From Seven Hills to the Seven Seas: A Memoir of a Boy Adrift

By Mark A. Bruhwiller

This memoir/autobiography celebrates 50 years of Junior Recruit service to our navy. Established in 1960 and decommissioned in 1984 the story follows the life of a 15 year old inducted into the service for twelve years in 1968 and sent to Vietnam on the Vung Tau Ferry (H.M.A.S. Sydney) the following year. His somewhat capricious journey begins from his hometown of Seven Hills, to the Seven Seas, with a hint of mysticism along the way.

The Commemorative year of 2010 recognised the contributions made by young teens, many still children, to their country. My story is partly dedicated to those who didn't survive physically and/or mentally serving at a time when bullying and bastardising was the model in the defence forces, along with an element of stoic indifference on behalf of the young recruits custodians, although not always. Furthermore, the world was on its own path to perdition at this critical time in our history.

*Mark has won a literary award in 2009 for his short story under the title A New Life at the beginning of this book. Also, he has 2 previous non-fiction books published in Australia by Zeus Publications in 2006 and 2009.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452502397

Mark A. Bruhwiller

Mark lives on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia, with his partner Lisa. Having served in the Royal Australian Navy and as a holder of the Returned From Active Service badge, along with service in the public sector, rehabilitation and services, mature age student, restaurant owner, single father and salesman, Mark considered his background such that he could sit down and write a story, which he did with his first non-fiction tome, Inside Out: The Black Heart Of The Motor Trade, followed by Surviving Chronic Cretinism, published by Zeus Publications in 2006 and 2009. This is his third foray into the world of non-fiction with his, what could be described, as a prequel to an anthology, although it does stand on its own.

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Copyright © 2011 Mark A. Bruhwiller.

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Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Mark Bruhwiller

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-0238-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-0239-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/29/2011

Contents

PROLOGUE

DEDICATION

A NEW LIFE

1st Chapter

WINTER 1968

2nd Chapter

THE VUNG TAU FERRY

3rd Chapter

BECOMING AN ABLE SEAMAN

4th Chapter

A WEDDING

5th Chapter

PATROL BOATS

6th Chapter

CHRISTMAS 1974

A SAILOR’S EPILOGUE

ANNOTATE

GLOSSARY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A QUESTIONNAIRE

A matter of life,

and death.

PROLOGUE

The trouble with writing one’s life story is the fact that one has to withstand ridicule, finger pointing, anger from those he is writing about, and litigation of course. So to put an end to these threats and worrisome particulars I will change the names to protect the guilty and the innocent alike.

I recently read Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage) autobiography/memoirs in which he so eloquently describes himself as having been convalescing from the long illness of youth for most of his life. Dare I also describe myself in this manner? After all, he has two decades on me; however, I can’t see myself still upright and mobile at his age, so thought I should get to it now.

Oh yes, I have a story to tell, as many outside my little world do, still I wonder if they would be interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. And there appears to be many biographies and autobiographies on the shelves that continually smack of a bloody good read. Mine won’t be I’m sure, unless you like to retreat to the youth of the sixties, free love, drugs, Vietnam, conscription and recruitment drives to induct children into the armed forces for twelve years; death, sex without the consequences existing today, mateship, corrupt state politicians and cops, a thriving underworld, unsafe cars, roads and motorcycles: have I forgotten something? I’m sure I have.

And back then race integration was the norm instead of the cloistered mentality practiced today among some immigrant communities. I can say here and now, most serving and ex service personnel begrudge immigrants and queue jumpers who disregard or refuse to celebrate our history, our flag, the Anzacs, Australia Day and Christmas. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Sign up to protect one’s country as our forefathers have done, only to have it infiltrated by some who feel it’s their right to shove their contentious posture and abject mentality down our throats.

Once there was something though: innocence, I guess.

So let me not vex you with an extended prologue, but to say some of stories I will tell you will not be all that pleasant, needless to say still need to be told. And some I have already published in a short story format, cathartic to say the least and good therapy. I suppose this is the best way to describe them.

You could probably say my story is a parallel to some of my previous writings, therefore I will try to harmonise these from past publications into this tome, to a degree. My fiction writing is a work still in progress though, in that I have been advised I should write about what I know: a rule-of-thumb for all budding scribblers.

Let me now explain the title of this book to you: actually, there is no reference in this book to my home town of Seven Hills where I spent the first 5 or 6 years of my life. I do remember how cold it was in this small fibro government housing community in the far west on the outer ambit of Sydney. And in the summer it was so hot we would crawl under the house and find a cool place beneath the concrete floor of the kitchen where we would play in the dirt until the sun lost its austerity.

The short stories and memoir refer to a suburb a few miles from Seven Hills after we moved into a solid brick and tile non-government home when I was approximately 7 years old. My memory was much sharper by then, as you will discover.

Seven Hills cultivated my parents resolve to improve our bereft lives: they achieved this by giving it their all.

I never achieved their eminence. I never got to thank them.

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this story to all the young men of the 24th intake H.M.A.S. Leeuwin, 1968, and all the good lads with whom I served. Also, to those I didn’t serve with I offer a tribute, since I’m sure many would have the same, if not more revelations to disclose than myself.

2010 was the commemorative year of the first Junior Recruit drive to institute children into the armed forces fifty years ago; this recruitment initiative endured for twenty-four years until 1984. We were at war in 1968 and conscription was a response to the army’s needs, so why not have an answer for the navy’s requirements?

It’s a fact apprentices were accepted at fifteen years, although their actual training/apprenticeship was for four or five years. In other words, they were not to see action of any kind other than training and school studies until their late teens, which by then was the average recruitment and conscription age into the services.

Our navy, being of British origins always had their own agenda and traditions, including the recruitment of youngsters to mould into the fabric required to run and maintain a tight ship, hence, the minimum twelve years’ service period for junior recruits.

Get ‘em young, use ‘em up and pension ‘em off after twenty years, some who have served would say. After all, having served twelve years and not knowing any other life other than that of the navy, some would then volunteer for another eight years to grab their pension.

Many survived and went on the bigger and better things, along with the numerous who do in the outside world. This is dedicated mostly to those who didn’t.

You see, the navy was a dogma unto itself, insofar as it would hold to its breast its crew and would not let go no matter what the circumstances, unless death, severe injury or time served transpired. Some will say this was a good thing because it turned us boys into men, and so it did, unless you had personal or mental problems, gambling and alcohol issues, relationship troubles, no family on which to rely and a myriad of other unforeseen and foreseen situations that pop up into our everyday lives for those who live in the real world. After all, the navy was your family now. And did we turn into the right type of men to survive in a civilised society? We’ll see as we progress further into this narrative.

I can see the doubters pointing their fingers already; then consider this story as something out of yesteryear and in no way describes the modern navy, or the other armed forces of today, so I’m told.

Let me confirm, via a conversation with a high-ranking psychiatrist, who is now particularly well regarded within the armed forces. His clientele has consisted of non-serving navy personnel who had been ensconced within a suffocating environment and were not treated adequately for problems while serving, unlike the other services: he was adamant in his observations.

I will try and obtain additional photographs and articles from various resources, although this may be a problem if I wish to shine a light on a situation they may not agree with. Many claim now it was their lack of duty of care which led to the many and varied troubles of their wards in later years: no shirts required on deck, no ear muffs required while working in noisy confined spaces, no real control as to the consumption of copious amounts of duty-free booze and tobacco, working with asbestos and beryllium (a toxic carcinogenic used to coat tools that chip paint so as not to create sparks), also, we were lowered into the confined spaces of water and fuel tanks to clean and repaint them. This practice alone accounted for many traumatic occurrences when young men were overcome by toxic substances: these to name just a few of the derisions faced by junior recruits in their impressionable formative years.

It has now been realised that twenty years should be the minimum age for service in some dangerous conditions otherwise mental scarring could well be the definitive outcome. Some say early twenties or thereabouts when the brain may be fully developed, before exposure to perilous tasks including actual combat.

To sum up, let me tell you the maxim for my particular intake today: We Survived!!

Also, this is for my long-suffering mother and father. May they rest in peace.

Agnus Dei,

Miserere nobis,

Dona nobis pacem.

A NEW LIFE

Reproduced in part from my short story

Whirlwind (c) 2008.

It was summer 1963 in a hot land forty miles west of Sydney. I lived and breathed fresh clean air with friends from all parts of the globe whose parents had come to this land seeking work, peace, stability and a home after a war one man bestowed upon us. And now we were slowly moving towards maturity after years of bitter conflict.

One would have thought this Great War would have been the end of it, with peace to follow……….forever.

Wishful thinking.

Our parents worked and lived side by side with people who, a generation prior, and in some circumstances, had been killing each other on distant shores. Now their children were living in a new land allying with each other and defining friendships that would last a lifetime.

This new land, Australia, was innocent insofar as isolation was concerned. And isolated we were; a solitude we can only now dream of.

The fruit we now purchase at exorbitant prices once hung virginally throughout our world easily gathered and enjoyed at any time.

Our mums were our sanctuary, and the homemade produce they slaved over, although easily reaped, was enjoyed all year round. These fruits danced in the early sunshine, as did the land we walked upon, where everyone who lived there had a wide open space to settle, build, live and love far away from the pressures we now face.

We travelled unsealed roads where dust percolated our habitat during the dry spells, of which there were many, but Lord, when the rains came everything turned to mud, at the very least. At the very worst our creeks flooded, the roads became impassable, the wind furious and the damage unredeemable.

It was during one of these malicious storms that I encountered my guardian, although you may wish to disregard it as I did……….for a while: only for a little while.

As I have said, summer 1963 and I was eleven years old, pale, almost translucent you could say, some four feet tall and four stone wringing wet, or thereabouts.

A frail blond haired little fellow who was sickly, had a stutter, and was sometimes made fun of, still ultimately accepted by his peers and their parents. I guess they felt sorry for me until I took on a tornado and lived to tell the tale. Then I became somewhat of a hero and should I say, a minor legend.

Since then I have been to war, survived countless accidents on motorbikes, cars, fights, fires and drowning. Yes, I died and was revived by a mate who had, I’m sure, a helping hand from above, since he was only a moderate swimmer himself. He said later we were both lifted out of the dam and placed on a log that just so happened to be floating by at the time. I was unconscious but my friend held onto me and made it to shore where I was revived.

Was there an old saying from one of God’s Disciples, when addressing His whereabouts said, Turn a stone and you will find my church, lift a piece of wood and you will find me? Anyway, something like that. And there was His piece of wood and my salvation.

To continue, we here in this part of the country don’t have full-blown tornados, yet in our northern regions and territory, and the far north of Western Australia thousands of miles away, we can really be set upon by monstrous weather conditions, which, while I’m delivering this tale, I might tell you I flew out of Darwin after delivering a patrol boat, during my Navy years, from a refit in Sydney.

So what! you say. Well, it just so happened I asked for an early flight out of the capital to return home in time for Christmas 1974. I flew out on a red-eye less than twenty-four before Cyclone Tracy hit and devastated Darwin with the loss of many lives, including crew members from boats at sea and some of those moored in the harbour.

I was twenty-two.

Was my protector there too? I now think so: no, I know so.

Anyway, back eleven years to the little eleven-year-old blond boy of my youth. Cyclones, tornados, storm, tempest, typhoon or whirlwind are those words describing unusual and annihilating weather formations that have haunted us forever. So it was this Christmas holiday season.

The weather during this particular mean season was exceptionally nasty throughout the state with high winds, torrential rains, hail as big as tennis balls in some areas and golf balls in most other regions.

As a matter of fact Australia suffered adverse weather conditions that season above and beyond our normal weather milieu.

THE DAY BEFORE

My friend Andrew and I were discussing what to do with our wet and wild holidays, so it was decided I would go to his place the following day with toys including soldiers, models to be assembled, and slot cars to be worked on, painted and laboured over.

While Andy’s place was only a few doors away his actual home nestled down a long driveway, where upon entering the side entrance you immediately stepped into the large homely kitchen and the smell of freshly prepared Polish fare.

Attached to the side of the home, a few steps from the side entrance, was a long narrow structure consisting of a garage where Andy’s dad’s pride and joy lived, a beautiful two-tone fifty-nine Holden station wagon. Connecting this section was a workshop, a playroom, which was our domain, and an outside loo. At the time we had a weekly service to remove our bodily wastes in large containers that one man could lift and carry on his broad shoulders to the waiting truck (we could not afford to connect to the new septic systems until some time later). What a job; we described these intrepidly brave souls as dunny-carters and it was a career none of us ever wished to aspire.

Attached to the end of this, almost old style country motel type building, each with its own individual door, was an under-cover area for pets including birds, dogs, guinea pigs or chickens. And from there our yards wandered off into a wooded area with a clean flowing, fresh water creek.

A wonderful childhood experience unlike anything most of us will ever behold again, but that’s a story for another day.

Andy was over, as was the back and forth routine when confined for days on end to our own little world, and discussing a plan for the next couple of days if the weather didn’t improve. Mum was in the background baking Anzac biscuits the old fashioned way while humming soft tunes, and still mourning the death a few weeks earlier of Jack Kennedy, who she truly loved and she even had a couple of long play records of his speeches. Jack certainly was a ladies man.

THE DAY I SHOOK HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

A calm had descended upon the land. The rain had stopped; not for long though from the look of the malevolent sky. It gazed down upon us with an intensity I will only describe now as misanthropic. What had we done to it for its cathartic austerity toward us? Maybe now it has an excuse, although back then we were all ‘pretty well’ innocent.

This was not Mother Nature.

Eleven a.m. after a hearty breakfast to send me on my way for the day I