The War Inside: Surviving the South African Border War Twice is a raw, darkly funny, and deeply human memoir of a young South African who went to war at nineteen - and then had to survive it all over again at home.
Stephen Castle grew up fast after his father died when he was fifteen. School was a blur of bad decisions, fast cars, rugby, rowing, and being the "bad influence" friend. Then the brown envelope from the South African Defence Force arrived, and life shifted from mischief to mortars.
From Potchefstroom basics to the northern border, Castle served as an 81mm mortar observer with 3 SAI and later with 201 Battalion and the Barakwena. He walked long patrols, called in fire missions, and watched friends get hurt and killed. Later, as a Citizen Force soldier, the war came home: desert battle drills at Lohatla, township duty in Soweto, and night operations in places like Mamelodi, where the line between "enemy" and "neighbour" blurred.
On paper, he came back in one piece. In reality, he brought the war inside with him.
At home, his wife and children lived with a man who woke up shouting, patrolled his own house at 2 a.m., exploded in black rages over small things, and then insisted he was "fine". Only years later would words like "trauma" and "PTSD" enter the conversation - and only because the people who loved him refused to accept his silence as an answer.
The War Inside is not a political tract or a military history. It is one man's honest account of:
- Growing up in South Africa as the Border War and internal conflict shaped every family in the country.
- Serving as a young infantryman and mortar observer on the South West African/Namibian border.
- Returning as a Citizen Force soldier to face desert exercises, township patrols and night raids on home soil.
- Marrying his school sweetheart and trying - and often failing - to keep the war out of his marriage and family.
- Slowly recognising the signs of PTSD and learning what it means to seek help and live with the ghosts instead of being driven by them.
Told in the first person with dry humour and unflinching clarity, The War Inside will resonate with anyone who has:
- Served in the military or waited for someone who did.
- Lived with the invisible wounds of trauma, anger and nightmares.
- Wondered why some wars end on paper long before they end in a person's head.
If you are interested in the South African Border War, SADF conscription, life as a national serviceman, or the long shadow of PTSD on marriage and fatherhood, this memoir offers a candid, unsentimental and ultimately hopeful story of what it really means to come home twice.
