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 p#ss!! 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
