Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

I was a National Serviceman. My birthday was 19/06/1950.I was called up and reported to Keswick barracks in Adelaide on 9/07/1970 flown to Melbourne, bussed to Pukapunyal for my basic training. As I played division 1 rugby union in the winter and surfed all summer I was very physically fit. But I was quite big about 100kg, by the end of recruit training I was down to about 95kg.
During recruit training we were asked if we were willing to go to Vietnam with 4RAR, they were going in May 1971, rather than sit around playing at being a soldier I said yes.
I went home for about a week then drove 3000k to Laverak Barracks in Townsville.Training became more strenuous and we spent a lot of time in the jungle at Mt Speck and the Canungra JTC. I had been allocated to the Section machine gun group, 6 section 5 platoon B Company. I learnt to use an SLR Semi automatic rifle, a GPMG M60 7.62 belt fed machine gun, but most of all I was taught how to live, fight and survive in dense jungle.By now I weighed about 85 kg. I was now used to counting all my steps,for navigation, carrying200 round of ammunition for the gun, 6 liters of water, food for about 7 to 10 days. I was as ready as the Battalion could get me.
We were let loose in Townsville one last time, with a strict curfew of 0300.
We almost all were on time! That morning we marched through Townsville and boarded HMAS Sydney and set off for Vung Tau harbour. So in just on 11 months I had been transformed from a Civilian to an Infantry Private.
When I arrived home in Adelaide 7 months later I weighed 72 kg.