last of the convoy moves out. The yellow sun lights up the orange sand, the brown hunks of metal crawling slowly in caterpillar formation along it.
3. From apartheid's iron fist to a 21st century fighting force
The SANDF has moved far away from the large-scale warfare experienced during the Angolan bush wars. In its current form, the new South African military has seen extensive use as a peacekeeping and peace enforcement role throughout Africa. Peace “enforcement” alludes to a more aggressive, combat-oriented role of the troops deployed on a multinational mission.
The SANDF were most recently involved in heavy fighting in the Eastern DRC as part of the United Nations' Force Intervention Brigade, a supplementary, aggressive addition to the UN's previously defence-only role in the DRC. While fighting M23, the SANDF distinguished itself as a capable and effective offensive force.
As conventional threats to South Africa’s borders all but disappear, the SANDF is evolving into an intervention force. Being one of the continent’s only military forces capable of transporting itself across national borders rapidly, this role is a scarce and valuable one to have. This is reflected in turn by South Africa’s strong push at the African Union for the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises, or ACIRC. ACIRC could see South African troops deployed abroad to quell any emerging crisis on the continent. Exercise Young Eagle is aimed directly towards training for this possible outcome.
4. Clearing house
Convoy movements like 9 SAI represents the typical majority of what happens in the South African Army. But at some point fingers must be put on triggers. On day 4 of Young Eagle, paratroopers assault a hangar complex occupied by enemy forces. Moving from open bush into semi-dense buildings requires shifts in tactics and reactions.
The bullets are blanks and the casualties are simulated, but for the Army’s paratroopers the lessons are all-too important. In 2013 members of 44 Parachute Regiment were involved in the Battle of Bangui. Facing several thousand (estimated) Seleka rebels with just a company (approximately 200) of lightly-armed paratroopers and Special Forces, a major pitched battle occurred. 15 South Africans lost their lives during the tactical withdrawal to Bangui airport. Important to note here is that casualties inflicted on the Seleka start from a conservative 800 estimated killed. For these soldiers at Young Eagle, the simulated battles are not a game.
5. Perceptions
“I wanted to be a journalist,” a soldier says. “but the army accepted my application before any university did.”
The infantryman looks me over, intrigued, seemingly expecting some wild story as a follow-on to me telling him I am a photojournalist.
But I am after their stories.
The short ride from the area of operation to the artillery base didn’t provide me with much time to get into much insight into what these soldiers think about their duty. Nor were they allowed to. Not wanting to compromise operational security, we had been assigned a PIO, or Public Information Officer, who regulated who we spoke to and what they spoke about. The military doesn’t want any information being made public that might compromise its troops in the field. While this is something I support, it made interviewing any personnel difficult, and getting to know the troops personally more challenging. But this didn’t stop us from cracking a few jokes, talking about some experiences I had had in the field doing hard news. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to share anything about his deployments but smiled as I shared mine.
The infantryman next to me chatting to his girlfriend on WhatsApp laughed aloud as he realised I was from the same town as she was. He tells me the street and I realise she lives just above my old school. I don’t know her though, but he shows me her picture anyway.
Later we shared a campfire with a Sergeant Major (SM) from the Intelligence Corp. “What do you see when you look at this man?” he asked me, pointing to his friend and fellow soldier, another Sergeant Major from the Engineering Corp.
“I’d like to see what it would be like to fight him,” I said, sizing up the 6’5”, 110kg giant. Chuckling, the SM made a remark about that being a short fight. I agreed. “I see someone who is willing to die for his country,” he said. “We don’t follow politics. We serve the government of the day. But when it comes down to it, we will fight and die for the same ground you stand on.”
“The way some members of the public look at us when they see us in uniform, it’s never with admiration. They look at us with scorn, often swearing at us or belittling the army. They don’t see us as heroes. That's something we hope to change.”
6. Becoming peacekeepers.
The immediate future of African peacekeeping operations is infantry
In recent years, South Africa has begun to participate actively in African peacekeeping operations. Rather than a base-restricted force that exists just to collect a UN cheque, SANDF forces have been involved in a variety of peacekeeping activities. This has ranged from creating basic post-conflict infrastructure to actively fighting rebel groups and fending off ambushes in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the future, the SANDF can expect more of this. Deploying light infantry far abroad from South African borders without much heavy weaponry is a difficult task, but one that has been done before. In 2013, in Bangui, Central African Republic, SANDF troops were able to fend off a much larger force of Chad-backed Seleka rebels in a series of intense firefights. Hundreds, if not over a thousand, rebels were killed for a fraction of SANDF casualties. With heavy weapons supporting the SANDF this ratio would likely have been even higher.
This is why SANDF forces need to train as they do at exercises like Young Eagle and Amani Africa II. Large scale operations combined with brief periods of intense combat is becoming the norm for African conflict environments.
With countries such as Lesotho, Burundi, and the CAR remaining unstable, the SANDF can expect an ongoing role in African peacekeeping for the forseeable future. With an ongoing lack of funding and the normal restraints of mission equipment, the task of fulfilling South Africa's peacekeeping responsibilities will likely remain almost entirely with infantry units. Young Eagle provides these soldiers the opportunity to improve the skills that could ultimately be the difference between life and death in the scenarios they will face.
7. Tsup tsup tsup.
“Hey Sergeant, what was your favourite time in the army?
“I remember when I signed up in 1993. There was a lot of violence in the townships in Johannesburg. We were deployed in Thokoza where there was a lot of fighting between the ANC and the Inkatha. There the ANC fighters would run, shooting wildly towards us as they ran. But we were trained, we have discipline. So we just shot “tsup tsup, tsup tsup”, like that”, he said, pointing his fingers like a rifle. “Those were good days,” he continued. “Exciting days.”
Far from the front lines, the Sergeant is a gentle giant. At around 6'5" he towers over his fellow soldiers. Soft spoken, he welcomes us warmly, making sure we have everything we need.
He’s the one who shows us how to open our rat packs, use the fuel cells to heat our tinned meals, and how to open them using the opener. He explains how they work, and that each pack of food is a fully balanced meal (we should eat the whole thing, he explains).
During the operation, he sits looming over the steering wheel of the Casspir. Normally, he isn’t part of our unit but serves as part of the mortar squad. For the exercise though, he rides along, returning to his squad once the final attack has commenced.
Spending time with the Sergeant, it's hard not to take a particluar shine to him. But the rest of the troops shouldn’t be ignored either. Every soldier we have met so far has greeted us with smiles and a handshake, asking how we are and how “our mission” is going. Each story we hear, each interaction between soldiers that we observe, from private to colonel, seems to be one of genuine friendship, camaraderie, and affection.