Jaco van Gass. 171113 Picture: Handout/Supplied
Published Nov 27, 2013
Johannesburg – Two South African soldiers in the British Army have featured in a graphic book displaying wartime injuries with pictures taken by musician-turned photographer Bryan Adams.
Jaco van Gass, 27, from Mpumalanga, and Rory Mackenzie, 31, from Krugersdorp, both posed for the rock star’s book Wounded: The Legacy Of War, which aims to raise awareness of conflict injuries and money for war-related charities.
The portraits include soldiers’ personal accounts of what happened to them and the injuries they sustained when fighting in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The pictures by Adams pull no punches, with the soldiers displaying wounds including stumps, scarred torsos, burnt faces and prosthetic limbs.
In Van Gass’s case, the pictures showed his missing left arm (severed above the elbow) and a semi-mutilated left leg, injuries he sustained with the Parachute Regiment in 2010 while on patrol in the troubled Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Born in Middelburg and raised in Witbank, Van Gass moved to the UK in 2006 and enlisted in the Paras, serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan, in 2008 and 2009.
With just two weeks to go to the end of his second six-month tour, his patrol was caught in a night-time firefight where he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, suffering a collapsed lung, punctured internal organs, muscle and tissue damage to the upper-left thigh, shrapnel wounds and a fractured knee, fibula and tibia.
However, he vowed to keep active and in April 2011 was part of the first group of wounded servicemen to reach the geographic North Pole unsupported, while last year he narrowly missed conquering Everest.
Despite those challenges, he admitted to nervousness about the photo shoot.
“It felt strange in the beginning, I felt quite self-conscious. Not a lot of people up until now have seen the extent of my injuries – it’s easy to see I’ve lost my arm and say ‘sorry to see that’ but not many people have seen my leg which causes complications to my stability, hips and back.
“But Bryan Adams was great at making you feel relaxed. He was very comfortable to be with and knew everyone’s name and just talked normally to you when he interviewed us.
“He talked about his grandfather who was in the military and was interested in you. It did feel a bit weird that it was this famous rock star and icon but he didn’t act like it. I’m hoping it raises money, yes, but I also hope the book highlights injuries and just gets the issue out there.”
Mackenzie left South Africa in 2003 and joined the British Army with the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the Staffordshire Regiment. He was on patrol in an armoured vehicle in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2007 when it hit a roadside bomb, killing one soldier and badly injuring three.
He said: “I remember every moment – my leg had been blown off, but I was not able to move, not able to see or feel. I was taken to hospital where I underwent a 17-hour operation and then back to the UK.”
As well as serious leg injuries, Mackenzie contracted a rare infection which doctors had to battle with further amputations before it spread to his hip and rest of the body. In the event they were able to save the top part of his right leg, allowing some mobility with his stump.
He said: “Look, compared to a lot of guys on the photo shoot, I got off incredibly lightly losing just a leg. I hope the book makes people think about how wounded soldiers cope when they come back with bad injuries. When it’s not on the front pages or on TV, soldiers still need support and the charities this is supporting are just the ones I support.”
Mackenzie now works as a motivational speaker.
Like Van Gass, he said Bryan Adams was down to earth.
“I couldn’t care less about celebrities, just want to take people for what they are and Bryan Adams was extremely humble and had a good perspective. He’s just a relaxed kind of guy.”
Journalist Caroline Froggatt, who came up with the idea of the 309-page book five years ago and enlisted Bryan Adams, said only one of the 40 veterans asked to take part declined to participate.
She said: “A lot of these people have an inner strength and fortitude which is fascinating and humbling. They make the things a lot of us moan about seem very trivial, dealing with physical and emotional pain.
“Some of the stories were incredible and I think a lot of them have been to very dark places. It was quite unsettling listening to their stories but they all have this inner will.
“What was surprising is that a lot of them said if they had their life again they would not choose to have their legs or limbs back because the impact on their lives had been overwhelmingly positive.”