Operation Tangent

I remember the Patrols

and the red dust of Africa

frosting my boots.

Endless nights on sentry

tired, always tired

and never enough sleep.

The rat packs

cooked eleven different ways

yet still tasting like shit.

Boredom, always bloody bored

apart from those moments of terror

when time stopped.

A chopper and no mail

and the loneliness

of isolation.

The oppressive heat of the Kalahari

the cooling after a long rain

and the beauty of an African sunset.

But most of all

I remember the nights,

the Southern Cross, and you.

©Mike Subritzky

January 2002