There’s just something about the Infantry. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The men of the Infantry live as they always have. Endless road marches, mud, rain, snow, sleet, sand, crappy f […]

My best friend from my VVAA days in Sydney sent me a Vietnam Veteran cap. I’d never had one of this style before, and I was pretty hyped about it, especially because my friend, Mick Scrase was considerate e […]

Two men, both national servicemen but from different eras, were boasting to each other about their old Army days.
“Why, back in the ’50s my outfit was so well drilled,” declared one, “that when we present […]

This is the true account about a very eventful night that I and a good mate of mine experienced whilst on the first rotation to Rwanda as part of Operation Tamar in late 1994.
The night was dedicated as a 3 […]

When I was with 21 Construction Squadron, the unit moved to Brissy. A few of us sappers were sitting in the brew room when in walked the Divisional Commander and all his hangers-on to say “Hi” etc.
A […]

I was thinking about one of my mates from 3 RAR the other day and I remembered this story. We were in 9 Sect 6 Pl B Coy and it was sometime in probably ’86. Anyway, we were on guard duty (a weekday I think) a […]

This is a true story. The previous day, Saturday, the boys headed into Liverpool. I was still cleaning my gear so they told me to meet them at the RSL and one of the Sydney boys proceeded to give me directions […]

Willy the pig was the 7 RAR part of the 5/7 RAR mascot team of Quintus Secundus (Tiger) from 5 RAR and Willy the pig from 7 RAR. D Coy brought him (as a piglet) back on a Herc from Tully in 1987. He was the son […]

We did a battalion ex (5/7) at Woomera. I was in TPT Pl and on this particular ex I was driving the Mack gun tractor. Well, it was towards the end of the ex and me having the gun tractor, one of my jobs was to […]

We had this fuckwit Pay Sgt at 3 RAR harping on about how he should have been awarded the ICB after Interfet. So we made a lovely phone call from the mortar store advising the orderly room corporal that this was […]

It was 1988. I was recon platoon commander of 6th Battalion. I was also a smoker. So was a peer of mine, Mick Mahey (he might be a brigadier by now if he’s still in.)
Anyway, we were like the Vietnam D […]

I was on piquet and as it was a pretty clear, moonlit night. I didn’t bother making much of an attempt to remember where the pit was of the person I was due to wake up next. This was when I was a digger by the […]

One day, I was doing my S2 security checks. Some windows had been fixed and I had to make them secure. So I wandered into B Coy and checked the windows, then walked out past the Pay Sgt’s office.
“Hey, you […]

1 RAR has a few distinctions. Apart from being the first battalion to go to Vietnam, we were the only battalion to be attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade and actually formed an ANZUS unit – Australia, New Z […]

We were on a mounted patrol up behind Balbo but not in Adaby Forest. It was about 12:00 I think and the patrol came to a stop. I asked Cheesy (Driver) what was going on. A gun car had just gone off the side of […]

It was at Kapooka in ’88. The sergeant was from 8/9 RAR – Sgt Naegle. I also remember polishing the floor with the Canterbury cunt scratcher in front of the staff rooms. I placed the bin in the middle of the fo […]

The 2/4 RAR boozer committee was ‘handed over’ to C Coy during the Christmas period as we had the dubious honour of working through as the online company. As the social member for the company, I had to come up […]

One night in Timor, we had been at a particularly nasty riot at the roundabout near the airport. A couple of times the section was in danger of being overrun (there being 300 of them and 8 of us –14 cans of t […]

Shoalwater Bay Training Area (WBTA), Heavy Weapons Platoon (Hvy Wpn Pl) is the amalgamation of Anti-Armour and Sustained Fire Machine Gun Platoons. For you old farts it is now known as Direct Fire Support […]

It’s funny how life’s lessons are often duplicated in the RAR. I remember the early 1980s in A Coy 8/9 RAR. We were out bush, very undermanned; our section was only six which soon became five. We had been dig […]