‘This is not the man I knew’: Jansen van Staden reckons with being the son of a Border War conscript

After the death of my father in 2011, I discovered a letter written to his psychotherapist about his time as a conscript in the South African Border War. The father I knew had dedicated his life to sustainable projects and education in African countries, and what I read in the letter took me by surprise. It detailed horrific incidents he took part in as a 17-year-old boy. This is not the man I knew. One paragraph from the letter bothered me the most: