Across the Border

Norman McFarlane was a teenager just out of high school when he was conscripted for national service and sent to Angola. Like so many other ordinary troopies, he was thrown into the horror, deprivation and banality of war during Operation Savannah (1975─1976), the apartheid regime's secret campaign to influence the outcome of Angolan independence.
He recounts his loss of innocence in Angola, the subsequent ‘camps’ and his journey towards confronting his post-traumatic stress disorder. Told with disarming honesty and humour, he gives voice to a generation of white South African men forced into a grisly, life-defining experience.