Fighting Men of Rhodesia EP301 | SGT Frank Guthrie | 1 Commando, 1 RLI
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- Опубликовано: 7 янв 2025
- You can contact me (John van Zyl) at fightingmenofrhodesia@gmail.com or Tony Ballinger at tonyballinger991@gmail.com.
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Takes more courage to deal with the alcohol issue than going out on operations. This is one of the most powerful and honest interviews yet. Respect sir.
Frank, you are too brutally honest. I admire your honesty, I admire you for admitting it, you are a very special, very brave person! May you be able to cope and overcome and survive. Your honesty is helping me!
Thanks for the brutal honesty about alcohol.
For the lucky ones, it was a temporary coping mechanism that didn't get out of control long term.
I ran a university pub in Cape Town in 1980 to 1983. Rhodies were always the biggest customers. Most of them did OK, but many did not.
Unfortunately alcohol doesn't drown your problems, it teaches them to swim. The war has a long tail that continues today.
Great talk. Down to earth. No frills. No boasting. Just saying how it was. Well done. Salute
Great honest story Frank thank you so much.... I must say I was always worried about calling in Fire Force onto our position during the war. The RLI were known for their high efficiency and accurate shooting and I remember once ripping my shirt off to show I was friendly when two RLI sticks walked towards my position. All I could see was those beasts MAG machine guns being raised up to fire. A close shave on many occasions. The rest of my guys were told to lay low in the dirt as we were pseudo operators. Hats off to you Frank and all the RLI guys who we admire so much...
Great story Frank, thanks for sharing. I am glad you still with Sue. Love you guys!
What a remarkable gentleman!
"The Lord longs to show him compassion." - Isaiah 30:18
Thank you lads for being brutally frank and open about the baboon on your back and how you dealt with it. Takes a real man to do that. Frank, only one criticism, your people may be south African but my brother you are a true blue Rhodie! All the very best to you both - pamwe chete!!
Such an honest conversation about alcoholism. My brother refused to admit to being an alcoholic and lost his family as a result. It played a significant role in his early demise.
Best army in the world. Thank you for sharing. Respect, salute!
RLI best Warfighters the world has ever seen. Always reluctant to talk, very humble. An amazing bunch of guys....
Complete respect as always. All troops were and are men amongst me.! Thank you!
Great interview- well done Frank and thanks for sharing your stories.
Thanks again Tony for your never ending enthusiasm and hard work that you put into the FMOR series.
Good Onya - much appreciated.
Well Frank l am a little bit behind you. Its coming upto 7 years dry for me. Yeah my first AA meeting was the hardest, but after a year & a half, l realised that ONLY I could stop my drinking. It was good that l was in the company of others, & l did get strength & solace from their stories. Also went to a psychoanalyst, but unfortunately felt that he would never begin to understand what l had been through ( much less than what you had experienced ). He did diagnose PTSD, which also like you contributed to my alcoholism. I found myself in SA in the early '80s doing crazy dangerous things to try & experience that adrenaline high because l felt like l had to be this mad Rhodie.
Thank you. Go well my brother. One day at a time.
Glad to see Frank here, thanks Tony and rest of you, Koos
Thanks very much, Frank and Tony, another excellent talk.
Great interview. Thank you for agreeing to come onto the channel and share your story in such a candid, refreshingly 'frank' and eloquent way. I'm sure what you've shared will be like holding a mirror up for many of us and my prayer is that that we'll find encouragement and hope and direction in following your example of honesty and straightforward simplicity in acknowledging it if they have a similar problem & seeking help.
Well done, God bless.
Thanks too, Tony.
Deepest and sincerest thanks and gratitude to both of you.
Blessings and grace and love.
That fireforce event when the SAS were first wave was when Rob Slingsby lost his life. PTSD is a moral injury not a mental illness. An Aussie group called PTSD resurrected has done courses in RSA in the last few years. I strongly recommend them as they helped me. I served in support unit from 1976 to 1980 and was never normal after that.
So good to hear your story Frank. Thank you Tony!
The last time I saw you was in 1974, 50 years ago. Time goes by rather quickly.....
Funny that you and I were once in the same class at school, were buddies for a while, were both in intake 137 in 1974, both of us independently volunteering for RLI, both passing out (my brother recently sent me the passing out parade photo) and both ending up in 1 Commando.
So glad you volunteered to tell us your story.
Anthony Rausch
Anthony, this is such a very special response to this post. So very good to hear from you. I hope we get an opertunity to catch up.
Really enjoyed this Frank and Tony, such an open and from the heart talk. All the very best wishes guys.
Thank you so much for all your videos John .My father serviced in the Rhodesian War and listening to your interviews makes me extremely proud of my father and the scarifies you all made as young men . All Heroes living in my Generation. Although I don’t understand most of your tactic talks and scenarios etc , it’s still great to hear how highly you speak about your fellow soldiers .
Thank you once again Daniel de Goede from Perth
Great interview, many thanks Frank, Tony & FMOR. Stay well all & God Bless Always.
Thank you Frank for serving Rhodesia, thank you for your honesty. We all have our problems and for many of us alcohol has been the coping mechanism, and for so very many a big challenge.
Frank you experienced so much you should write down rough notes in Chronological order of what you did in the RLI. Space out the events with blank pages in between and then as you remember details fill in the between spaces. Would love to hear you talk through that one day.
God bless you. We will pray for you. Thank you.
Thank you, Frank, and well done on your recovery journey.
Thank you Sir, when I listen to honesty such as yours Frank, I relate to your personnel struggles and I know I am a person just like you - normal. The struggles are from within and each time I hear a story such as yours I get stronger. I too am trying to find the Lord, I know he has found me. I enjoyed the calmness in your voice. God Bless Frank and Tony
Another great interview, my respect for RLI continues to this day.
Well done Frank for your honesty. I was with you in 1Cdo and friends later in life in Pta. Hope we can catch up one day. Graeme Swart
You ,Sirs, are both Worthy, i salute you.
Tony and now you see why the RLI won’t talk, a huge number are suffering from PTSD and don’t know it. We are not designed to go into combat on such an extreme level as the guys did
Hi Kevin. Many many of the guys I have interviewed have expressed to me privately how much the interview helped them. They found it liberating and cathartic. With some it started a journey to healing. So why would anyone not want to do the same for themselves? In fact Frank mentions right at the end of the video how much talking has helped him. A problem shared is a problem halved. Half the guys who do not talk have labelled themselves with the thought 'nah I'm not gonna talk either' just to follow what their buddies are doing but not actually investigating it themselves. Talking and sharing and knowing you are not alone in your fears and nightmares is the answer; not bottling it up.
After what seemed some reticence, Frank was remarkably open and erudite; he has offered insights that - I think - are universal regarding ops and yet are unique to the channel so far. I hope he will share more in the future. A very good interview, thanks to both Frank and Tony. 👍
Thank you Frank for a forthright and genuine talk.
And well done on defeating the demon.
What I have witnessed in recent years is what plant medicine properly administered and with full councilling can do to alcohol dependence and PTSD.
I have seen astonishing results from the plant IBOGA
Thanks for your courage to share and being so open, what an excellent talk!
Thanks for another great interview
Thanks Frank and Tony another excellent interview. I hope Frank will come back and give another chat about his experiences.
The artillery Gun Position near the Vila Salazar border post used WW2 25 pounder guns with HE117 shells in the contact you refer to. It was the only “Danger Close” fire mission I am aware of during the war where the airborne FOO notified the retreating ground troops of incoming shells on their position by the radio notification command “Splash”. They then new that they had less than 30 seconds to vacate their current position. Post this operation when we returned to Cranbourne barracks in Salisbury 1 Cdo invited us over to their mess for a celebration and bestowed honorary life membership of 1 Commando to our Troop.
Wow, thank you for that reply. I remember that party (maybe not all of it😂) respect my brother
@ respect returned my brother.
Thanks Frank for for this interesting talk,Tony once again thanks for organising this interview, you did say the other day that you needed more guys from the RLI to come forward about their experiences.
Thanks for sharing Frank, good stuff bud.
Excellent content, from both Frank and Tony.
Tony, I thank you for this wonderful talk. Thanks Frank, for sharing a touching story and I also know that you you have had other experiences that could not be shared. I think I know you from GFS (boarding school) you may recall a guy by the name of Bertie Visser from Sunderland House. He died 11 th. May 1971
Thanks ever so much from old New Orleans 😇
Can anyone remember a 'mock' operation held in Manicaland in the Mutasa TTL and farms surrounds. Ops was based at Grand Reef.. early 70's? Thanks.. Memory fails me.. Can recall the name of it. 😢
great interview again guys thank you.
Thanks Brother's. Frank good stories 👌 😊😂
Thank you for continuing these interviews. It would be great to see Ken Gaudet again.
Respect mate respect.
Thank you for an amazing video !
Much respect great video
Sounds like Frank had his own kind of PTSD, the booze couldn't fix the issue.
Crazy how personality issues can be reflected on.
For me PTSD was behavioural malfunction, like a little monster in the back of my mind.
A honest anecdote with great scenarios.
Thank you, Frank and Tony - an excellent talk. By the way, be careful of comparing the Rhodesian war with Afghanistan. The rules of engagement were far more restrictive for political reasons and the British infantry was weighed down with very heavy and awkward Osprey body armour. Also, Afghanistan was a very different war, fought against a far tougher and wilier enemy, who was an expert in IEDs.
God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
Many people and all soldiers are exposed to traumatic stress, clearly some worse than others.
Alcohol simply masks the effects and memories and allows one to carry on the next day.
But it only masks the effect and does not cure nor dissolve the root cause.
So these effects emerge later, now all aggregated and this is a disorder.
Now there are two disorders: PTSD and alcoholism.
To cure or even get to the first disorder the second one has to be cured first.
Curing alcoholism is mainly about willpower and secondly about removing the motivations to drink, if that is possible.
Curing PTSD is best achieved by deep self-examination in the context of its cause and one's own entanglement in it, like war, and then frank ventilation with either professionals (psychologist or psychiatrist) or peers. There will be achievement when there is acceptance of what happened and thereby the evaporation of guilt, pain and fear.
RMY
There is a toxic relationship between alcohol and the military. My old man has been a fighter pilot so we grew up with that relationship between tales of derring do and have another whisky, boy. I think I am through that now, not through any deep revelation it is just I have just lost the desire to be the life and soul and to drink till drunk. What a brilliant interview.
Only a Rhodesian would go for thirds and seconds after the 1st contact.
We thank you for your service and dedication fighting soldiers of Rhodesia. True Legends Fire Force 🫡 🫡