An Australian Army Recruit sends home a letter to
family on the farm at Dunedoo.
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 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 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 dead 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 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! 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 good it is.
Your loving daughter,
Sheila
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