A comment from one who served:
From an American trooper
By Ken Gaudet

When I attend military reunions with the unit I served with in Vietnam, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, I am often asked what it was like to have been a soldier in Africa.
My answer has always been that it was a time to be a soldier and one of the most memorable experiences of my time in the military. I reflect back when I was in Vietnam as a 19-year-old sergeant patrolling in our area of operations. The US armed forces had all the military firepower but not the will of the American people to win in Vietnam. Often in the RLI we thought how different the war would have been if the Rhodesians had had more helicopters, planes, modern equipment and troops to defeat the terrorists. What I saw was the Rhodesians making do with what they had because they had no other choice.

When I joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) right after the internal elections in April 1979, everything was changing except the morale of the combat troops. The mission was to continue to take the fight to the enemy, find them and do your job as a soldier. The RLI guys in Support Commando were a mixture of Rhodesian national servicemen, foreign soldiers from various armies, and Rhodesians who had been fighting since the beginning of the terrorist war. What a group to say the least. We were beyond fearless: it did not matter if we were on Fire Force, combat ops with the Special Air Service (SAS) or Selous Scouts – we were there to take the fight to the enemy.

The RLI soldiers can easily be compared to a modern US Army Ranger battalion. The RLI made numerous combat para jumps, not only inside Rhodesia on Fire Force operations, but para drops into Zambia and Mozambique into some of the biggest terrorist base camps of the war. The RLI will always be remembered as one of the finest fighting forces in modern times. I am proud to say for a time I was part of ‘The Incredibles’.