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- Apr 19, 2005
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Letter home
This letter from a new army recruit to Mum and Dad back home in
Eromanga, 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 you
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'!!
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 its 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 in 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 pickhandles 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,
Jill xxx
This letter from a new army recruit to Mum and Dad back home in
Eromanga, 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 you
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'!!
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 its 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 in 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 pickhandles 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,
Jill xxx
