Bloodsong!: An Account of Executive Outcomes in Angola

Rating:
Summary: A little disappointed
Review: Bloodsong is a good book that gives us an insight into the mysterious world of the mercenary. These men have a glamorous persona that is shown not to be so. Many of these men have served in the finest Special Forces units in South Africa. War is what they know and it is how they make a living just like an electrician or a plumber. After reading Jim Hooper's first book Beneath the Visiting Moon I was a little disappointed in this book. Bloodsong did not have the same action packed scenes that Moon had. In Moon, Hooper gave us a connection to the characters and when something happened to them the reader felt it, not so in Bloodsong. Overall it is a good read about a group of men that many people know little about. I would recommend reading Nine Days of War of Beneath the Visiting Moon before reading this to gain some background knowledge of the situation in Angola.

Rating:
Summary: Bloodsong - The South African dogs of war's story
Review: The late lord Harold MacMillan's winds of change that started off as a relative gentle breeze in western Africa in the early sixties had built up to hurricane strength when it reached Southern Africa. In the middle eighties the major part of the region was ablaze: full-scale wars were waged in Angola and Mozambique, troops and police anti-terrorist units were deployed along the Angolan - South West African border to neutralize the liberation groups and in South Africa the black townships were virtual war zones. The South Africans were with their backs to the sea but managed to survive and to suppress wave after wave unleashed on them.

Having been the pariah of nations for decades they had to be totally self-reliant: a war machine unequalled in the history of the Dark Continent came into being. Equipment was designed and perfected. Thousands of men were conscripted, processed, trained and to a certain extent, programmed for warfare.

And then, in the late eighties and early nineties the unimaginable happened: peace broke out!

For many South Africans it was a low blow - all of a sudden they were both without a mission as well as a way to eke out a living.
For years armed conflict was all they knew and lived for and in the new political dispensation their skills were not required and instead, quite frankly, actually frowned upon.

Thus, with uncanny entepeneurial skill and leadership qualities Executive Outcomes (EO), South Africa's first mercenary army was conceived out of necessity and born in comradeship. Although the banners had changed the cause had remained the same.

Jim Hooper, an American author and journalist currently residing in England and a veteran of the armed conflicts in Southern Africa, was invited and allowed into the inner sanctum of EO. In "Bloodsong! A first hand account of a modern private army in action" the combatants themselves recount the exploits of EO graphically. The volte-face of EO by siding with an erstwhile enemy is discussed and so is the harassment of EO and members of their families by both old-guard South Africans and paranoid new politicians.

During their involvement in Angola EO was paid the ultimate compliment: they were approached by the Angolans to retrain their army.

Bloodsong! is well written and researched and Hooper reveals a compasionate insight in the driving force behind all those involved. The narrative is sober and according to an EO-leader
"as close to the truth as possible".

Although one would have preferred more accounts of the "grunts" themselves the book is reccommended to all thse with an interest in military operations.

A truly informative can't-put-down must read!