Now that we have the house to ourselves again it seems like an appropriate time to do some overdue spring cleaning. This is partly because it IS dreadfully overdue and partly because we are considering down-sizing in the near future and the accumulation of 12 years’ worth of stuff just must be culled. Any of my readers who have lived in the one house for an extended period of time will know what I mean. Add to this that, for 6 of those 12 years my mother-in-law and father-in-law lived with us and we still have a huge accumulation of their stuff which has not been disposed of (I’m sure you understand why) and the scale of the problem starts to become clear. A 4 bedroom, two bathroom, two living area house has more than enough room to accumulate stuff and a similarly big area which requires cleaning.
Anyway, in the process of doing my study, which, for the last 12 months has been the bedroom for grandsons #2 & #3, I found lots of stuff. Most of it, I am pleased to say, I have been able to send somewhere where it needs to go. As expected, in the process, I also found some “treasures” that have been buried for an extended period of time and which I have been delighted to find. Top of the list has been my mementos and souvenirs from my time in the armed services and it is that topic to which my headline and this article relates.
In 1969, only a couple of weeks after I had enrolled in Wollongong Teachers College to train as a Primary School Teacher, I received a very official letter in the mail to inform me that, as a result of the latest National Service ballot, I had been selected to spend two years in the Australian Army.
This did not come as any surprise to me though it was, of course, a shock. I had just turned 20 and it was at this age that you became eligible to be ballotted into the Army and my number had obviously come up. Australia had, at that time, already been involved in the Vietnam conflict for about 5 years and it was known amongst the guys my age that a proportion of us were likely to end up there. I had no philosophical objection to that and would have been happy to serve overseas if I had been asked to do but being called up when I had just started my tertiary education was a distinct nuisance and an inconvenience.
Upon making inquiries, I found that, as I was a full-time student, I could have my induction into the Army deferred until I had finished my studies. Well, that gave me two years’ grace at least, or so I thought. It turned out that it came with some conditions (I was so naive back then). Deferment would be granted but it was on a year-by-year basis and would be contingent upon me providing proof that I not only was studying but was excelling at doing so. Results of exams, assessments and study tasks completed were to be supplied on a regular basis and, should the Department of the Army feel that they were unsatisfactory, my deferment would be cancelled and I would be required to immediately present myself for induction into the service.
As a consequence, I worked my backside off in First Year, had my deferment continued for Second Year and then, while that year was in progress, it was announced that the requirement for a diploma in teaching was going to be upgraded and that a third year of study would, in future, be required. Since they couldn’t start the process immediately, it was announced that, at our college, the top 30 students in our current year would be taken on and start the new three year course. The remaining 100 or so students would be posted to schools at the end of the year as per usual and would be required to upgrade their qualifications by correspondence in the next two years.
As my results were still very impressive I was in the top 30 and started my Third Year in 1971 and delayed the spectre of the Army and all that it entailed for another year.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam War raged on, fought in the jungles AND on the streets of our major towns and cities as an increasingly vitriolic campaign against Australia’s involvement in the war, fuelled by the Labor Party, the Socialists cells in universities across the nation and the increasingly left-wing controlled mass media increased the pressure on the government of the day to bring our troops home and cease our involvement in Vietnam.
And it was against this tense and divisive background that I boarded a train at Wollongong Station on the 9th February 1972, bound for Watsons Bay in Sydney and my appointment with my new employer, the Royal Australian Army. Sitting opposite me was a similarly nervous-looking young man with a too-short haircut just like mine. “You going to Watsons Bay?” He was, and it was then that I met David Thompson, a fellow student with whom I had unwittingly shared a campus for the last three years and with whom I would soon share a room at 1RTB at Kapooka and a friendship that is stronger today than it was when it started that fateful morning.
Time does not allow any sort of description of the horrors of being inducted into the Army. the barbaric barber who we christened, “The Butcher of Watsons Bay” or the weird sensation of our first Leave Pass that night, roaming the streets of Sydney with no idea at all what this all meant, only knowing that we were required to be back at Watsons Bay by 2300 hours (“That’s 11:00 pm for youse blokes who don’t know how to tell time properly.”) or else we would be put on a charge (visions of being hooked up to jumper leads and plugged into the wall briefly crossed my mind). A long and tedious bus trip on a Fearnes coach from Sydney to Wagga followed (lunch at the Paragon Cafe at Yass, then back into the bus) and the thoroughly bewildering process of losing one’s civilianhood (and, along with it one’s identity and independence) and becoming a recruit (“Don’t think you are soldiers whatever you do, you’ve got a long way to go before you can do that.”)
What followed was 10 weeks of hell. You know all the movies you have seen about how army recruits are treated? They are all true. A recruit is the lowest form of bottom-feeding scum in the universe (at least that’s what the corporals and sergeants who were our instructors constantly told us). We were harangued, sworn at, yelled at and called every obscene and unprintable name that has ever been invented. Despite our best efforts to carry out instructions as (I nearly said “requested” but there were never any requests, just shouted orders) best we could, it was never good enough and repetitions of even the simplest tasks went on all day and well into the night when the end of the day’s duties mercifully arrived. Not that it was the end of our work day, let me hasten to add. No, there was still endless cleaning of rifles, polishing of boots and brass accouterments and meaningless tasks all of which, we were assured, were specifically designed to turn us into soldiers.
What it turned us into was morose, belligerent, rebellious and angry young men whose resentment for the way that we were being treated grew with every day and with the imposition of every increasingly ridiculous and pointless requirement. It became clear almost at once that the goal of the process was to take away our initiative and independence and turn us into automatons who would, instantly and without a thought about the consequence, obey even the most ridiculous order barked at us by any person who outranked us (that was easy – EVERYBODY outranked us) no matter how big a buffoon they appeared to be.
EVERYTHING rankled, the endless repetitions of drills that had no relevance to combat, the trivial tasks which were imbued with almost religious importance by our superiors and the insistence that the Army was always right and that, even when it wasn’t right, refer to Rule #1.
Despite all this, however, the changes that recruit training was designed to bring about, began happening. A team spirit grew up amongst a group of 30 young men, National Servicemen and regular recruits, from a myriad of backgrounds and equally disparate outlooks on life. Weak and flabby bodies hardened up under the constant barrage of PE, exercise, route marches and constant practising of drills. Pale skins (mine was the worst) first burnt red raw (no sympathy or relief was offered) and then turned to a deep tan under the ferocious Wagga summer sun. And the mind-numbing brutality of it all slowly became easier to bear the closer to the end of the magic 10 weeks we drew.
At the conclusion of the 10 weeks, we had our march-out parade, in the baking sun on Parade Ground #1, and then, next morning, we packed and were shunted off to the various next levels of training to which we were assigned. All but one member of my platoon boarded buses, most to Infantry Training Battalion in Ingleburn, outside of Sydney as nearly all our platoon were destined to be foot soldiers (“grunts”). Some were lucky and were posted to other training battalions, artillery, armoured, catering even, and two of us, Thommo and I (two out of the 6 school teachers in the platoon – the other 4 became grunts) went to Army Education Corps. Thommo ended up at 1PIR at Port Morseby and was then seconded to the Navy and spent his national service obligation swanning around in the tropics on Manus Island.
Did I mention that all but one of my compatriots escaped the hell of Kapooka? I did, didn’t I? Guess who the unlucky stiff was who didn’t. Yep, me! I found that I had been posted to 1RTB as an instructor – oh, the irony! But, like everything else about the army, there was an inscrutability that made even the most bizarre outcomes seem logical. Since an Army Education position involved being an instructor to other serving soldiers, some degree of superiority was required. After 10 weeks of being systematically ground down by the barbarity of the various corporals and sergeants at 1RTB, I had not a vestige of superiority left. It had long since been replaced by a conviction of total INFERIORITY.
Nevertheless, the Army, in its wisdom, decreed that minimum rank in the Royal Australian Army Education Corps would be Sergeant. So, on Monday I had marched out as a Recruit. On Tuesday I was a Private and, on Wednesday I was marched into the office of the CO, welcomed to the staff of 1RTB and made up to the rank of Temporary Sergeant! The immediate implication of this was not lost on me. Suddenly I outranked every corporal who had made my life a living hell for the last 10 weeks. Even though my rank was only temporary, they would be required to address me as “Sergeant” and to carry out any orders that I might see fit to give them. But it got better. I got to live in the Sergeant’s Mess, enjoy a better quality of food, accommodation and service than what they “enjoyed” in the OR’s (Other Ranks) mess. As I later learned, it would also be my job when rostered on as Duty Sergeant, to close the OR’s Mess and its bar at 2300 and send them all off to their rooms!
My day-to-day job was to lecture incoming batches of new recruits in the History of the Australian Army and other introductory subjects that it was deemed new recruits needed to know. It was easy work, though dull but the novelty of being looked-up-to by the rookies plus the constant reminder that I had “jumped the queue” on most of the staff there never lost its attraction. What did quickly lose its appeal was actually living on the base, near Wagga, a town notoriously hostile towards the army and anybody that had anything to do with 1RTB and, most of all, living hundreds of kilometres from my home in Wollongong where resided my family and one particularly scrumptious young lady for whom I had already devised some long-term plans.
Consequently, when I approached my boss, Captain Turner, about the chance of a posting closer to Sydney, I was amazed and delighted that he quickly organised a posting for me at Eastern Command Education Section at Holsworthy, about 50kms from home. And, when I got there, I was even more surprised to find that, since it was the main education section for the whole of the East Coast, the minimum rank of the staff there was Warrant Officer Class 2. So, I spent the rest of my two years as a Substantive Private, Temporary Sergeant and drawing Higher Duties Allowance for a WO2! Local boy makes good.
However, these droll stories of my infancy do have a point and the point is what I noticed while in the army that is still current today. Without exception, my instructors at Recruit Training and my fellow staff members at Kapooka were soldiers who had done at least one and sometimes more than one tour of duty in Vietnam. And, almost without exception these men were emotional and psychological cripples. They were functioning as instructors (note the use of the word “functioning” rather than “working”) because, within the army, let alone in the wider civilian workforce, they were functionally unemployable. Without exception they refused to speak of their experiences “over there” and even the mention of Vietnam caused noticeable reactions amongst them. Their day consisted of waking the recruits under their care every morning at 0600, hustling them through the myriad of mind-numbing activities during the day then escaping to the bar at the OR’s mess where they would remain, consuming frightening quantities of alcohol until the Duty Officer and the Duty Sergeant closed the bar from where they would stagger off to their lines and restart, Groundhog’s Day-like, the same day again the next morning at 0600.
These men had seen and participated in the most barbaric of human activity and somehow survived. They existed physically but were mentally scarred for life. Is it any wonder that the rate of suicides amongst our ranks of returned Vietnam veterans is what it is? And not only did they endure the worst of what war had to offer but they returned home, reviled by a Labor government and its fanatical followers, ignored by a hoodwinked Australian public and denied even the most basic of gratitude that they so richly deserved for their selfless and patriotic service. Australia should be forever ashamed for the way that it treated our brave boys who served in Vietnam.
And has the lesson been learned? Sadly, it hasn’t. Our soldiers returning from WWI and WWII were treated like heroes and justly so. Service people who have returned from Vietnam and other “unpopular” conflicts since have been treated like lepers, made pariahs in the country that they proudly served and endure horrific rates of depression, mental illness, homelessness and suicide that is totally out of proportion with the rest of the population. The way they we have treated our veterans is a national disgrace.
In the USA when I visited last year, I saw the exact opposite. Service people are offered seats on buses and trains. The guides on our tour of the US Midway in San Diego Harbour paused before the tour began to thank veterans amongst the tour participants for their service. At LAX there is the “Bob Hope USO Room” where ex-service and currently serving personnel can go for free and have free use of all of the facilities. “Thank you for your service” is an oft-heard catch-cry. I know that there are veterans slipping through the cracks there too, but the prevailing attitude of gratitude for service rendered is in stark contrast to the disdain with which our returned veterans are treated.
I try not to be be political in this blog but there are some issues that transcend politics and this is one. My number came up and I served. I did not have to carry a gun, but I can carry a torch for those of my fellows who were betrayed by their country and who continue to be treated in this way. It simply isn’t good enough and no amount of apology, no matter how sincerely offered can ever be enough after what our veterans have endured and continue to endure.
Their numbers came up. They served so that we didn’t have to. Isn’t it time we said thank you?
ozemarketeer says
Well Phil Hall. You certainly have an extraordinary talent for drawing out one’s emotions.
Your rendition of 1RTB Kapooka was not lost on this old Veteran’s memory. But recruit to WOII in less than a heartbeat? Sheesh!
I had to work my butt off, study copious amounts of legalese written by military family members of Duntroon fame; tolerate the misguided meanderings of 90 day wonders out of Portsea OCS (Officer Cadet School); complete two consecutive tours of SVN (South Viet-Nam) to hold the position of temp (temporary!) Sgt in Vungers (Vung Tau).
RTA’d (Returned To Australia) on a midnight flight so as not to distress the Moratorium natives.
Posted to the Old Mens’ Home (Keswick Barracks Adelaide) then busted back to Craftsman, (having transferred from a grunt in 1 RAR & 5 RAR, to RAEME (Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) as a Battalion Armourer with the Grey Eight in Ennogera before embarking for SVN on the Vung Tau Ferry (HMAS SYDNEY- a fast troop ship converted aircraft carrier) because I was diagnosed with Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
i am still waiting to be debriefed after all this time. We (Veterans) spent 22 years in the wilderness, before society, DVA, Federal government agencies and their ilk, began to formally recognise our Service and our mental health issues.
It took a lot of therapeutic sessions to prevent me from killing myself (had a couple of failed attempts!) or anyone else when I had flashbacks and/or some clown opened their mouth pretending they had served or knew what we were going through as failed civvies with military mindsets.
I much admire your usage of the English language. I was saddened that we almost lost you had the powers that be sent you into a combat role.
To this day Phil, if and when I find myself in a situation requiring authority; delegation of tasks, moreso with accidents, mishaps, fire fighting and the like, the adrenaline and fire in the belly is still there.
Yes, I am slower physically, and more cautious when physical tasks are called for, but it is a comforting thought that some of the brainwashing and bastardisation experienced in my formative years in ’63 has stuck to serve me and my community involvement.
I am glad your number came up. I think we now have an opportunity to enjoy a different Phil Hall to that had you not done your time. Even swanning about the Snake Pit with that forearm Crown proudly displayed. Revenge is sweet!
Phil Hall says
Wow, what a story, thank you SO much for sharing it with us. Looking back now I can see how every lesson of life is valuable for any number of reasons but it is sometimes hard to see exactly what they are at the time.