Compassion Under Fire: A Medic's Tale from the Angolan Bush War

“I’d been in the army 3 years by this leg of my life, and I rather enjoyed it, even though we were at war. As a medic my duties were primarily medicine distribution and managing small cuts and scrapes we acquired doing infantryman’s work.

The first time I ever had to work on a legitimate casualty with life threatening injuries is an experience I shan’t ever forget. We were out in the bush looking for the enemy, and they found us before we found them. A man in front of me called out for me.

‘Johan! Got a man here needs tending to!’ I ran over and helped him get to his feet. We quickly discovered he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I elected to stay with him and administer aid for as long as it took until we could get a truck up to our position to move him, or at the very least, a stretcher.

With the enemy in the area, I laid next to him and bandaged what I could, stuffed gauze in what I could stuff it in. The lad, my age, asked for help with the pain. Tears mixed with the sweat on his face and he was going mildly pale.

I gave him something for the pain and he calmed down. I took his hand and squeezed it. He didn’t look at me, but he said, ‘Thank you…thank you.’ I didn’t ask for a lot from the army, but seeing how I was able to help the boy in that moment, probably the worst moment of his life, made me feel good.”

- Johan Kreuger, SADF. Medic. South African Border War / Angolan Bush War. 1981