In the beginning the leaders made it all seem like such fun. Guns and 10-man tents, going out in a group of fifty or more, into the African bush. Living with the earth, and its brown-red dirt, brown-red tents, and brown-red uniforms. Scout camp is what they called it, I think.

I was chosen with three others to be a radio operator using the latest radio backpacks. One of the others made a mess of his radio settings so he decided against being a radio operator. None of the others were brave enough to try that radio after its settings went wrong, so in the end, only three of us used the heavy backpacks with their modern radio technology.

I was the best radio operator. For weapons, the radio operators were given Uzi's, while the others had R1 rifles. The Uzi was black and neat and compact and a really mean looking machine-gun. It could kill hundreds in seconds. Us three with our backpack radios and uzi's were the coolest. We grinned from ear to ear. I was 14.

In African bush war, childhood is a long lost daydream. The biggest of the youth did something wrong. Nobody was really sure what, possibly sneaking out of the camp.