This Text is from an actual letter from a kid
from Eromanga to Mum and Dad after joining the army.

(For those of you not in the know, Eromanga is
a small town west of Quilpie approx 10 hours west of
Brisbane in the far south west of Queensland,
Australia)

If you can 'hear' this with an Aussie accent it
will definitely enhance the flavour ;-)

************************************
Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too.

Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the
Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to
get in quick smart before the jobs are all gone!

I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first,
because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6am. But I
like sleeping in now, cuz all you gotta do before
brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya
uniform. No cows to milk, no calves to feed, no
feed to stack nothin'! Blokes haz gotta shave though,
but it's not so bad, coz there's lotsa hot water and
even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but
there's no kangaroo steaks or possum stew like wot Mum
makes. You don't get fed again until noon, and by that
time all the city boys are buggered because we've been
on a 'route march' - geez its only just like walking to
the windmill in the back paddock!!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil
with laughter.

I keep getting medals for shootin' - dunno why.
The bullseye is as big as a bloody possum's bum and it
don't move and its not firing back at ya like the
Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their
prize cows before the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do i
s make yourself comfortable and hit the target - its a
piece of pi55!! You don't even load your own
cartridges - they comes in little boxes and ya don't
have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo
shooting truck when you reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys
and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy - it's
not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori
and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home
after the muster.

Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it
looks like I'm the best the platoon's got, and I've
only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers -
he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pickhandles across
the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and
eight stone wringin' wet, but I fought him till the
other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys
to get in quick before word gets around how good
it is.

Your loving daughter,

Jill