[John L Stewart]

Life in the Australian Army...

Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (For Those of you
not in the know, Eromanga is a small town, west of Quilpie in the far
south west of Queensland )




Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the
Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to get in bloody quick
smart before the jobs are all gone! I wuz a bit slow in settling down at
first, because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6am. But I like sleeping
in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots
and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to
stack - nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz
there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo steaks or
possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don't get fed again until noon and by
that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a 'route
march' - geez its only just like walking to the windmill in the back
paddock!!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting
medals for shootin' - dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody
possum's bum and it don't move and it's not firing back at ya like the
Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows before
the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit
the target - it's a piece of ****!! You don't even load your own
cartridges, they comes in little boxes, and ya don't have to steady
yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful
coz they break easy - it's not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack
and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the
muster.
Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best the
platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from the
Engineers - he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the
shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin' wet,
but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before
word gets around how bloody good it is.

Your loving daughter,

Sheila