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 ya 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 its 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 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 is make yourself comfortable and hit the
target - its a piece of piss!! 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,

Sheila