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With atrocities committed after changes of power in the Belgian Congo and Kenya fresh in their minds, most white Rhodesians (and a sizable number of black Rhodesians) saw their lifestyles jeopardized. As a result, the government declared the country’s independence from British rule on November 11, 1965, in what became known as the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). The white-minority government in Rhodesia grew fearful of what would happen to the 270,000 white settlers in a nation of 7 million native Africans. This meant that colonies with a substantial population of white settlers would not receive independence except under conditions of majority rule. But in 1960, when Britain declared its intention to grant independence to its territories in Africa, it also specified a policy of no independence before majority rule. The country was operated as a British colony and was known at different times as South Zambezia, Southern Rhodesia, and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The area of southern Africa then known as Rhodesia was first colonized by British and South African settlers in the 1890s. But the political situation was far, far more convoluted. On its surface the Rhodesian Bush War that raged from 1964 to 1979 was a simple one: A former British colony was locked in conflict with nationalist (read: communist) guerrillas. Where do you turn for more adventure—the want ads? Soldiering is your calling and now the war is over for you. You loved the life of a soldier: the discipline, the adventure, the adrenaline rush. So, you’re an American soldier—trained, drilled, and honed into a top-flight fighting machine by Uncle Sam—suddenly yanked from combat in the jungles of Vietnam. And nowhere was business better than in post-colonial Africa. If soldiering was your business, business was good in the 1970s.