Private Dube waded through the empty rat packs and ammo boxes that litter a base camp during a patrol deployment and calmly faced me with the news, “Ishe (Boss), I’ve got VD (venereal disease)!”
It’s 4 a.m. and I am furious. Our 10 day R & R is just over and this is the first patrol of our six-week deployment. “Why didn’t you say something to the medic back at Methuen (Methuen Barracks-Home of 1st. Battalion, Rhodesian African Rifles.)” Private Dube has no answer. We are about to deploy into a “hot” TTL (Tribal Trust Land) and I suspect Private Dube just wants an extension on his R & R.
(Very rare occurrence. The African RAR soldier was very gung-ho and took pride in his soldiering.)
Capt. Lionel Dyck, C. Coy Commander, hears everything and orders the medic rousted from his cot. “Medic, give Lt. Smith (Left-tenant Smith) five ampoules of penicillin and five syringes.” (He turns to me) ”Lt. Smith, I want you to give Pvt Dube a shot every morning until the medicine is gone.” Capt. Dyke is angrier than I am. He can’t let Private Dube get away with this!
We launch the patrol and the next morning at 5 a.m. I am awakened by the sight of Pvt. Dube’s naked right buttock. “I’m ready for my shot Ishe.” It is a nippy winter morning and I fumble for the cold ampoule and attempt to warm it by rolling it between my palms before sucking out the thick white serum with the syringe. I jab Private Dube in the upper thigh but notice the milky white serum trickling clown Dube’s long black leg. Whoops! My first shot ever! Dube ‘s first shot too I suspect. Not a good beginning for either of us.
Next morning the shot routine is a re-run of the first. The cold white penicillin runs all the way down from Dube’s rump to his ankle. I’m not getting the penicillin warm enough. It’s not getting into Dube’s rump! I’m ever hopeful my technique will improve with shot No.3.
Meanwhile the patrol is uneventful. No sign of the CTs (communist terrorists) and while crossing a wide open area (read dangerous) I move everyone into an on-line formation .
To my left I hear a thud and see a small puff of dust. One of my guys has fallen flat on his face in the open and be is “muttering” up a storm. I get everyone down and send my brainy African Platoon Sergeant Major Wilson (AKA Sergeant ”Willie”) over to investigate my fallen soldier who is still muttering something into the sand. A giggling Sgt. Major Wilson returns and reports that Private Dube is the fallen soldier.
“‘Why the hell are you laughing and what is Pvt. Dube muttering about?”‘ I demand.
‘You don’t want to know Sir” says Sgt. Wilson who is still giggling like a school girl but by now be has small tears in his eyes. Something is just too funny for words! I insist I want to know and he again insists I don’t. Finally I pull rank and demand the truth.
“Private Dube says you’re a shit doctor Sir!” Sgt Major Wilson blurts out but has to look away he is laughing so hard.
I organize a small patrol to escort a still muttering Pvt. Dube back to base camp. My patrol was ruined and Private Dube still had VD!
—from NHOWO April 2013
This pix IS significant. In this case a 33 yr old white Platoon Commander is sick with typhoid so sends out his African Plt. Sgt. to take over his 30 man platoon in his stead.
Sgt. Willy did a wonderful job of commanding my platoon for a six day patrol and here I am welcoming him back to camp and CONGRATULATING him for running a good patrol.
Normal stuff in the Rhodesian African Rifles. I got the typhoid by drinking from a slimy green pool of water in Matibi II Tribal Trust Land. None of the Africans with me got sick from drinking from the same 12 foot diameter pool in the middle of the night.
This was my only illness. I was sidelined for only about 10 days.
PS—A girlfriend of mine, Di Cameron of Salisbury, Rhodesia, designed the camouflage Sgt. Willy & I are wearing. She was a print designer with David Whitehead Textiles.
Rhodesia. Tiny country under communist siege 1963-’79. Every male in uniform. Regulars like me served year round (42 days in bush, 10 day R & R cycle) but even reservists served fully six months a year “in the bush” hunting CTs as we called them. Communist Terrorists (CTs) armed & trained by either the Red Chinese OR the USSR.
All the women (like the gal below) took their own role as “troop morale boosters” very seriously. Some took their troop booster role a little too seriously and would occasionally forget they were married or engaged.
If I have any criticism of Rhodesian Women it isn’t that they couldn’t always connect MY NAME –to me– but their very bad timing when they shouted out some other guy’s name.
Circa 1975-Dec 1979. Note ubiquitous FN 7.62 mm NATO rifle (.308) (Photo from the Photo Archives of Andrew Young on Facebook.) This gal is seeing her guy off…to the Sharp End. She is wearing a print dress made at the nearby David Whitehead Textile plant which also produced the Rhodesian Camouflage uniforms the men in the truck are wearing. Note the lady is holding the very heavy —just cleaned— “FN” just a little bit away from her clean dress. She doesn’t want it spotted with gun oil.
These women were gorgeous, or so they seemed at the time. They were shampooed, lipsticked, perfumed and wore pretty dresses. Women’s lib was never mentioned the entire time I was there (37 months… age 33 to 36.)
Hard to imagine that there was (is) anything a Colonial Woman couldn’t get from a man. Shrinking violets they weren’t/aren’t to this day. They hunted alone and most often around Salisbury’s main rail station.
One effective hunting tactic used was to dab at their eyes with a flowered handkerchief as one train pulled away from the station, full of troops bound for the front. Just as THAT train left another was rolling into the station full of very appreciative (but chivalrous) males arriving for their 10 days of R & R after weeks “in the bush.”
The sight of a distraught woman weeping on a rail platform of course overwhelmed me. It activated every ounce of chivalry (?) in me and had the same effect on almost every soldier who spilled out of the trains.
But as I look back on it I don’t actually recall ever seeing either a wet eye or a wet handkerchief (used for dabbing at imaginary tears.) But these grieving ladies would permit themselves to be comforted, walked home, and the ritual of forgetting male names, and then recalling the wrong one —at just the wrong time— began.
My cycle of life was idyllic. 42 exciting days hunting bad guys… followed by 10 days of R & R. 42 days plus 10 days R & R. 42 days plus ten days. Nothing was missing. Nothing.
But life can’t be that simple and satisfying. But it was! A man. A woman. High risk and high excitement in the combat zone AND in the bedroom. Complete.
Salisbury, Rhodesia, circa 1975. Women of Rhodesia…in uniform. From Chris Whitehead’s front cover of RHODESIANS WORLDWIDE
The Mau Mau used it as writing instrument to record their history. Just read the blade. I wrote it in Jan 2008
While the rest of the world records history with fonts and film, in Africa the nicks and gouges along bloodstained pangas tell you exactly where steel met bone.
THIS Kenyan “simi” is a double edged killer of 25 inches and actually chopped up a pre-teen white male, after he was tortured by the Kikuyus during the Mau Mau Revolt 1953-57.) He was the cousin of Di Cameron who gave me this “simi” in 1978 in Salisbury, Rhodesia. It held terrible memories for her. After the murderers were tracked down and killed the army commander gave this “memento” to her family. She was happy to get rid of it.
The Mau Mau Revolt was finally suppressed but convinced Britain to order all its African colonies to hand over the reins to the natives. “Winds of Change?” More like “Blades of Change.” The Kikuyus took over in 1963. Whites-including Di’s family-fled and some went to Rhodesia. Blades won.
THIS blade may have killed many more in that uprising that took about 1800 lives (‘only’ 32 of them whites on remote farms. ) But a repeat of sorts is unfolding as we speak, with a death toll of over a thousand in Kenya since President Kibaki, a Kikuyu, nullified a very close election in December when it looked like his opponent was winning. A quarter million of the 26 million Kenyans have been displaced by the tribal violence. While the Kikuyus make up but 22% of the population they dominate politics and commerce.
I wish a forensic pathologist could take a close look at this blade that seems to have been made from an auto leaf spring. There must be experts who can take a look and determine what caused a nick here or slight rolled edge there. Experts out of Rwanda, Congo, and Sierra Leone……. who can read African history without a book.
Jos. Columbus Smith
Portland
Ps. Di Cameron is the designer of Rhodesian Army camouflage. She was a fabric print designer with David Whitehead Textiles in Salisbury.
“Every week I would paint patterns on canvass and drive them over to army headquarters where the generals would look at them. Finally, one week, they said they liked one of my patterns and that became the camouflage.”
I wore that camouflage for 37 months in the The Rhodesian Army. We had only ONE camouflage. Although we had a dry and wet season we simply used our old and faded uniforms for the dry season.
Portland, Oregon – A local grandson of slaves-A J Tyler-almost took his last secret to the grave but it slipped out at his funeral. “He left his dad in a tree in Mississippi,” his grandson, Joseph Harris, whispered. “The Ku Klux Klan got him.”
That happened in 1919 and an instantly orphaned “Tyler” -age nine-ran away alone…leaving his lifeless dad and Mississippi behind forever.
Unidentified photo from Google Images
For me the mystery of WHY my 103-year-old next-door neighbor abruptly left Mississippi at age nine was solved.
“Tyler” never talked about his past -to me- but Evalena Hooker, the guardian angel who rescued and took care of him his last 13 years, said Tyler left Mississippi at a very young age, alone, due to “family troubles.” Looking back I am certain this gracious lady was simply trying to spare me some anguish the truth would bring.
That one cauterizing event (his dad’s lynching) would have destroyed most, but not Tyler. He always seemed to me a victor, someone who would prevail in any situation.
The Tyler I saw was walking daily to his top secret “sturgeon holes” along the nearby Columbia River. He was always looking for the “big one” and at 100—give or take a few years—there was still a bounce in his step.
But it wasn’t his exotic past or his age that first pulled me to “Tyler.”
It was his face, that pure African face, that catapulted me backwards to Africa and another face. The face of Company Sergeant Major -J. Chitereka- “B” Company, 1st Bn, Rhodesian African Rifles.
Left to Right: Company Sergeant Major J. Chitereka & Capt. Joe C. Smith, Zimbabwe/Rhodesia Mar. 1979
So Tyler’s face, without him knowing it, was my secret path back to my happy Africa years. What neither Tyler nor I knew at the time was that he would be the source of my happiest MOMENT.
That MOMENT, that ‘gift’ from “Tyler,” happened just 11 days before he died on 9 Dec. 2013and seconds after photo journalist Celeste Rose Bicknell snapped this stunning photo:
Photo of A J Tyler taken by Celeste Rose Bicknell on 29 Nov 2013 in Portland, Oregon
But let’s back up a minute. No, lets back up 104 years …all the way back to 25 February 1910- Tyler’s birthdate – in Greenville, Mississippi on the banks of the Mississippi River where he was born. And that is about all we know about Tyler until his abrupt solo escape from Mississippi in 1919.
Was Tyler The Son of Former Slaves?
When I began rolling back the calendar it struck me that Tyler’s date of conception was just 48 years after Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.
Biologically it is possible that BOTH of Tyler’s parents could have been born into slavery on a Mississippi cotton plantation. A more probable scenario would be that his dad was a former slave but MOST likely both his parents were children of former slaves.
Until he was nine years old Tyler would have grown up among some elders who bore permanent whip welts embossed on their backs. What stories did he hear and what else did he see growing up?
Fast forward to 2004 when my wife -Uta- and I moved to Portland from Texas and noticed this thin old black man walking the streets of NE Portland, Oregon with a fishing pole in one hand and a bucket of bait in the other.
While he didn’t actually swagger there was a definite bounce and a roll in his step. He radiated confidence, toughness, and good cheer.
Had author Mark Twain seen Tyler he would have shouted, “That’s my Huckleberry Finn!” Tyler grew up right on the Mississippi River, as did Twain’s fictional characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. All three would have fished for that legendary 6’, 200-pound Catfish.
But here in the Northwest USA Tyler, until age 102, was hunting something much bigger. Daily he trekked North to the mighty Columbia River in his quest for the biggest sturgeon in the world. Not just a 14 footer, which would have been as old as he was, but one of the 18 footers, or longer. Those ancient aquatic telephone poles, twice the age of Tyler.
Tyler was living the happiest chapter of his life, as he so often told his guardian angel, Evalena, who rescued him 13 years ago. She took him home, cooked all of his meals, laughed at his jokes, told a few of her own, and in response he called his new address on 14th Place his “Heaven on Earth.” After each meal he thanked God and Evalena.
Evalena and Tyler had so much in common they seemed destined to be pals. Both were workaholics. Evalena was “Employee of the Year” at a major Portland hospital before her retirement. Both laughed often and sometimes so hard they wept. Both loved to fish and had one other thing in common. Between them they couldn’t swim a stroke.
But their joint passion for fishing overpowered that fear of drowning and just the two of them would motor out to the middle of our mile-wide Columbia River. Once anchored the ever-mischievous Tyler would start rocking the little boat just to torment Evalena.
“If you fall overboard you’re gonna drown ’cause I’m not gonna dive in and rescue you.”
When Tyler turned the big “One Hundred” I organized a birthday party.
Left to Right: Evalena Hooker( Tyler’s ‘Archivist’,) A J Tyler at age 100, and Captain Joseph Columbus Smith(Ret.) Photo taken by Uta Fehlhaber Smith on 25 Feb 2010 in the home of Evalena Hooker.
At Evalena’s home Tyler was always busy
When she returned from grocery shopping Tyler would meet her car and tote the heavy bags up two staircases. And he rolled out the heavy trashcans for weekly pick-up and even at age 101 was expanding Evalena’s backyard garden via a long handled shovel.
Photo of A J Tyler-age 101- by Joe Columbus Smith
On daily walks to the river Tyler had a few close calls with traffic and I gave him a very bright neon colored vest, like the ones worn by road workers.
Two days later Tyler, who had just turned 100, pitched up in my driveway with a $20 dollar bill in his hand and tried to pay me for the vest. After I refused payment he launched into a spirited rant about his own work ethic:
“Nobody ever had to tell me where to find work. I could always find a job! I could always find work!”
It was more of a manifesto and I had a feeling he wouldn’t have minded being overheard.
In Texas, where I’m from, we’d say Tyler had a “get’r done!” kind of attitude. Grandson Joseph Harris reinforced the point when I stupidly asked him at the funeral: “Did Tyler like you and your brother?”
“I don’t know whether he liked us or not,” said Harris “but he damned near worked us to death….If he ran out of work he would rush out and start cutting lawns…(at no cost,)” He credited Tyler with instilling in him a strong work ethic that sustained him through a 25 year career as a metro bus driver.
“Red Summer” Claims 52 Blacks in 1919
Curious about the year “1919”—when Tyler’s dad was hung from a tree- I discovered there was a national eruption of race violence that year dubbed the “RED SUMMER.” At least 52 blacks were killed across 36 cites. In Mississippi three blacks were lynched in Ku Klux Klan violence. One in Macon, one in Monticello, and one in Hattiesburg. I suspect, but have not yet confirmed, that one of these three was Tyler’s dad.
Postscript: My Gift From Tyler
Tyler began losing his way at age 102. He would forget where he was on the streets. Evalena, who has severe arthritis in her knees, would call the police to find him when he didn’t return from one of his fishing trips. After a year of this she placed Tyler in a nearby nursing home… but very closely monitored his care.
She told me Tyler was there but I procrastinated and when I finally visited the nursing home I was shocked at his deterioration. Tyler, who instantly recognized me, was now wheelchair bound…but after all he was 103.7 years! While he had lost orientation he still remembered faces, names, and voices…and smiled broadly when I greeted him. I was saddened to see him this way and furious with myself for waiting so long. I was too emotional to stay and left the nursing home in less than five minutes. Yea, some friend I am.
About a week passed before photojournalist Celeste Rose Bicknell dropped by our home and recalled her meetings with Tyler on his hikes to the river. She too sensed how special he was and an alarm bell had tripped in her head that warned her Tyler wouldn’t be around much longer. She wanted to record his image before it was too late.
The day after Thanksgiving Celeste and I rendezvoused at the nursing home. Uta, my wife, sent along a piece of leftover pumpkin pie. I asked a nurse if it was OK for Tyler to eat it.
“Sure,” she said, “Tyler has no dietary restrictions!”
My job was to get Tyler to relax so Celeste could get the great photo she did. His speech was not clear but he was muttering Evalena’s name almost nonstop. Obviously Tyler was lobbying me and Celeste to return him to his “heaven on earth” with Evalena.
Celeste was alternately feeding Tyler pumpkin pie (which he loved) and snapping pictures. I felt pretty useless and was sitting in a chair facing Tyler in his wheelchair. . . but I felt something pulling. Tugging at me. There were no physical line but Tyler was pulling me.
There was some sort of mental suction drawing me to Tyler.
Silently I was asking myself “What does he want? What is he ‘asking’ me for?.”
At this point we were both silent but his invisible fishline kept tugging sat me.
It hit me! Tyler craved simple human touch. He wanted me to touch him. Of all the people in the world he could have asked for the human touch he WOULD ask me. I HATE to touch anyone.
Ten seconds and then a half-minute ticked by before I reached out my left hand, gently grabbed his left bicep, and said “You’re a good man Tyler!”
As Good As It Gets!
Tyler’s face pivoted toward me and he switched on his million-lumen smile. I felt a warm tsunami of happiness roll through me. My mainspring melted. I let go of Tyler’s arm but his smile remained.
That happiest moment of my life lingered all day.
Tyler died peacefully in his sleep 11 days later on the night of 9 December 2013.
Hand of Evalena Hooker touches Tyler’s Marker Plate, 17 Dec 2013, at Skyline Memorial Gardens, Portland, Oregon USA
Important Dates & Years in Life of A J Tyler, Grandson of slaves:
25 Feb 1910, born in Greenville, Mississippi
1919- Left Mississippi ALONE at Age Nine, after his father was lynched, a victim of the Ku Klux Klan.
9 Dec 2013- Died in Portland, Oregon age 103.7 years.
Written by Journalist Anthony C. LoBaido
Excerpted from: The Last Adventurer
Among these “Amerikaners” was J. Columbus Smith. The son of an Air Force pilot and a first class military brat, Smith earned a journalism degree from Sam Houston State in Texas. He served in the U.S. Army and qualified for the Special Forces. Because of his journalism background, he was appointed public information officer for all the Green Berets in Vietnam. Read more…
Texan in the Rhodesian Army Says He Fights for Love, Not Money
Written by CAREY WINFREY Special to The New York Times September 2, 1979
MAGUNGE, Zimbabwe Rhodesia, Aug.30 -When Prime Minister Abel T. Muzorewa stepped off a helicopter here this morning to be briefed on guerrilla activity in this remote northern tribal area, the first person to greet him was Joseph Columbus Smith, of San Antonio, Tex.
Today, as captain Smith, he wears the green beret of the Rhodesian African Rifles. A decade ago, as Lieutenant Smith, he wore the green beret of the United States Special Forces on duty in Vietnam.
Captain Smith is one of about 150 Americans who have brought their zest for battle to Zimbabwe Rhodesia and serve in the Government’s security forces in ranks ranging from private to major.
“I need excitement,” Captain Smith told reporters clustered around him as Bishop Muzorewa campaigned for an amnesty program for the guerrillas. “I can’t have a non-exciting, normal life any more.”
Disenchanted With Journalism
lt was disenchantment with a career in journalism that put the son of a United States Air Force colonel back in camouflage fatigues. After his release from the army in 1969, Mr.Smith said he became a reporter on consumer affairs for The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. He later worked for a public television station in Washington. D.C.
But three years ago, when editors in the United States rejected a series of freelance articles he had written that were sympathetic to Rhodesia, he traded his typewriter for a .357 Magnum pistol and returned here to fight.
After presentation of his service records and an interview, Mr.Smith was given a three-year contract and the rank of lieutenant in the Rhodesian Army. Promoted to captain last year at the age of 34, he is now second in command of an infantry company of 200, the majority of whom are black.” It’s a fun army, an enthusiastic army,” he said in an amiable monotone.”It’s fun to be in. There’s a lot less waste than in Vietnam.”
Though he now calls the Vietnam War “a terrible mistake,” he finds some analogies between that conflict and the seven years of fighting here. The main similarities, he says, “are the sheer ruthless tactics, the coercive tactics” of the guerrillas.
Strong Sense of Nationalism
Captain Smith also finds a stronger sense of nationalism in Zimbabwe Rhodesia than he noted in Vietnam, a spirit he says be shares. “To help this country go to majority rule was one or the big thrills of my lifetime,” he said, describing him self as a “sucker for history .”
“The way I see it this is the only real experiment in democracy on the African. continent and the way the rest of the world demurs just brings tears or rage and frustration to my eyes.”
He worries that unless the world’s attitude changes, the cause he believes in may be lost. “It’s a numbers game,” he said. “The other side has the manpower. A thousand Europeans are leaving the country each month. It’s a game of attrition.”
It is a “game” that Captain Smith says he plays for love, not money. Like most foreign nationals fighting here, he bristles at any mention of the word mercenary.
“That term just grates you,” he said. “That really sticks in the craw of the Yanks over here.”
“In the first place,” he said, his voice rising for the first time in the interview, “foreigners form no special units but are integrated into the regular army. And out of 150 Americans here, I don’t know more than a dozen.”
He also points out that be is paid no more than any other army captain, about $900 a month. And because he is paid in Rhodesian dollars, which cannot be legally converted within the country andare worthless outside it. Captain Smith calls himself an “economic prisoner”.
Other foreign combatants echo his rejection of mercenary motives and his love of excitement .
“You’re absolutely terrified when people shoot at you,” said Arthur Nulty, a former chemist from England, “but nothing else has the zing of combat.”
Sgt. Hugh McCall, who grew up in lower Manhattan, described killing a man in combat as “the most exciting thing in the world.”
“There’s nothing else like it,” he told a reporter here recently. “The feeling you get when you come out of a contact – well, you bet your own life and you know It. You know you’re betting your life.”
The last time out, Sergeant McCall lost his bet. He was killed last month in an ambush, one of at least four Americans to die in this war.
While a reporter on Houston’s biggest daily, The Houston Post, I received this award for civil rights achievement.
Houston’s All African American Jack Yates High School selected me as the top male civil rights reporter in Houston that year. Award is based on my coverage of Police Brutality in Montgomery County, Texas, just north of Houston, Texas.
