Having recently been commissioned as a junior officer in 6 RAR, I was required, along with all other new lieutenants, to complete the regimental officer’s basic course at the School of Infantry just outside S […]

C Coy 6 RAR were on a CABW at Shoalwater Bay. We had managed to do about three million dollars of damage to our Bushmasters, and were on the last part of the ex, which was a stomp to take over the airfield. […]

It was quite a culture shock coming up the Pacific Highway in the Greyhound bus, seeing all the houses on stilts. It was very different to the double-brick lowset dwelling I had come from in Adelaide.
I […]

Lang Park 1981 Rugby League State of Origin
A bloke called Reno A Coy 8/9 RAR, (can’t remember his real name)
was standing on the terraces drinking his beer, when he had an urge to clear his throat. After a […]

In the early ’90s, I was with A Coy 8/9 RAR on a trip to RCB. We were in Borneo doing some jungle training. We had a night platoon ambush one night and were off doing the recon for it.
As usual, we pulled u […]

A platoon commander (fresh from Korea via Portsea) on Day One of Week One, braced me for not shaving that morning. “You’re not in the Mexican Militia. You’ll shave every day,” he screamed. I loved it and used i […]

In ’87 we had a very effeminate guy backsquadded to us. The NCOs disliked him immediately. One day he slipped in the SAL and broke a collarbone. Every platoon member was interviewed to determine who “took” him o […]

One day we were sitting outside C Coy HQ when Lt Ryan suggested we play a game of touch footy. Somehow touch became tackle; I remember a sergeant whose name eludes me made a break down the sideline. Mick Meehan […]

I burnt my arm with my iron while I was carrying it back from the SAL block. A guy was skipping with his toggle rope in the doorway and the rope caught the iron and pulled it onto my arm. He laughed, as I had […]

I was up the RSL one Friday and a bloke there had this big gold chain hanging out of his shirt, which reminded me of a Kapooka moment. I told the story and this big tattooed bloke was horrified and said it was […]

Back in the bad old days of the 1980s it used to be a 13-week course. You used to do 3 x 4 weeks of training and a week of drill for graduation.
To determine where a recruit sat in the food chain, they used […]

This story is as true as I stand here… I could not make this shit up.
We were playing OPFOR for an MRE and during one of those 99.9%
times of boredom we were sitting around talking about why we enlisted […]

In the very early days of our deployment to Somalia, our company (B Coy 1 RAR) was tasked with airfield security (we were set up in the old Biadoa Airbase). This involved us manning the main entrance and a […]

When 8/9 RAR was being re-raised, and 6 RAR had blokes on deployment all over the place, it was a pretty fluid time. Charlie Coy 6 RAR was being disbanded. I was in Delta Coy for two months before I was put on […]

I was Pl Sgt 8 Platoon; our boss was Lt Ben Taylor. It was halfway through an exercise and the boss was being replaced by a new Lt as he was going off on a course. The new boss was Lt Waite, straight from the […]

When posted from 8/9 RAR to SASR I rode from Brisbane to Perth – a four-day ride. I ate nothing but junk food until Southern Cross. I stopped and ate my only real meal, a real nice steak dinner with salad and c […]

There was an idiot called Riviot at the 5/7 Garry Holmes Club in Darwin. Riviot had a tat on his stomach that said “Predator”.
Don asked, “What are ya? Some kind of rock spider?” Riviot ran back to the lin […]

At the end of 1978 the whole battalion was doing their specialised courses as normal. Having just marched in, I missed out on all the courses so the battalion had organised a five-day adventure training for […]

One day a brand new soldier appeared in our company. He was a corporal and was attached to our Q-Store. He was immaculately dressed and his boots and greens had obviously never seen the bush. He was a mystery […]

In 1978 I was with A Coy 8/9 RAR on exercise out the back of Cooktown as an enemy force against SASR. I was with 1 Plt. The company had an attachment of 2/4 RAR Recon and surveillance. Well, while there one of […]