We were at SWBTA (Shoalwater Bay Training Area) with the Yanks once and were in a big harbour. It was light scrub and the big ring of Yank soldiers were only a few metres apart. A small wallaby got caught in […]

It was 1990 and the night before Military Skills at 5/7 – no lock down, no nothing, so me and my mate, Sheeds, trotted off into Sydney and hooked up with some Navy lasses from HMAS Watson. We had a great n […]

The Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) went to the doctor for a physical. Before he began, the doctor asked him the standard questions – age, height, weight, before asking the last time he’d had sex.
“ […]

It was about halfway through our time in Rwanda (three months). We had a parade for the presenting of our UN medal. So we did the parade and some piss was put on when the parade had finished. Of course a few of […]

Little Bobby and his sixth-grade class were given the assignment of writing a fairytale with a moral ending.
The next day, the teacher first called on Susie, who wrote about not counting your chickens before […]

Okay, confession time! Back when I was on the 5/7 RAR recon course we travelled to an Army camp called Gan Gan near Nelson Bay, NSW. It was a great place to teach us soldiers recon skills and I loved every day […]

There were lots of things to hate in the Army – like off-pay weeks and obstacle courses.
Well, I couldn’t do anything about the pay situation but I made a decision not to let obstacle courses ruin my day. So […]

Two bike-riding mates of mine were on the piss one arvo and discussing the brig and some new regs he’d put in place. No one liked them; can’t even remember what they were now.
Anyway, a few beers later Mar […]

Whilst on the subject of “high jinks”, a story has been circulating for over 40 years and has now taken on “urban legend” proportions. The story starts at a swimming carnival held in the Harold Holt Memoria […]

In the mid ’70s, the Green Machine was in mark-time mode. Vietnam was a memory and the troops were getting pissed off with mess duties and silly exercises out the back of E Range at Holsworthy. So our i […]

B Coy 2/4 RAR PNG in West New Britain were left at a grass airfield dropped off by C130. I was there for six weeks and had this local come and see me every night with chicken and French whisky. Week Three he […]

Charlie, Dogs, Vic, me and a heap of other blokes were on the grog in this bar in Vungers. We’d been drinking all day. Mama-San, the bar girls and even some Vietnamese blokes were all pissed as newts. Music w […]

Pte Clayton “Dawko” Dawkins and I were three or four months into our six months’ tour of East Timor with 4 RAR in 2001. We happened to score a great time slot for our nightly piquet – maybe 10-midnight – so w […]

While we were down at 1 ALSG, sitting around the Harold Holt swimming pool, we were approached by a couple of “Ginger-Beers” and invited to field a team from Delta Company to play an engineer unit in a fri […]

Peter Foley was called up to serve in the Army in October 1969 as a National Serviceman – the same intake as myself. Peter then signed on in the Army in Vietnam to see out the Delta Company 4 RAR/NZ tour. P […]

A few days after Anzac Day my section was called in after the first night of shootings. We got orders after 1300 hrs and didn’t turn up till night after going through five different maps and nearly going over t […]

Back in 1999 when 2nd Battalion moved from Dili to the Fort at Balibo East Timor, HQ had a special little room on the left-hand side of the main entrance to the fort. All the tech heads, sigs, ops and their crew […]

After the battalion finished operations in Phuoc Tuy Province, the main body returned to Australia while Delta Company remained. We moved to Vung Tau after a short stay on SAS Hill. While there, we had plenty […]

It was the rainy season, just outside of the Courtney Rubber in mid 1971. It was near on last light as we moved into our harbour position for the night. We weren’t far from Courtney Hill and I could actually s […]

We were preparing to head out bush and I was driver of 50A. All the trucks were being loaded and I sat in the compound waiting to be told to load up. A few hours passed and there was no sign of my crew […]