Oom Daan and Tannie Pompie

Im Riana, the youngest daughter or Oom Daan and Tannie Pompie. He was 2nd Lt. D.R. van der Westhuizen and she was Sgt. C.C. van der Westhuizen.

But to many boys on the border they were known only as oom Daan and tannie Pompie. He was a man with a good humor and was accomplished at bushman tracking techniques. My mother was the radio operator guru known as 91.They were farmer’s, great parents and wonderful human beings and then came the army.

We are 4 children, my oldest sister Retha is now 52, married to Dup Venter and mother of 2 sons and a daughter and the grandmother of the light of her life, a 3 yr old girl.

My second sister Oliva, is 49 and she is the widow of J.H. Potgieter (Hendrik) who died with my dad on 15 April '82.She got married again to Izak Visser who helped her raise her 2 children from her marriage Hendrik. Louis and Marlize were aged 5 and 1 years old respectively, when their father died.

My brother Danie who was in the army at the time of my dads death is now 44 and has 4 kids and he is now married to Retha...(not my sister, another one) LOL

Im Riana, the last and unplanned child, im 36 yrs old. no hubby, no kids.

The story I’m about to tell u started many years ago and its not about any of the kids. Its about my parents.

When it was decided to start the Etosha commando's my parents not hesitate for one moment. They signed up and they inspired others to do the same. They felt they had to do their duty towards their country and could not expect the kids from all over the country to fight while they sit back and nothing. At that time, South West Africa was under South African Rule and South West Africans were loyal to South Africa and visa versa.

My dad was an natural leader with the most an incredible sense of humor. I have no doubt that he could make even the worst danger look like a walk in the park. He was just that kind of person. Nothing was ever too difficult to do and the glass was always half full and never half empty. He would never expect anything of anybody unless he was repaired to do it himself.

My mum was not the quiet wife type, she loved my dad and her family to bits but she found her other big passion in the army. Radio's were her passion. She had a knack for them and I believe she could do magic with those big green monsters. Give her a radio and she will have it working in no time and hear distances and people that only she could hear. She even designed her own Antennae, reversed V with which she was able to hear as distances far into Angola. Many people would come to the farm, yes she operated them from the farm. Between 3 and 6 of those big green monsters were considered worthy enough to take up prime space in our kitchen. The visitors would wonder if it perhaps was the geographical contours of the farm that made communications over such vast distances possible. Here was a woman on a farm, achieving comms that they as highly trained radio operators could never accomplish.

Mum just smiled and hid her sketches of her reverse V antennae.

In the mid 70's terrorist was big word for a 6 yr old and I became very confused with terrorist and tourist. I struggled with pronunciations and I called myself Hanna because it was just too difficult to say the R in Riana. It took me a while to sort of, know the difference between the two, probably never got my head around the tourist part even though I got to learn that they fighting terrorists and I knew for certain that there was danger in the air.

We had a high fence around the house by now and all bushes on the other side had been taken out and we had to paint a number on the roof of our house and dad and Hendrik went to "chase terrs" now and then. When this happened Olivia and her kids would come and stay with us. I wasn’t allowed to play outside the fence and before dark I had to be inside. But as a child I still did not realise the full impact of what was going on.

Mum was in front of the radio, I was told to shhhhht and be quiet, she had to listen. She started with one small radio and she had to tape record conversations of troops on frequencies only she could hear and she did that with a small cassette tape deck, like I got for my 12th birthday years later. But that meant there had to be absolute silence and she was sitting hunched over the radio's listening and turning knobs. To me it was pure craziness! So the kitchen became radio room and the green monsters got more and bigger. Mum became callsign 91 and the radio guru with the private telephone number directly to “oom Jannie Geldenhuys” (General Jannie Geldenhuis)

In the Meantime dad got a few bushman trackers together and helped them set up camp on our farm Koedoesvlei. He had to teach them the military basics but they were raw and primitive people of the veld, and my father didn’t want them to loose that but they needed to learn how to conduct themselves in an army environment. So they had parades in the morning, dad showed them how to march which at times was real funny. They obviously could not read or write, didn’t know left from right and now they had to learn to march in proper military style. They couldn’t pronounce Lieutenant correctly and to them he was "luitlant" and that was it.

The army provided them with food, which we went to fetch on Grootfontien every Friday. A long drive in a garry (what we called the landy the army gave dad) The Bushmen got the same food as any member of the SADF but before long they started to complain, "Luitlant, dis food make us lazy and don’t give us energy, we want mieliepap." They were not impressed with the cheese and polony and tinned food and boxes of the best food the SADF came up with to feed them, no sir, they wanted meiliepap, that’s what they know, that’s what their bodies were used to and what gave them sustenance that made them feel energetic so that’s what they got.

They learned to shoot...to march...to do the things a soldier in the army would do and they were my dad's pride and joy. He was extremely proud of them and they swore that he could walk on water.

In the meantime the farming had to go on and so it did. Dad and Hendrik weren’t only family and comrades but they were also best buddies and would chat for hours on end. They were both farmers and good farmers at that, spending many hours looking at the clouds and working hard, and getting up 4 in the morning. When I was not in school I would wake up with him and follow him around like a shadow. He didn’t have to receive the Honoris Crux to be my hero. He was my hero because of the love he showered me with.

He taught me the phonetic alphabet which I remember till this day. He taught me his army nr, which I still remember off the top of my head. These are the little memories of him I treasure till this day.

I only had him for 11 yrs and 11 months, but he gave me enough love to last me a lifetime...