Peter Polack > Quotes

“There can be no doubt that significant change will occur in Cuba in the near future. How those changes reflect the history of Cuba during its “internationalist proletariat” era that began with Che Gueverra and ended rather ignominiously in Africa remains to be seen.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“All Cubans between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight, men and women alike, are required to perform two years of military service with provisions to work in other areas other relating to the national security of the country in place of uniformed service.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“Why did the handsome young men and others like them give up their lives?”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“The chief says burn everything. By everything he means everything. Women, children, everything.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“A great irony of this conflict was that that much of the funding for the war came from the sale of Angolan oil to the American Gulf Oil Company.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“With only a few exceptions, rarely were sons of the rich and powerful sent to fight the sons of the poor and powerless in the Angolan bush.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“It is possible that illness took more casualties than bullets or shrapnel during the battle.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“The real winners of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale were the Angolan people who were able to say goodby to their Soviet and Cuban patrons so that the earnest business of peace and prosperity could begin while dodging the deadly inheritance of a countryside despoiled by mines.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“At Freedom Park, outside South Africa’s capital city of Pretoria, is the Sikhumbuto Wall monument that includes the 2,106 names of Cuban soldiers who fell in Angola between 1975 and 1988.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“Prior to providing their freedom UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, apparently sensing a change in the tide, said that the two pilots were released, ‘‘to show Cuba that we are also men, revolutionaries and human.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“The first thing that hit arriving soldiers when they landed at Rundu was heat that felt like a massive outdoor oven.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“The Cuban expeditionary forces carried on a code of conduct established since their first incursion to Algeria where astutely Raul Castro required the Cuban soldiers act with humility, to be modest and not act like experts.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“The formal ceasefire was connected to the withdrawal of the Cubans and South Africans from Angola as well as the implimentation of U.N. Resolution 435.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“the South Africans were fighting a conventional war in Angola, a counterinsurgency war in Namibia, an unconventional war in Mozambique, and localized civil disturbances within South Africa. All good reasons to recruit professional soldiers attracted by proper compensation, especially when the permanent force was mostly officers.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“This book is dedicated to the thousands of unknown young Africans of all colors who gave their lives in a meaningless outrage for whom family and friends silently mourn for an unrequited return.”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988

“For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”—Matthew 26:52”
― Peter Polack, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: Decision at Cuito Cuanavale and the Battle for Angola, 1987–1988