Prelude to Chapter 13

I am sorry it has taken so long to post Chapter 13. This is due to my obstinate objective of telling my life story as truthfully as possible. Chapter 13 is probably the hardest chapter for me to write, because I must dredge up not one or two, but a lot of memories which are deeply distressing to me. However, I am onto my fourth rewrite, and hope to complete it in the next day or two. Meanwhile, I thought I would do  Prelude to the chapter, to provide some information that I have not thought about much before, in the hope that it is perhaps a little bit interesting to you.

With warmth, Norm

Prelude to Chapter 13

Here’s a question: How many true friends does one make in a two year army career? For some people, lifelong friendships are formed. For me, the answer is, none. In all, I made two good mates, a few other mates, and several acquaintances with whom I could be comfortable.

This is partly due to my lack of social skills with my peers, due to the circumstances of my upbringing, and including the fact that I did not share many of the school experiences of my fellows, including sports and school cadets. The other part is that, in my two years, I moved (as most of us did) through a range of different experiences and environments.

At Kapooka, during my three months of recruit training[1], I was one of 56 first intake National Servicemen, in 20 Platoon, E Company 1 RTB (Recruit Training Battalion).  Our instructors consisted of a Lieutenant (who had a big dog), a sergeant, four corporals and two lance corporals. There were only two people in my Kapooka platoon with whom I felt reasonably at ease – Ken Wallace and Ken Tronc. They were both in the 12 people in my hut. I knew the other people in my hut, and had some contact with others in the platoon.

When we were allocated for infantry corps training, I became part of D Company, 6 RAR. Of the 56 National Servicemen in my Kapooka platoon, only five of us went to a platoon of D Company at Enoggera Army Barracks in Brisbane - me, Ken Wallace (the only one who had been in my hut at Kapooka), Eddie Williams, and Barry Vasella. 

In early March 1966, half of us were transferred into C Company, which had until then comprised only Regular soldiers, whereas D Company had only National Servicemen, apart from the officers. Barry Vasella stayed with D Company, which left just four of us who had been together since entering the army. 

Not surprisingly, my time in C Company is, for me, the most remembered part of my army career, because these are the people with whom I served in South Vietnam.

At Enoggera, I was in 7 Platoon, and shared a hut with three other men (we were probably to this hut in alphabetical order, because our names were: Ken Wallace, Norm Wallace, Bill Winterford and Norm Wotherspoon).

Three of us, Ken and Bill and I, became close mates, with Ken the leader, Bill the comedian, and me the follower. We stuck together in our training; went drinking together; and shared many late night meals at the Night Owl café in Petrie Terrace. (This is in addition to the other information I gave in Chapter 11).

I also referred to the fact that Bill and I were on unfriendly terms when we departed for Vietnam, due to his suspecting me of making romantic approaches to his girlfriend Jacqueline (I think I gave the wrong name in Chapter 11 – it was Jacqueline, folks, not Joanne).

My Company was one of four rifle companies which formed part of VI Battalion (RAR)[2]. An infantry battalion at full strength contains nearly 800 men and women (in my time I think our battalion was an all-male unit), of whom approximately 300 are in Battalion Headquarters (HQ), with another 492 allocated to four rifle companies, A, B, C and D.

Our Battalion Total Strength consisted of nearly 40 officers and 750 Other Ranks[3]

Each rifle company had a total strength of 123 men consisting of:

Company HQ - 2 officers - Major and Captain) and 13 Other Ranks[4]

Support Section - 6 Other Ranks

Three Rifle Platoons, each comprising:

Platoon HQ – Platoon Commander (2^nd Lieutenant) Sergeant, Signaller[5], Orderly

Three Rifle Sections, each of 10 Other Ranks (1 Corporal, I Lance Corporal, 8 Privates). The 8 privates included – 2 Forward Scouts, 4 Riflemen, and the 2 members of the Machine Gun Team. Most ORs carried SLRs (Self Loading Rifles) when we first arrived in Vietnam, but these were upgraded to the lighter American Armalites quite soon after our arrival. As platoon signaller I carried a 9 millimetre Browning pistol (as compensation for the extra weight of the signal set and spare batteries).

I had shown high aptitude in the role of platoon signaller, so that became my role. Bill became the machine gunner in a rifle section, and Ken became a forward scout. 

To return to the question with which I started this section, I did not have the time to form forever friendships in my two years in the army. I had three months at Kapooka, followed by five months corps training in D Company, a further three months training in 7 Platoon, C Company, and then we were away to Vietnam. In Vietnam, I spent 2 months in 7 Platoon, 5 months in Company Headquarters, and the final three months in 9 Platoon.

The only people I got to know really well were Ken Wallace and Bill Winterford, and future circumstances meant that those friendships did not progress much after my discharge. There were other brief closenesses I shared with a few people, but most of these were ended through death or injury.

With everyone else, I shared a camaraderie with a small group of people who relied on each other for survival.  When we were not out on patrols and operations, we all took our turns at protecting the perimeter, and we had no one else, except our hundred selves, to spend our limited relaxation time with (which usually meant a few drinks in the bar tent, (aka boozer), or friendly (?) poker games in our tents.

When I was in 7 Platoon, my world was limited to the other 30 men; in Company Headquarters, I worked and socialised with the 20 other privates there; when I moved to 9 Platoon, it was just me and those other 30 men. That’s just the way it was, and probably still is, in an army in a war zone. You can never stray far from your own operational team, because you never know when you might have to saddle up for the next urgent patrol or operation.

All in all, I got to know perhaps 200 people in the army, about half of them reasonably well. Perhaps a dozen, in total, I could say I knew very well, for a time. Over the past ten years I have come to know some of the ex-members of C Company much better, but that is a story for a future chapter.

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[1] June 1965 to September 1965

[2] RAR = Royal Australian Regiment

[3] Other Ranks included: Regimental Sergeant Major, Company Sergeant Majors, Sergeants, Corporals and Lance Corporals, and Privates.

[4] In my role as orderly to the Company 2IC, I was one of this number.

[5] This was my role in 7 Platoon at first, then in 9 Platoon for the last part of my tour.

Chapter 12

I apologise for the VERY long delay since Chapter 11. This has been partly due to my laziness, but mainly because I had a week in hospital with a particularly nasty virus, which left me weak and somewhat depressed for several weeks after returning home. However, here is Chapter 12:

  Prelude to … The Rest of the Journey

Dear Family, Friends, and Other Readers who have somehow stumbled onto my journey:

From this point, you will find many more poems, stories, songs, and fragments of other writing, because from here, I wrote lots more stuff. Vietnam-related work is mostly autobiographical, and, in parts, perhaps depressing. However, I hope you will also find other pieces that are utter nonsense (I hold affection for them still), works of pure imagination, and a few that I found inspiring to write.

There will also be extracts from the journals/diaries that I kept assiduously for a year or two, and much less assiduously for many other years. Not to mention bits of correspondence sent and received, and, last but certainly most importantly, poems and songs that I have written for Margaret, the Love of my life.

I have found my life became much harder, and certainly much more interesting from now on and certainly, from 1969, much more fulfilling.

With much warmth,

Norm

Chapter 12: Vietnam – Innocence Lost

Age: 21 – 22

Vietnam, for good or ill, changed my life forever. A part of me died, a part of me never returned home, and my physical, mental, spiritual and emotional selves somehow transformed into the foundation stones of who I am today. Or perhaps I was confronted with the reality of who I have always been, a reality I had never understood or sought to understand.

At one level I matured overnight, from a passive, order-following, unthinking Norm-boat, steered by others across the limited lake of my one-dimensional life, to a non-directed, more thoughtful, sometimes storm-tossed, sometimes becalmed, little Normie-dinghy on the huge, uncharted ocean of chance and choice.

*-*-*-*

This chapter will possibly be quite long, but I’m not going to write to much new stuff. I find it difficult, and painful, to forcibly dredge up my Vietnam experience, even now. I find it much more therapeutic to deal with my hidden memories, flashbacks, and nightmares as and when they arise, than to go digging for them. I have compensated for this by including various poems and autobiographical stories along the way, which should give a reasonably clear understanding of my time in the war zone. 

Soldier, Coming Home (continued)

In that sometimes green and sodden,

sometimes dry and dusty land,

he learned that life was just

a road which ended at the graveside.

Along that part of his road,

the kid became a man, or partly so.

He learned to look at death, and laugh;

using that harsh and brutal humour which

covers over sadness and despair;

the callous crudities which soldiers use

when struggling to come to terms with their own mortality,

when striving to preserve their fragile sanity.

To overcome his inner panic,

and his growing sense of isolation, alienation;

his revulsion from this real/unreal battleground,

he forced himself to laugh -

that laughter which dulls and blunts that inner sense

of humanity which all men hold within;

the laughter which enables soldiers to continue on,

without thought, or question, or ... belief.

On his first operation, he voiced concern

at certain aspects of the work -

‘Was it necessary to burn this school, this shrine,

during the destruction of the village of Long Phuoc?’

The captain, or the sergeant, or the corporal

said that schools and churches were

the major spawning grounds of propaganda.

Burn it, wreck it, tear it down.

Destroy it, utterly.

He obeyed, as he was taught to do, except,

he saved a blank-paged workbook,

and a cheap certificate[1] presented to

some unknown student for unidentified achievement.

Something like tears touched his eyes,

as he watched the wooden Buddha, burning.

After all our jungle training, anti-dreaded disease inoculations, battle inoculations (this is where people shoot at you, using live ammunition, but, thankfully, above you, or to the sides, while you are on a simulated patrol through enemy territory), we were publicly farewelled with a  march through the streets of Brisbane on 21 May 1966.

On the night of Monday, 6^th June, buses took us to the R.A.A.F. (Royal Australian Air Force) base at Amberley, near Ipswich. Our QANTAS flight took off somewhere around midnight, so timed to arrive in Saigon the next morning or possibly early afternoon. Because we would need our weapons immediately on landing, we carried them with us in the cabin, which is possibly not done on too many civilian airline flights these days.

We stopped briefly in Manila for refuelling, and were allowed to stretch our legs in the terminal, where we pretended to enjoy a couple of San Miguel beers and a local cigar. I think this was about 6:00 a.m., (hence the pretending – I never had an early morning appetite for beer and cigarettes) and, whilst I can claim that I have visited Manila, I didn’t get much of a taste for the country, only some of the products of the alcohol and tobacco industries.

The descent into Saigon had its moments of terror, because we seemed to go down vertically, with the nose pointing straight at the tarmac. This, we were told, was to avoid the possibility of enemy anti-aircraft fire. We said goodbye to the world we knew when we were farewelled at the cabin door by the pilots and flight staff.

On the tarmac, we deployed loosely into platoon groups, with our weapons held nervously at the half-ready, and looking every which way in both curiosity and trepidation. I have never, before or since, seen so many aircraft in one location as at Tan Son Nhut Airport (I think that’s the correct spelling). There seemed to be thousands, but it was probably more like four or five hundred. Someone asked one of several very tall American servicemen if the airport ever came under attack, and he drawled, “All the time, man. All the time.”

We weren’t there long enough to test the truth of this. Within a very short time we were bundled into buses, which took us about 100 yards, then we boarded US aircraft (Caribou?), as if we were boarding a bus to the football – people boarded until there was no more room, and the rest moved onto the next plane. There was no mucking about with slow, safe ascents or descents in Vietnam – steep climbs and even steeper landings were the order of the war, so that aircraft were never low enough for enemy to attack them outside the safety perimeter of the landing fields.

The trip from Tan Son Nhut to Vung Tau took very little time (the distance was only about forty or fifty miles). At Vung Tau we clambered onto HUGE US army semi-trailers, (standing room only), and in almost no time we were dumped at the Back Beach. The trip was a jumble of visual images – small tin sheds/shanties/homes made of flattened-out soft drink and beer cans, straw and bits of timber; helicopters and small aeroplanes everywhere, on the ground and in the sky; lots of people beside and on tiny streets and lanes; and somewhere there was a glimpse of a vast array of ships (probably in the port part).

 We spent a week in tents among the sandhills of the Back Beach, acclimatising ourselves to this strange land. Activities included long marches with full packs under a very warm sun; a little bit of weapons practice; swimming in the largest air-conditioned ocean in the world (I wrote that bit in one of my few letters home); drinking cans of American beer - Budweiser and Millers - which we bought for 10 cents a can; and some limited sight-seeing.

On one march we saw a parade of people in brightly-coloured outfits, accompanying an ornate float. We smiled, waved and called out until a sergeant, with much quiet cursing, ordered us to show more respect to the dead. That Buddhist funeral was my first glimpse into cultural differences. Sigh!

The locals all seemed friendly, all smiles and waves, telling us that “Uc Da Loi* Number ONE!” (* ‘Uc Da Loi’, we were told, meant “Soldier from the South”, although for all I knew, it may have meant “Foreign Scum!”). It seemed hard to believe that some of these happy, welcoming Vietnamese spent their nights trying to kill Americans and their allies.

On the main ‘road’ along the Back Beach was a facility, consisting of a long, low building with a ground level veranda running all along its front, set back some 50 yards from the road, and surrounded by a tall, razor-wire topped fence. The entrance was guarded at all times by two machine-wielding guards. This place was managed by soldiers from another Asian country allied with the United States.

It was designated a recuperative holding centre for badly wounded enemy troops or Viet Cong members who had been captured. The treatment program consisted (or so it seemed to me) of leaving the patients in wheelchairs on the veranda all day (and possibly all night), without food, water or attention.  Every time I passed by, I heard the loud moans and screams of people in pain, and saw that no one came to assist them.

One day I ventured to the entry gate, and tried to communicate my concerns to the guards. They similarly pointed their machine guns in my direction, and told me, by angry words and arm movements, that is was none of my business, and to move along … pronto!

I raised this with my platoon sergeant, who agreed with my point of view, but then told me that, in a war zone, we held absolutely no control over what other allied forces were doing, no matter how brutal it might seem. In my nightmares I still hear those screams.

Vung Tau was, until the war, a holiday resort, with a strong French influence, lots of large villas (as well as the shanties crowded into areas outside the main town area), an imposing, colonial style Grand Hotel (I think that Frank Parker held the distinction of either climbing up to or down from the first floor balcony), which became a favourite social centre for American and Australian troops when we had a two day rest and recuperation leave.

There were few, if any, public toilets in Vung Tau, and locals often used the beach for their toileting needs, which made walking a little hazardous at times. People answering the unavoidable calls of nature in public places were wrapped in a cloak of social invisibility, because everyone was going to be caught short sometime.

On Tuesday 14 June we were flown to Nui Dat by US helicopters. We were told that the choppers would only stay on the ground for seven seconds, then start taking off, so there was a desperate scramble to get the heck out when we arrived. Over time, we reached a point where those closest to the doorways (there were neither doors nor seatbelts) jumped abut two or three feet before the chopper landed (making the jump about four or five feet), and the last ones out leaving just as the ascent began.

We tumbled out onto the green grass of Nui Dat (I understand there are several Nui Dats in Vietnam; the person who told me that also said that it means ‘Hill of Ground’). Within a very short time we were organised into our platoon formations, placed by our platoon commanders into our positions, among the rubber trees, and sentries posted, because there was now nothing between us and the unseen enemy but rubber trees.

Our first, most urgent task was to dig our weapon pits, using our little fold-up shovels (tools, entrenching, as they were classified) to gouge out the thick red earth beneath the green grass. We dug on through the late morning and through the afternoon, until the pits were deep enough to stand in up to nearly chest high, and long enough for two soldiers (three if crowded together) to stand in side by side. It then was time to pitch our little one-man hoochies(?), thin, green plastic tents, supposedly waterproof.

About that time, late on our first day among the rubber trees, the monsoon season arrived, not long before dark. Our weapons pits were filled within minutes, and so, at Stand To (from dusk until dark) we stood more than waist deep in water, trying to see out through the steady downpour, looking for the enemy. I did see some strange movement during this period – one enthusiastic digger had blown up his lilo (air mattress) on which to sleep, and it floated gently past me, towards the perimeter.

When darkness arrived, one of our rifle sections ventured out beyond the boundary, the first clearing patrol of our tour of duty. When they returned with a negative report (no enemy sighted), the Stand Down order was given, and then it was time for a little ration pack meal, and bed for those not on the first shift of sentry duty. As platoon signaller, my shift was on the radio for part of the night, in case urgent messages came through from Company Headquarters.  

The monsoon rains came down consistently, persistently, and heavily for several weeks, in which time we couldn’t get dry; our jungle greens were stained by the red mud, so we were washing dirty wet clothes, then putting clean wet clothes on. Rain has never really bothered me since then, and the weather has no bearing on how my days will turn out, except for the occasional outdoor activity that may be dampened by storm and tempest. (I have also been most fortunate in never having been affected by flood damage in any of the houses I have lived in). The big, sturdy, truly waterproof army tents arrived at about the time the monsoons departed, in the true spirit of army timing.

 The next major task was to erect barbed wire fences to guard the perimeter, which took a day or two. During that first week, our platoon went on a couple of patrols just outside the wire, but, on Tuesday 21 June, we set off on our first battalion operation, code-named Operation Enoggera. Our task was to search and destroy the village of Long Phuoc, because it was too close to our headquarters for comfort.

The villagers had been re-located to Hoa Long or Baria, which were not quite so close.(I think that our target village was nearly three kilometres from our Nui Dat home, and the village of Hoa Long was perhaps a further kilometre away, then about five more to Baria, the capital of the province).  

  My psychiatrist has told me several times that I made one huge mistake in Vietnam that stopped me from ever becoming a genuine soldier. He said that I saw the enemy as human beings, not as targets, and that was a massive failing for those who would be soldiers. At Vung Tau I had tried, with absolutely no success, to remonstrate with Korean soldiers about their treatment of wounded enemies.

At Long Phuoc I questioned the need to destroy every building in the village, including a school/Buddhist shrine. My platoon commander told me that the Viet Cong used schools and temples to prepare and distribute propaganda aimed at turning ‘good’ Vietnamese against the Americans, Australians and other allied forces. At Long Phuoc, our battalion discovered tunnels and caches of rice, clear indications that the Viet Cong controlled the village, and were very definitely not on our side.  

Unfortunately, I asked myself how I would feel if I lived in a small town such as Tiaro (near Maryborough, Queensland), and if soldiers from another country came in to help one of the other Australian states that was at war with us. The foreign soldiers came, set up a base at Bauple (a small village near Tiaro), and everyone out of Tiaro, making them live at Gunalda (yes, ANOTHER small town near Tiaro and Bauple). If I owned a farm at Tiaro, I would be suddenly, and violently, deprived of my livelihood AND the environment in which I had lived all of my life. I think it would be safe to assume I would be very, very angry.

So, for me, the destruction of Long Phuoc engendered some feelings of sympathy towards the people of Long Phuoc. As a well-disciplined soldier, I did what I was told which, fortunately, mostly meant to send and receive radio messages to and from company headquarters.

After two weeks destroying Long Phuoc, we returned to our Nui Dat home.

In my first six weeks in Vietnam, I received two letters from Australia. One was a one page, ‘hope you are well’ letter from my mother, and the other was from the Commonwealth Bank, asking me if I had changed my address. I wrote to my mother monthly, and she replied about three times during my tour of duty. I replied to the Commonwealth Bank with my new address, but I also thanked the Bank for its letter, informing them that this was only the second latter I had received from home, and that I appreciated it very much.

In the next month, seven bank employees wrote to me, and a few of them sent me letters throughout my stay in Vietnam. I only met one of my pen friends after I came home. Her family owned a very nice hotel at South Brisbane, and she invited me for dinner. Although that was my last contact with the bank staff, I was, and am, appreciative of their kindness to me while I was away.

So ends the first part of my experiences in South Vietnam. The next chapter will deal with the rest of my sojourn in South East Asia. Just to keep you breathless with anticipation, I can tell you that my role and responsibilities changed significantly in the next phase of my army career. Until then, I hope that you all are well and wonderful, and that your dreams are all achievable.

---

[1] I still have the certificate and the workbook.

Thank You!

thanks to those who have become followers (I will try to post more regularly from now on), and for those who have left positive comments.

Rob, thank you for your comments from someone who shared growing up (albeit separately) in the same era and location, Maryborough, Queensland. My brother Les passed on your email details, and I DID send you an email, so I hope you received it.
Desiree, I appreciate your comments, and even more so because it has given me the opportunity to read your informative, interesting, and entertaining blog, AND to see those incredibly wonderful photos.

Evan, (if you haven't given up on my blog by now), thank you, not only for your comments, but also for your friendship, which began way back in the early 1980s.

Kitty, I am glad you liked the poem. There will be more to come, some silly, some happy, some sad, and I hope, if you visit this blog again, you will find something else to enjoy.

With much warmth to you all, Norm

Chapter 11

Hello World! I apologise for such a prolonged absence, not only from here, but from the blogs I follow, but my health has been a tad less than satisfactory, and my procrastination has been super-effective too! Anyhow, here's Chapter 11.

Chapter 11: Preparing for Battle

Age: 20 – 21

I should have placed the following excerpt at the start of Chapter 10, but, I forgot.

        Soldier, Coming Home (unfinished)

After four quiet years of inching forward

to retirement, and superannuation,

he answered the call of the marble,

became a winning number in the first intake

of the newest National Service.

Eagerly, he laid down pen

and took up arms, because,

for all his life he had obeyed

the dictums of authority.

His stepfather disowned him;

the ardent pacifist would have much preferred

the boy to go to jail, instead of war.

His few acquaintances and fewer friends

Bade him goodbye, good luck, and then

forgot about him as their lives moved on.

On my arrival at Enoggera Army Barracks, I was allocated to D Company for my Corps Training, along with Ken Wallace and Bill Winterford, and the three of us became quite close mates.

We drank together a lot, and often finished leave nights with a hamburger at either the Night Owl or the Windmill Cafes in Petrie Terrace, both of which enjoyed the elite patronage of taxi drivers, slightly to fully inebriated revellers, and those Brisbane citizens who found themselves assailed by hunger late in the evening. Those were two of the very few city food outlets that stayed open past nine p.m. (This was long before the first McDonalds, KFC, Red Rooster or Hungry Jacks opened in Australia).  During day leave, we ate a lot at a fish shop near the Albion hotel which cooked wonderful well-grilled fish, hot, blackened, and yum-yum delicious. For extreme hunger, we chose the California Café, on a corner of Brunswick Street, where the cook’s challenge was the California mixed grill, which I never once managed to finish.

Hotels of choice included the British Empire in Queen Street, and the Victory in Charlotte Street.

I deliberately avoided people from my pre-Army life, because I felt even more insecure and less self-confident because I was a soldier, and saw myself as having fallen a fair bit further down the food chain from my civilian days. Once I went to a party in honour of the marriage of two Arts Theatre members, one of whom was the girl who introduced me to … um … adult themes and practices.

My only other foray into culture in my army life was a show at Her Majestys Theatre, featuring a one-man, one-woman entertainment: Barry Humphries and Edna Everage (before attaining damehood). I attended this with a very intelligent co-conscript, Barry Vasella, who, pre-army, was a professional golfer.  

The hardest (and probably the most stupid) decision I made was to limit my contact with Bunty, Peter and Wendy Hitchener, because I felt somehow I had let then down, and become unworthy of their friendship. This feeling possibly stemmed from the withdrawal of my mother and stepfather from my life – because they did not want to know me after I entered the army, I assumed that this would be the attitude of my closest friends too, although I never discussed it with the Hitcheners.

Peggy and Lesley, my tennis-playing friends, sent me a wonderful letter of total support. I still have that letter, which reads as follows:

Dear Norm,

Sorry this letter did not reach you before you left Brisbane. However, the purpose of the letter is to convey to you our sincerest best wishes for your new life in the Army. Let’s hope that this new life will prove as interesting, exciting and fruitful as your past one has been.

Don’t forget! - there are many compensations for the lack of other pleasures which of course the Army cannot provide for. In such a service not all tastes can be taken into account. No doubt you are looking forward to the absence, for two years, of such trite, supercilious, superficialities as les femmes fatales. Of course your presence will be sadly missed by the clan. We are with you in spirit even though your physical form, complete with your euphonious voice, is one of our treasured memories.

However, as John F. Kennedy once said, the service of one’s country is perhaps the greatest, most supreme contribution one can make to his fellow beings. We are only few of the people who are eternally grateful to you for your sacrifice. Only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum need. You, as many others before you, have not shrunk from this responsibility but have offered your service to help and maintain the gradually declining dominance of western society in the world.

Pardon my philosophising Norm, but it is only an expression of my sentiments. Once again, may you be guided through the next two years safely. Please remember in your hour of greatest need and always, you are continually in our prayers and thoughts. May God and His Mother bless and protect you now and always. Love,

Peggy and Lesley.

I will refer again to Peggy and Lesley in the chapter dealing with my return from Vietnam.

 What did I learn in my Infantry Corps training? I learned to:

·        Swim several laps of the Army pool with full battle gear, stuffed with bricks (a skill which, alas, I never used in actual war).

·        Sharpen my physique by many, many 20 mile route marches (which also, according to the medical officers who adjudged me fit for conscription, helped unflatten my feet.

·        Confirm my lack of expertise with all forms of weaponry through repeated visits to the Greenbank Army firing range, where it was an offence, both civil and military, to remove live or dead ammunition from the range.

·        Code, send, receive and decode messages on a platoon radio, which then became my responsibility for the rest of my training and the first part of my war experience.

I also learned to pack for training exercises in a diversity of locations, for periods from a few days to a few weeks. We toured scenic areas (and some definitely non-scenic areas) of Queensland and Northern New South Wales in blazing heat, freezing cold, sauna-standard humidity and deluge-level rainstorms, always on feet that became sore, blistered, and, finally, battle-hardened.

(I forget if I mentioned the invaluable medical advice freely offered by one of our platoon corporals at Kapooka concerning the care and treatment of feet. “If you want to have healthy, fit, unblistered feet, you gotta piss on ’em every day” he counselled us.)[1]  Some of our adventures in the Australian bush took place in romantic and exotic locations, including Greenbank, Spring Mountain, Kenilworth State Forest, Tin Can Bay, (more than once), Lever’s Plateau, Wiangaree, Canungra Jungle Training Centre (twice), and Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton.  

In 1975 I wrote a little piece of doggerel that fondly recalled our visit to Lever’s Plateau, and, to break the monotony of all the prose, I thought I’d like to share it with you. (It also adds to my word count).In Memory of Lever’s Plateau

Do I know Lever’s Plateau, son? You’re lookin’ at a bloke

Who thought the place was gonna be a harmless sorta joke;

Until we climbed ten thousand feet to get right to the top,

In pouring rain, and slushy mud that made a hundred drop!

We never saw the sun, my lad, we never had it dry,

The trees’d do the raining when none came from the sky.

It was jungle, jungle, through and through, you had to force your way;

Impossible to move at night, and very hard by day.

We was walkin’, we was bitchin’, we was cold, and we was wet,

It was God’s forsaken country, and a land I’ll not forget!

Feet were achin’, hearts were achin’, we was hungry, we was cold;

But we was in the Army, lad, and did what we was told.                                                                      

1975

What happened on all these wonderful excursions and camping holidays? Well, at Greenbank and Tin Can Bay we did a lot of shooting at things (no, NOT at tin cans, no matter HOW fitting that might seem), we walked a LOT everywhere we went, and the weather seemed to vary between dying-of-thirst heat to dying-by-drowning drenchings. Lots of dry heat, lots of humid heat, and, occasionally, freezing-to-death cold.

The countryside varied from bare, dusty, scrubby landscapes to almost impenetrable jungle. I learned to camouflage myself so that no one could ever find me unless they were 200 metres or less near me. Did I mention that we walked a LOT? I think I probably walked enough to circumnavigate Australia three or four times, going ANTI-CLOCKWISE!

At the Jungle Training Camp at Canungra, I learned how to run, jump, climb, and crawl through obstacle courses very slowly, how to climb trees with my eyes half shut and without looking down, to shoot harmlessly at targets that jumped out in front of me on practice seek-and-destroy missions.

I learned to  to launch myself into space (with eyes closed) from a very tall tree, with both hands holding the flying fox bar above my head, and to open my eyes in time to let go and land in Canungra Creek, or river, before I hit the bottom of the flying fox on the other side. I learnt to shout ; “PUSH ME!” to the officer who stood atop the tower at the end of the obstacle course, some 160 metres [2] (or so it seemed at the time), above the river/creek, so that I wouldn’t have to think about such a looooong descent wearing full battle gear.

My 21^st birthday fell on Sunday, 3^rd April, 1966, a day when we returned, mid-afternoon, from Canungra. I celebrated with one or two beers in the almost deserted camp[3], and went to bed fairly early[4].

There weren’t many indelible memories from this part of my life. A few of the events I still recall with clarity are:

·        A likeable, bulky, hard-muscled mate named John had an incredible larrikin wit. He told me once that I could make a fortune as a cherry picker: “You could hang by your nose and pick with both hands!” No one, including me, ever got offended by John’s comments, because what he said was downright witty, and without any malice to anyone.

·        Ken Wallace, Bill Winterford and I went out one night, and I MAY have had a few more drinks than I had intended (more likely, it was a reaction to something I ate), and Sunday morning brought with it a splitting headache. For the first and last time (in Australia) I visited the Regimental Aid Post (RAP), and the corporal on duty provided a couple of strong tablets to ease the pain. This had unexpected consequences some years later.

·        Bill was a friendly man, not too tall, not well-educated, but with a fine sense of humour, and an appetite for fighting when he had a few too many beers. I should mention his sister, Margaret, with whom I had a good friendship, and, under different circumstances, we may well have become more than friends. She gave me a little disk on a neck chain, inscribed with the words “May God Keep You Safe’. I still have that.

·        Bill was sort of engaged to a fiery redhead named Josephine (I think), who lived at Hill End, near the Brisbane River. Bill also had an uncle who lived about 200 yards down the road from Josephine. This very nearly caused little Normie being bashed up.    One night, there was a party at Bill’s uncle’s house, which I attended.  When I arrived, I noticed that Josephine wasn’t there, and Bill told me that he had ordered her to stay at home, because he intended to get thoroughly pissed, and he didn’t want her nagging him all night. Because I’ve never been a big drinker, I thought that I’d wander along to say hello to Josephine, because we got on very well, but just as friends[5]. We chatted for a while over her front fence, then I went back to the party.

A little later, someone told Bill that I had been chatting up Josephine, and he looked at me across the room, and yelled out that I was a dirty rotten friend, (I have toned down the language a lot!) and he was going to kill me. His uncle, who had been drinking steadily all night, joined the barrage, and they set off for me. I ran, across the road, and into the narrow strip of parkland beside the river. Because I was fairly sober, I ran a little faster, but a quick look back showed that about a dozen pursuers were chasing, all with one intention, to batter little Normie senseless.

I put on a major spurt (thank you, thank you, army, for all that fitness training) and, when I was briefly hidden by trees, I climbed a very BIG, very LEAFY tree, as high as I could go, without any thought to my terror of heights.  The noisy pack of chasers came by, yelling, without stopping to look up. I stayed there for over an hour, until every one of them had returned to the party, thirsty again.

The next day in our barrack room, I tried to explain that I had only chatted with Jo, and would NEVER try to cheat on him with her. He looked at me with cold eyes and said “You better watch your back in Vietnam”.                            

·        Six weeks or so before we embarked for Vietnam, half of D Company, including myself, were transferred to C Company, which until that time had been manned by regular soldiers. Half of C Company were transferred into D Company (which had contained National Servicemen only).

·        My brother Bert gave me a going away party a couple of weeks before we left Australia (the embarkation date was a deep dark secret – we didn’t want to let the ENEMY know when or how we would travel. This began with a night at the Capalaba Pub, where Billy Weston was the entertainment (Billy was married to Jenny – nee Howard, who worked with Carmel, Bert’s wife, in Finneys Hat Department before they married).

Then we all went back to Bert and Carmel’s home and partied, and I had to cut a cake. Most of the people were friends of Bert and Carmel (although I knew them, too), but Bunty Hitchener attended (Peter was working, and Wendy was away at school).

·        A night or two before we embarked, my Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Michael Gillespie, wandered through the barracks, and found only me at home. He knew me fairly well, because I was his platoon signalman. Mick was a National Serviceman, but HE had passed the test that I failed, and been selected for Officer Training School at Scheyville.

He invited me to join him for a night on the town, and we finished up at D’Brazil Nightclub, downstairs in Albert Street, right near where Hungry Jacks now stands, on the Queen Street corner. It was the first (and last) time I ever ventured down those stairs – D’Brazil had a reputation as being a seedy sort of place, possibly because it was the only night club, in my recollection, in the city proper (Fortitude Valley, even in those days, seemed to have many exciting night spots that I never visited[6]).

I was a child of the 60s who never really LIVED like a child of the 60s. Anyhow, Mick and I got pleasantly tipsy together, and a day or two later, we boarded a bus that took us to our military aircraft to journey into the unknown.

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[1] In the interests of maintaining military security, and to keep some pathetic pretence of mystery about myself, I will allow my readers to guess whether or not I followed that sage advice.

[2] Actually, way back then, pre-decimalisation, I think it was about 100 yards above the river/creek.

[3] When we returned from a one or two week tour of training areas we were given a few days leave.

[4] Birthdays (that is, MY birthdays) have never really held great significance for me, because it has always been about HOW I FEEL, rather than how OLD I am. For example, I turned 66 last Sunday (today is April 9^th), and I feel about 28. On Thursday night I think I was 117.

[5] Most of my friends in life have been women, and this has led to several misunderstandings with their partners/husbands/boyfriends across the years. I have never understood why so many people don’t believe that can be genuine friendships between men and women, without ulterior motives. I think these attitudes are changing, at least, but some people still don’t get it..

[6] At this age and stage of my life, I STILL had never had a ‘proper’ girlfriend, (not that I knew what ‘proper’ meant), and all of my boy/girl relationships were mainly platonic or, with Anne, definitely chaste. I was an absolute innocent when it came to ‘IN’ places to go, and I had never tried illicit drugs, or even licit ones, if any such existed. Even now, at age 66, I wouldn’t know how or where to go to buy drugs. NOTE: Please don’t advise me on this, I think at my age it’s a tad too late to start experimenting with mind alteration.