Who remembers looking for someone after the piquet in darkness? I think the convo went like this:- “Who’s that?” “It’s me.” “Who’s me?” “Me. Who’s that?” “It’s me.” “Who’s me?” “Me.” “Ok. Where’s Steve?” “Over there.” “Where? Where over there?” “Near the big tree.” “Ok. Ta, mate.” Quote! If you find yourself in front of […]

Circa 1993 at the High Range training area in Townsville I was a digger in 5 Platoon and was part of a great bunch of blokes with whom I’d end up deploying on operations to Rwanda in 1995. We were training in the high-range training area to the north-west of Townsville and had been there […]

Gabby Hayes CPL J F ‘Gabby’ Hayes was a section commander in A Company, 7 RAR. He was killed in action in South Vietnam on 6th Aug ’67. He left a sum of money in his will to be used to drink a toast each year on 7 RAR’s birthday. To provide a lasting memorial […]

The Porcelain Dream refers to the desire of using a real toilet after months of squatting on your haunches out on operations or the wooden bench seating over a large hole dug into the ground, back at base, without millions of insects crawling over your buttocks. Quote! Five-second fuses always burn in three seconds.

When we arrived in Vietnam in 1971, we were issued with some rolls of John Wayne toilet paper. It was called John Wayne toilet paper because it was Rough, Tough and took Shit off no one.

Dunny humour seems to be an Aussie pastime and not to be outdone, many stories have circulated to this day on incidents concerning them during soldiers’ military careers. Here’s an assortment that’s been doing the traps for over 40 years. Before I pass on the stories, I’d better describe the construction of our latrines (toilet) […]