Too Young to Vote but Old Enough to Kill

By DF Ryschka

Raw, hard hitting, not politically correct, as it was during the early years of the 1970s. See through the soldiers eyes his perspectives, as he takes you visually through his personal slice of the non-winnable Vietnam War. Feel his fear and euphoria from the mundane to the cracking sounds of AK 47 rounds zipping past his head. Meet the friendly creatures persecuting the Grunts daily, while on operations. Feel his feelings on the few rest days, trying to unwind. A must to read, if you want the feeling of a simple private soldier, living his own private hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469180892

DF Ryschka

Diethelm Ryschka. Born 07/04/1951 West Germany. Immigrated August 1956. Schooled, Adelaide South Australia. 1969 at eighteen enlisted, Australian Army. Deployed South Vietnam, 12th May 1970 until 02ndJune 1971, with 2RAR, designated 2RAR/NZ Battalion. Qualified instructor, all forms of Military Parachuting, posted Parachute Training School (PTS), founding member, Army Parachute Display Team, The Red Berets. Postings, Close County Warfare Instructor, recruit training instructor, Training Warrant Officer Adelaide University Regiment. Discharged 1989. Re-enlisted 1991 in the Reserve, posted PTS. Discharged 2000 due to injuries. Now, Totally and Permanently, Incapacitated, Veterans Pensioner, living on the Gold Coast, South Queensland Australia.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Early Days

Standing here in the rear car park of the Marryatville Hotel and thinking back as to when I was just a little younger than I am now. Just twelve years old if my memory serves me correct, and if I’m right, I think I was standing on almost the exact same spot where I’m standing right now. Remembering that, back then, Ben and I were looking toward the Hotel’s rear door, waiting for closing time and the six o’clock swillers to finish and, then rapidly, as a blob, leave the front public bar to queue up at the hotel’s rear door to purchase their roadies before heading off home. Near the head of the queue was a young kid, about our age, waiting for the door to open. Watching him move slowly along with the queue, wondering at that time what he was doing lining up with the swillers in the queue. The bottlo was serving and processing his customers as quickly as he could as they arrived in front of him; finally the young lad entered through the rear door and into the bottle room. He emerged smiling a short time later with a brown paper bag, which he held firmly against his chest. I remember it as clear as a church bell toll, and I thought to myself at that time, that’s a fairly large bottle in the small brown paper bag. The two of us moved over quickly and intercepted him as he was making his way through the car park. He looked rather stunned and nervous as we approached him, as if we were about to take the bottle away from him. We told him that all we wanted to know was what he had in the paper bag and how come the bottlo served him. He let us know that he had a flagon of Royal Reserve Port, and I remember Ben and I looking at each other and again. We had to ask him how he managed it. According to him, as he explained, his Dad often sent him down to the pub at closing time to with an envelope containing a short letter and a ten-shilling note. He told us that his dad always wrote a short note, which consisted of, first, his dad’s name on the top and, second, his own name just under it and, third, why he had sent him down to get the flagon of Royal Reserve Port (goony). In the note, he also wrote that he was working late and unable to get to the hotel in time and he would like it if they could serve him, just like all the other times. His Dad had also signed it. I remember smiling at Ben and thinking, and what a great idea! Ben and I just had to give it a try the following Tuesday; Tuesday was the perfect day and time, as we had our square dance rehearsal at a church hall not all that far away, at about seven thirty at night.

I was pretty nervous standing there in the after-hours queue; I must admit I was also pretty fidgety with my nervousness as I handed over my little white envelope to the barman, and I was definitely ready to bolt if the whole thing turned to shit. I shouldn’t have concerned myself. To my amazement, on that day, the barman just turned and went into the bottle shop proper, and he came back after a couple of minutes with the goony of Port in a brown paper bag and handed me the envelope containing the change. I had a difficult time trying to contain my euphoria about having the goony in my hot little hands and that I had actually done it. Crossing over the car park with the prize in my hands to where Ben was waiting, together we both bolted off as fast as our little legs could go to get out of the car park and into the relative safety of the church hall. Brian and his sister Liz were already waiting for us at the church hall. Liz, whom I had met only in passing a couple of times, was about sixteen years old then. They had been waiting for us in the entrance of the side driveway, which led to the rear kitchen and furniture storage area. That was the first of many a trip by us to that rear door, and we made sure that we took it in turns so that they wouldn’t get too familiar with us. Thinking about it now, there must have been hundreds of these little envelopes changing hands at that door, and we certainly were not the only kids using that ploy either for real or like us, just for obtaining the flagon.

That same day, and what a day it was too, I also managed to increase my knowledge about the female anatomy. The four of us moved around and further into the side driveway of the church hall, and after pulling out some old worn-out wooden rectangular chairs so that we could be comfortable, we had our first drinks from our flagon. As I remember it, I went first, and rightly so; I had stood in line. I took an extra big, big gulp, tasting for the first time, the sweet silkiness of the port. I then prolonged the taste of it by swirling it around and around the inside of my mouth to attain the full benefit of its taste, loving that warm feeling it gave me in the pit of my stomach after swallowing. The port taste is just as good now as it was then, and we all certainly had a great time passing that goony around that night.

Around seven o’clock that night, to my surprise, Liz asked if we wanted to have a bit of a pash on with her. We looked at each other in amazement, and the decision was an instantaneous, yes. Ben was the first cab off the rank, and I can still remember his face now, breaking out into a huge smile as Liz was taking him by his hand and leading him over to the other side of one of the two-foot thick external columns, which were protruding some three feet out from the church hall wall. There the two were completely hidden and obscured from our view. As I recall it, I had a swarm of butterflies in my stomach, and, as a matter of fact, I still get them now. All the events unfolding that night were so new to me, so I had an extra couple of sips to build up my courage as I was waiting my turn; it seemed to take forever, sitting down next to Brian and waiting patiently until it was my turn. I recall jumping up when Ben emerged from behind the column; my turn had finally arrived. I found Liz standing with her back resting against the corner where the column joined the wall, waiting for me. Not wasting any time, our arms immediately encapsulated each other, and our lips become locked together. I had a nice warm feeling surging and tingling in my stomach as her tongue broke through between my closed lips and into the inner reaches of my mouth. She had completely invaded the inner reaches of my mouth, and our mouths stayed locked firmly together for what seemed like ages. Locked and braced together as we were, I took it as my queue to try my luck. So I undid the thin white ribbon threaded through the upper hem of her blue and white floral dress. The ribbon was tied in a loose bow slipknot, and I pulled one of the ends of the ribbon, slowly allowing the dress’s upper hem to expand and open. I followed up by slipping my left hand down the loosened top of her dress, which released a flood of the very pleasant scent of lavender that covered her body. Feeling no resistance at the time, I slipped my hand even further down the front of her dress and finally beneath her bra with my fingers and hand closing around her firm right breast with a nipple that was about a centre metre round and long. I had never felt a female breast this size before, and comparing Liz’s breasts to the breasts of the girls of my own age, all seemed to be on the whole, almost flat chested. The scent from her lavender-perfumed body was still escaping from the top of her dress and bra, filling my nostrils and senses with sheer pleasure of the moment. Liz was allowing my hand to roam freely over and around her lavender-scented warm malleable breasts. With my hand roaming uninhibited around her breasts and coupled with that lavender scent, I had immediately fallen in love with the female body and the scent of lavender perfume. My session finished with Liz; it was Brian’s turn, and as we passed each other, I took the goony from him and took up a seat next to Ben. When it came back to be my turn again—actually standing right here and thinking about that day, I just can’t help smiling as the memory is so vivid, and I can even smell that scent of lavender—recalling, I immediately continued from where I had left off, and Liz resumed her searching of the inner cavities of my mouth. When I removed my left hand from her breasts, she had a look of surprise on her face; her eyes became wide open, and her tongue ceased moving inside my mouth. As my right hand was slowly, lifting the back of her blue-and-white floral dress up, even though she had the startled look of surprise, there was absolutely no resistance at all from her. I slid my hand from the outer to her inner thigh, and if I recall correctly, her thigh was smooth, firm, but soft. As I reached the bottom right side of her panties, I paused. I loved that overall feeling of success and the warmth radiating over my hand from her womanhood. It still sends a shiver down my spine, especially when thinking of what I did next. Finding no resistance from Liz, I started lifting up the elastic band of her panties, and for the first time in my long, long life, my fingers were roaming in and around a real woman’s pubic hair, which was a thick, mat-like covering over her venous mound. I just had to keep going, and with still no resistance, I moved my hand further down and then let my fingers slowly ascend up. Not stopping and continuing on, passing between the moist lips and entering into the warm moist inner sanctum of her womanhood. Liz began to moan and shudder slightly and immediately lowered her body on to my fingers and hand. I remember being rather pissed off when Brian wanted his turn, as our time was running out and the rest of the dancers were about to arrive. Liz finished straightening her dress and we hid the goony, which was still about half full, just in time as the caller, Hadley, came around the corner to open the kitchen door to give access to the church hall.

I did find it extremely hard waiting for that following Tuesday, as the thought continually raced through my brain of what the four of us had planned; probably having little to no patience is a flaw in my character. Ben and I had arrived early at the church hall, and we immediately retrieved the flagon from its hiding place and had a few sips. Brian and his sister Liz arrived quite some time later, but when they did get there, the four of us moved again to the relative safety of the side of the hall. The church hall stored a couple of its tables, and placed everywhere were numerous stacks of white plastic chairs stacked five high. The chairs were a great asset as they blocked the tables from the view of anyone passing the front of the church hall, on either the road or the footpath. That night, Liz certainly did not waste time; she moved past me as I was waiting for Ben to have a mouthful of port so that I could get another swig. If I remember correctly, we did not have to wait long. Liz was wearing the same dress that she had on the previous Tuesday; by the time we all had a good swig from the flagon, she had hiked up her dress. The dress was neatly bunched up, encircling her midriff; she had already removed her panties and was sitting on the edge of the table closest to the rear entry door of the hall’s kitchen. The three of us were looking as she was sitting on the edge of the table with her milky white thighs wide apart, exposing herself to us. Liz was completely nude from her waist down except that she was still wearing her white socks and shiny black shoes.. As I recall it, I was pretty pissed off then—even now as I think of it—we had drawn lots before coming to the church hall, and I just had to lose. Ben won and was first cab off the rank, and he certainly did not waste any time after seeing Liz sitting half-naked on the edge of the table. Brian and I just sat down and watched, passing the goony back and forth while Ben was hard at it. Being frustrated, having had to watch Ben climb off and pull up his jeans as Brian was dropping his. I had to be the last in line, as luck would have it, from our little short-straw draw we held earlier that day and I just had to draw that damn short piece of twig, ending up last, but not least. I really did not mind. Oh crap, I was just very, very pissed off, and sitting on one of those chairs watching made it even harder. The only redeeming grace I had on that night was the half-empty flagon of port, so I just hooked in as I waited. I was a bit tipsy when I finally climbed up and on, but my hips slid easily and comfortably between her warm thighs, her right hand guiding me and I had entered the seventh heaven. This being my first time—my left hand was on her left breast and nipple, her tongue again exploring the inside of my mouth, the lovely scent of her lavender perfume encapsulating me, compelling me to pump as hard and fast as the rhythm allowed. I think it was only a couple of minutes, and I lost my virginity as I exploded deep inside her womanhood, with the pleasurable shudders cascading throughout my entire body completing the entire package. I still recall that warm feeling of losing my virginity to an older woman, and I have never looked back. Once again, on that night, we had pushed our luck with the other dancers arriving early, and as they arrived, we had only just managed to stash our goony and clean up, damn close. The four us moved around to the front and greeted them; oddly, they did not have much to say to us, but thinking about it now, I think we all must have reeked of port and lavender.

The following Tuesday, the whole world went to crap. Brian let us know that his sister Liz had started an apprenticeship as a hairdresser and she would not be coming on Tuesday nights any more as she had to attend night school on Tuesday nights from six thirty to nine thirty. It really did not bother us all that much; it just really pissed us off with the no-more-screwing bit, but still we had our system for obtaining the booze we wanted and that was a definite bonus. We had also managed to find a location where we could obtain real beer by the bottle; we had been searching along a creek tunnel, which went under Statenborough Street and along the side of Coopers Brewery, for an entry point into their warehouse. We found several sluices in the right side of the concrete tunnel coming from the brewery and directly into the creek. I was climbing up the sluice without an iron grate covering it and appearing to be only about five metres away from the closest warehouse. Just short of the top of the sluice, our soon-to-be friend scared the living crap out of me when he said, ‘What the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you think you are doing?’

I recall that I had my heart in my throat, and I all could say was, ‘Can I buy some beer, Mister?’ After the ensuing short conversation, our arrangement was, if I leave a quid (pound) near the top of the sluice, he would slid a carton of Coopers Stout down as long as I put something on the lip of the sluice so that it stopped the carton from smashing into the tunnel floor. I teed up the time for Fridays at twelve thirty, during both our lunch hours, and right from the start, it worked like a charm. We had also dug a hole into the creek bed, about fifty metres further up on a small bend just outside of the tunnel. We had a milk bottle crate, which we had knocked off earlier; we used it to hold and store our beer in the hole, which we had dug for that purpose, until we needed to have one.

I still can remember the year I turned thirteen, a rather odd year for me. I had finished the primary school part of my education—older than most, as being an ethnic, I had great difficulty grasping and understanding the English language—but I did finally pass and was about to start secondary school the following year. The secondary school I had to attend was an all-boys Technical High School, which as I found out later, when starting at this school, was to put a whole new dimension on to my newly acquired love and sex life. I found to my dismay it was no longer on tap, and I had to actually put some kind of effort into soothing my raging hormones. I was not totally devoid of the delights. It also meant for me, at that time, that there were going to be extended dry periods between obtaining the relief that my body and mind yearned for. Saying good-bye to the friends was, in fact, exactly as the word meant—good-bye in almost all cases; I have never seen or heard from them again, even now. Christmas time that year was a real prick of a time. My elder sister Elke, unfortunately, succeeded in committing sideways (suicide) a few weeks prior to the so-called festive season commencing, after several previous attempts, and it certainly kicked the rest of the family and me in the guts. It certainly was not the best Christmas, and certainly, the following Christmases from then and until now have not had the same festive feeling about them as the ones prior to that one. I guess in the future, for me at least, Christmas will never improve and go back to the great Christmases which we once enjoyed.

I suppose when I think back about it now, the booze and the sexual activities we had participated in together were our and my short road down the crapper. As we were constantly hanging out together, one thing led to another and we soon started to liberate the monies and the odds and ends that some people no longer had a useful use for; we were kind enough in assisting them in their dilemma by ridding these useless items from them, especially after spending their time and hard work to accumulate them. Besides, we certainly needed the ill-gotten gains more than they did. There was nothing we would do to achieve our aim in obtaining the funds we required for a good night out, anything from mugging to outright robbery, and if need be, we carried weapons on the off chance that we may need them. Brings back to mind ,with a wry inner giggle, the strange and odd ways of how others live their lives, like the headmaster of a large boys’ school, a technical college set at the back of Kensington Road. We had no problems entering the main office block as almost half the outer doors were unsecured, including that of his office located centrally on the second floor, overlooking the sports fields in front of the main office and classroom building of the school. Once in, we did the normal thing, that is, checking any box or tin for cash, and after that, we finally tripped the lock to the headmaster’s bottom drawer on the right side of his table. We actually found a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label Whisky and several packets of three wet checks (prophylactics) and a couple loose ones. I still think about it. Why did he have them in his office? Oh well, such is life; then again, he certainly did not have any hesitation after I fronted up and got out of the can in giving, without any recourse whatsoever, the royal order of the boot. I also get a bit of a laugh about how forgiving the then priesthood was, when I fronted up to the Catholic priest, who was looking after a small church hall on Glynburn Road to apologise for knocking off the church association’s tea and biscuits money tin. I never did get to apologise to him for what I had done as he was just too busy yelling and screaming at me about how immoral I was and that I was going to hell, just before he physically turfed me out; nice bloke. I did think to myself at the time as I was sailing out through the front door that this was not one of my better ideas and even I do not swear that much and I certainly did swear.

Everything was going on swimmingly until one of the better things that could have happened to me, happened. I looked out of my parents’ house lounge room window when I heard a vehicle pull up outside in front of our house. The car, which had just pulled up out in front, was a cop patrol car and a couple of plain clothes coppers were getting out. There was no need for me to say anything as they gave me some nice new bracelets that I could wear straightaway, and after they had a quick look around the backyard, I had a nice comfortable joyride in an almost brand new Holden Police Car to the Adelaide city watch house to see my mates Ben and Brian. As it transpired, Ben, the goose, did a job solo and got sprung, and as he was trying to talk his way out of it, both Brian and I ended up with him and most of that night in the cells, waiting for bail, the prick. While we were in the cells cooling our heels, the coppers gave us a bit of light entertainment in the way of a young kid, about ten years or so old, who was so skinny that he was able to squeeze and pass through the cell bars at will. He had a great time tormenting us and laughing at us while he was running around in the vacant area between the cell rows, the little prick. Our bodies and heads, even though we were skinny ourselves, were just too fat, and damn it, even after several attempts, we just could not fit through those damn bars as he could. The next day, we fronted up to the beak (magistrate or judge) in the magistrate court and ended up with a few months in the can and a three-year suspended sentence in the form of a good behaviour bond.

Being juveniles, we did not end up in the adult penitentiary but ended up in the juvenile holding cells, which were halfway down and along the Anzac Highway heading towards the Glenelg beach. The establishment was a reasonable place: three free feeds a day, a comfortable bed, an amenities room, and an exercise yard with a roof of cyclone-wire mesh. The exercise yard ground was plain concrete with a single drainage grid in the centre, and you entered the yard through a grey steel door with observation windows on either side, set in a wall of red bricks wall. Directly opposite was a wet weather shelter with a partially enclosed urinal toilet on the right side and an enclosed porcelain throne room on the left. There were three stainless-steel handbasins in front of the toilet and urinal and a single drinking fountain between and in the centre. There was also a built-in wooden bench-type seat, just under the leading edge of the roof and running almost the entire length of the shelter. The other two walls, from the ground to roof, consisted of a fully enclosed cyclone wire mesh; the left wall was against the dormitory-type cells, and the right side was a partition wall to another exercise yard. The dormitory had only one entrance, and inside, there were twelve steel-framed single beds, with a normal mattress on each. The bedding consisted of one plain black-and-white striped pillow, two white plain starched sheets, and a white pillowcase, plus two grey-blue blankets. Next to each bed was a small bedside wooden clear-gloss cabinet with a grey—coloured top metal drawer with a round chromium-plated drawer handle and two shelves underneath. Outside and to the right were the ablutions, and as you enter, to the left of a thin floor-to-ceiling partition were six normal showers, no cubicles. One-inch royal blue-and-white tiles tiled the walls and the floor of the shower area of the ablution, and on the other side of the partition wall, the walls tiled in five-by-five-inch white tiles with the floor tiled in ten-by-ten-inch grey-and-white linoleum tiles. In the toilet area on the right-hand side of the partition, divided into two distinct sections, firstly against the partition wall were six stainless-steel handbasins with a thirty—thirty-centimetre mirror above them. On the opposite side and in a nice neat row were six porcelain thrones with a built-in toilet paper roller to the right side of each. When you turned left to head towards the exercise yard, at the head of the hallway was the guard’s room. At the guard’s room, you had to turn right and pass through a double-swing door into the entertainment room with a TV at the far top-left-hand corner. A small library was in the far right-hand corner, and neatly spaced throughout the room were eight tables, metre-by-metre square, with teak-wood-laminated tops on four black metal legs. There were also four white plastic outdoor chairs around each table, one per side. We used the entertainment room not only for entertainment purposes but also as our dining hall and, on the weekends, as the visitors’ room.

Going through another set of double-swing doors next to where the TV was located in the corner, you entered the kitchen and service area. Just past the kitchen area and through another double-swing door, there was another hallway containing a further six cells, this time for solitary confinement. The cells consisted of a black steel door with an observation-cum-food service hole, and inside, on the floor there were a wooden bed, a pillow, and two blankets. Next to the head of the bed was a stainless-steel toilet-cum—handbasin and above was a small rectangular window where you could not see a damn fucken thing through. Overall, the time was quite relaxing, not much to do, but definitely relaxing. About four weeks after our arrival, a couple of blokes from Melbourne came to stay for a while. About mid-afternoon the next day of their arrival, all the locals and the new arrivals participated in a little dexterity test given by our guards for their and our entertainment. For the test, the guards had us standing about a metre and a half from the wall under the weather shelter, then to lean forward and place our extended thumbs against the wall to take up our weight. As the guards moved along the line, placing their individual weights on our backs, asking us to let them know as to who had misappropriated a packet of Marlboro cigarettes, which was left on top of the guards’ small table next to the yard entrance door. It was rather fun standing there with my thumbs against the wall and every now and then having one of them ask me where I had hidden the cigarettes. Fifteen minutes to dinner, they finally relented, none the wiser. I must admit that after some three and a half hours on the wall, my thumbs had a minor problem bending, even now, when they lock and I physically move them to get them to unlock and function correctly again. The only good thing that came out of this wall-leaning competition was that the new blokes dished out the cigarettes; we were able to enjoy a smoke at night for the next three days, and they were great.

Two weeks short of getting out, while I was milling around in the exercise yard, a tall, well-dressed, fat, almost obese bloke walked in, and I can still see his blue suit shimmering in the sunlight; he certainly reeked of money. It did not take me long to take a strong dislike to him, and I certainly did not like arseholes pushing around smaller and younger people. During an afternoon exercise session, the clown pushed a smaller bloke up against the back wall of the weather shelter; I was unable to do anything about it then. That night after dinner, about 7 p.m., I found the slug having a fat time in the showers, and I thoroughly enjoyed it when my plastic-sandaled right foot almost forced his testicles up his rectum. As he collapsed, I managed another good shot into the right side of his head. I recall laughing as I was looking at him, his body quivering like an oversized jellyfish as he lay on the shower floor, blabbering. I leaned over the top of him and explained that if he opened his mouth, this was as good as it would get while I was still there. Actually, he was pretty good and kept to himself for the remainder of my time.

During the last week of my stay, three brothers, aged about fourteen or fifteen, arrived and immediately gobbed-off that they were not staying. Ben, Brian, and I were chatting with them in the exercise yard, where they said that they had worked out a way to escape but needed a screwdriver to do so. I remember telling them that they were standing on all the screwdrivers that they needed and that there was a four-by-half-inch piece of metal in the sole of their sandals, perfect for what they wanted. That night after the guard’s rounds at 10 p.m., they set to work, removing the small push-out window; surprisingly it did not take them all that long. As soon as they laid the window on top of the bed below the escape route, they were out and heading towards the twelve-foot-high cyclone fence with a metre Y-shaped barbed-wire top. Not waiting to see if they cleared the fence, the rest of us returned to our beds. About a half an hour later, all hell broke loose as the guard on his first night round at 12 midnight found three empty beds and a window lying on one of them. It did not take them long, and the rest of us again ended up with our thumbs up against the exercise yard wall and were slowly individually interviewed. The silly thing was, the next morning as I was heading off to breakfast there they were, looking sheepishly at their feet, waiting with their hands manacled behind their backs and a copper giving a report to the head guard; you just cannot help bad luck, the poor bastards.

I was released from the can on the three-year good behaviour bond, which dictated what I was able to do and what I could not do. One of the restrictions was that of consorting with my mates, and if sprung, it was straight back into the can and to complete the remainder of the bond. The three of us were certainly on that slow slide into Crapville, as once we were released, nothing had changed for us and we, as a group, were still carrying on as if nothing had changed. This was one of the main reasons why I had to get out of Adelaide, and the other was that working as a fitter and turner apprentice in a factory. Joining the army was my ticket out, especially when my probation officer had strongly recommended it to me after recounting to me my latest escapades and explaining that he was fully conversant with all of them. All I could do was to agree with him; besides, anything was better than the direction I was taking. Waking up and looking at myself, after a little soul-searching, I certainly did not like the idea of ending up in a shithole full of crap, jail. Starting over again sounded like the way to go, especially with my probation officer shooting for me; besides, I would most likely end up in the army anyway. With the new arrangement, the government had organised to have the army increase in size by the use of the National Service lottery, which I would have to face when I turned twenty.

It is odd how the memory works. I have not even thought of the trips down to a little town called Tailem Bend on the river Murray for quite some time. Being only fifteen, it did not stop my elder brother Hans and a couple of his mates letting me tag along on their shooting trips. After reworking the bolt of my father’s .22 single-shot rifle so that the firing pin was again striking the rear of the .22 round and detonating it, I no longer went along as a cap-in-hand spectator, waiting to have a shot. On one of the trips as we were spotlighting at night a few miles south of Tailem Bend, I dropped a Roo, a good five-footer in a paddock. The Roo was about 200 metres out and only illuminated by a spotlight. Leaning on my brother Hans’s Holden’s roof and lining it up with my single-shot .22, which had open sights and was configured with a rear plate with a central V notch and a small solid-blade foresight. Aiming for its head, I let the shot loose, and within seconds, its legs buckled and it fell over on to its left side. As soon as the round escaped from the muzzle of my rifle, Hans’s mate Rob was doing a song-and-dance routine, belting the living daylights out of the back of his head. I had to ask Rob what the hell was going on, and in short, I learnt a lesson in regard to cordite in the shell of a cartridge. When the cordite ignites after the percussion cap explodes at the base of the cartridge, the cordite flash burns in the shell and the ensuing expansion of the gases from the cordite puts great pressure on the rear of the projectile. Finally, the projectile departs the shell and makes its way along the barrel. Several still-burning granules accompany the projectile and burn for a short time outside of the shell and barrel. Hence, Rob was belting the living crap out of the back of his head, which was only two feet away from the front of the muzzle of my rifle, lesson learnt. By the time I had reached the Roo, it had already bled out and was already dead. I had struck it just below the ear, and the round severed, I think, its jugular vein. I did not know the rifle’s fall of shot over that distance, and being unaware of it, I did not allow for it; nevertheless, it was a damn good shot. That day, as dawn was just breaking over the Murray Mallee country, the sun was emitting those pleasant-to-the eye pastel pink rays of sunshine and sending them streaking across the wide-open dew-covered pasture paddocks. On the road back towards Adelaide, my elder brother Hans’s two mates, Burnt and Robert, started a conversation as regards the National Service lottery. Listening to the conversation as I was resting my head against my window with my .22 serving as a part-pillow, they were expressing their total disgust of the lottery and the National Service. It appeared by the way they were talking that the government of the day needed more cannon fodder to send over to a place called Vietnam because they had overcommitted themselves. To top it all off, National Service was not for everyone, only for the selected lottery winners who had their birthdays come up and out of the lottery tumbler bin; they were the ones drafted, and the others just missed out. The government also had another set of criteria; there was a list of other exceptions like university students, essential services, and a multitude of other criterions like being the son of a politician. As I was fifteen, I just had to join in the conversation and ask them how come the government could do that to the twenty-year-olds because they were not even old enough to vote, not until they are twenty-one. They informed me that a government could do what it wanted to do, hence draft you and send you over to the war in Vietnam. It sounded illogical to me; what if you didn’t want to go to war or be drafted? Their answer sort of disturbed me a little. In that case, the way they had explained it to me, if they did not go and do when ordered to do so, the government could and would send them off to jail. What a wonderful political system we have! The government in grovel mode needs more soldiers, so they go out and draft the non-voting twenty-year-olds. Then they send them off to be killed in a war, and if the twenty-year-olds, who may not like being killed, dare to say no, they end up being sent to jail, it just beggars belief. The whole thing seemed to be a sham to me because basically, the ones who did not have an exceptional reason, they were in the lottery and the others just went on their merry little ways without a care in the world. Thinking to myself then that that would mean all the dumb shmucks that did not go to uni or did not have that essential job would be up for the draft and that meant me, a bloody unfair and self-serving law. I wondered how many politicians’ sons didn’t attend university; I bet not many. I remember reclining back into my seat, pondering about what they enlightened me on, when all of a sudden they all burst out laughing. Listening to the laughter and not knowing what was so funny, like a dumb prick I asked, and through their outbursts of laughter, I gleaned that which I was unaware of at that time. The three of them were all over twenty-one and had already missed out on the draft, and as I was fifteen, they enlightened me, ‘Guess what, you will be up for the draft.’ Well, I certainly proved them wrong. There is no way of me ever receiving a draft notice, as I will be part of an essential service occupation, the army. Now that will show them.

Being as young as we were, our only form of mobility was the feet or our pushbikes, and that did not help much in getting around. I ended up buying a 1951 Hillman when I was fourteen; it was unregistered, but I used it to work on it, striping the engine then rebuilding it, and also to teach myself how to get it moving, that is reversing, parking, and just understanding how it operated. I did take it out for a few spins around the neighbourhood when Mum and Dad were out. Then just before turning sixteen, I traded it in for a two-tone, green 1956 FJ Holden. After turning sixteen and obtaining my driver’s licence, I and we were mobile. It is surprising how much you could do with four wheels under you and how differently the female gender tends to treat you, especially when you pick them up and drop them off at their school. The licence and the car opened up several new avenues for my mates and me. Instead of sneaking around the suburbs with booze under my arms, I had it now securely locked in the boot of my car and the doors were fully open for any freelancing girls we happened upon. Having organised with the lads and a few of the girls a piss-up in a cave system in amongst a newly opened housing estate called Skye, I had to cancel out and defer it until the following weekend; besides, he was going to leave me with a full tank after we returned from his visit.

Unfortunately, all great things have to come to an end, and as I recall it, I had replaced a flat tyre with my spare one during the week before taking Hartmut to his friend’s place at Port Noarlunga. We arrived at Port Noarlunga at around midday, if my memory serves me correctly. I had decided to take the FJ out for an open-road spin, and it was a spin, a real spin. Leaving the built-up area behind me, I was on a straight stretch of road, opening her up and increasing speed rapidly. She did not take off like a rocket, but she certainly started to increase the speed steadily and reached sixty miles per hour with a slight shudder in the rear left. The road being straight for a few more miles, I remember deciding to see what she could do and pressing down the accelerator pedal. The needle of the speedo was slowly working its way up towards seventy and then eighty. The speed she was doing was a testament to all my work and effort I had put in improving the engine’s capability. Not long after attaining the speed of eighty miles an hour, I noticed the shudder commencing again, similar to the one I had experienced at sixty. Like a fuckwit, thinking it would pass as it did before, I continued to increase the speed. The shudder not going away but was definitely increasing in intensity, as I was still increasing the speed. The odometer needle was creeping past the eighty and towards ninety. Finally I had decided to ease up as the shudder had turned into a violent sway in the rear, and just as I was about to try and straighten the car up by increasing the speed rapidly, all I remember saying to myself was, ‘Oops’ as the rear end of the car had decided to take the lead. I know you’re supposed to see everything in slow motion. What a load of crap! Fast, everything was fast—the car sliding on its right side, I had to lift my right shoulder up as the window was down, and my right shoulder was scraping along the bitumen. No longer overly concerned with the steering wheel; the car was up, and it seemed airborne. Pain was setting in, in my head and right shoulder, and again it managed to get airborne, and when returning to the road on the roof, it sent me into the safety of the back seat. The FJ finally stopped and came to a rest after impacting into a poorly placed and located telegraph pole. I was damn lucky being in the rear seat; when the FJ stopped, I did not—until the rear of the front bench seat barred me from continuing through one of the front windows. It was rather an eerie feeling—not a single sound anywhere and having to climb out of the rear window; it must have popped out during my little tumble. Unscathed, other than a dented ego, looking at my FJ nestled neatly and quietly against the base of that useless telegraph pole thing, I thought to myself at that time, This is not good, yep. This time you really fucked up big time. My name was mud at home, with my friends, and anyone else who knew me, so I kept a low profile until I started my fitter and turner apprenticeship and purchased another car, a really cheap 1954 Hillman, only using it to get from point A to point B.

The factory I was working in was a small automotive affair making replacement parts for Ford and Holden’s, and the building was a large, zinc-coated, corrugated-iron-sheet clad shed, not all that much to look at. As you entered, the frond roller door immediately to the right was a small office and further right was a lunch-cum-restroom, and through the room and against the wall was a small toilet. In the restroom, right in the centre was a solid four-legged, plain wood-topped table about a metre wide and two metres long that had seen better days. In the far corner and against the toilet wall was an old motley dark off-cream-coloured, single-door 1950s-rounded-edge fridge, which used to keep our lunches and milk for our coffee. Next to the fridge was a plain wooden shelf about a metre wide and a half a metre deep for food preparation, and also we had a small white plastic kettle for our coffee. Walking out from the lunchroom, you went straight into the factory part; on the right against the wall were several storage shelves and a four-metre-long packing table. Looking into the inner confines of the factory from the lunchroom, directly in front was a large automatic lathe and directly behind it were two more, smaller lathes. Further in, after the two lathes was a milling machine and to the right was a large grinding machine. Near the back wall was a large metal punch machine, and between it and the wall was the raw material for it. Along the left side of the factory were several shelves full of steel rods of different gauges and lengths. In front of them was a small through road from the front roller door to the rear roller door. The factory floor had a thick covering of old oil and grease, especially around the lathes.

As the newly arrived apprentice, they immediately handed to me that very difficult and brain-taxing task of sweeping the floor and, more importantly, the task of the factory gofer for mornos, lunch, and then any other meaningless job that required doing. Working five and a half days a week and having the hours of six thirty in the morning until five in the afternoon with forty-five minutes for lunch and fifteen minutes for mornos, and on Saturdays from six in the morning until midday, with fifteen minutes for mornos, to me, at the time, it was not too bad at fourteen dollars fifty. The pay I received was all that I needed. I paid a third in rent at home. I banked a couple of dollars, and the rest I allowed myself to piss-up against a wall, but my love life took a nosedive since starting work and the car I was diving really did not impress any of the young fillies I was trying to pants. That Hillman had kept me going for a while until I realised that it didn’t do me any favours, so I traded it in for the yellow canary, my 1957 FE Holden with all the mod cons—a radio that actually worked, tyres that were all the same size, and four-on-the-floor, no column shift.

Just after starting my second year in my apprenticeship, and receiving a pay rise, a whole twenty-one dollars fifteen cents—an instant millionaire, at least I would have been if it was not for the rent increase to seven dollars. I was lucky Mum didn’t want any part of the fifteen cents, yes, definitely a millionaire. In early January, just before my whole world turned to shit, I was working the milling machine, cutting the kingpin retaining notch. I had found that for some reason the hexagon-locking nut holding down and in place a small locking plate over the top of a set of six kingpins to be notched far to tight. As things would have it, I had switched the machine off, but it was still rotating, changing my original direction to free the nut, which was away from the machine, to that of fore the machine, which was going to give me more leverage as I could lean into it. Well, the blade was still rotating and the nut sheared off and gave way as I was looking at my right hand, which had put an immediate stop to the rotation of the blade. Looking at the exposed bone of my little finger with a large flap of skin and meat hanging to the right side, I found it rather fascinating at the time—the exposed white bone with a smear of bright red blood over it and the greyish-coloured cartilage in and around the actual joint. The finger structure was open to the ambient air around the bone on the top, sides and underneath, with several small tendons and red muscle tissue also exposed, and apart from local moisture on the edges of the loose flap of meat, there was no gush or flood of blood, only a couple of smallish blood drops. I could not help myself, had to play with the flap and exposed bone. Oddly, I did not feel any pain while I was prodding the bone; I think now that it must have been in shock and I suppose I should have cleaned my oil-covered left index finger. The other wound sites, where the blade had entered my hand, were already gushing blood like newly brought-in oil wells, and yet nothing from my finger. I did not have to wait all that long as I pulled my hand off the blade, and I brought in a real gusher. In seconds, the entire drip tray of the machine was full of bright red blood; actually, it looked rather odd as the blood mixed with the white-coloured tool-cooling liquid, making little swirls and straight lines of red and white liquid. Picking up a white cleaning cloth and letting the foreman and boss know that he had a dickhead of an apprentice; I wandered over to the Main South Road, the local doctor’s surgery. I was in luck at the surgery, and as I was sitting, waiting my turn, looking around, there was only one other person in the surgery—a young lady sitting near the front counter. Unfortunately, I was only able to slow down the flow of the blood, not stop it. I had a ten-inch-round pool of blood on the floor directly under my arm, and I had a constant drip coming off my elbow. I incorporated what my high school had taught me about bleeding wounds, and that is, elevate the wound if possible, to slow the rate of leaking. At that time, it did not seem to work; it just kept on leaking. Anyway, the young lady before me gave up the ghost, headed for the toilet, and did not come back, so I ended up being next. The doc was great; after irrigating the wounds several times to remove all the crap I had deposited in them when I was playing around, checking out the flap and bone, he gave me seven days off after he finished stitching me up. He certainly was a nice gentleman.

During my holidays, while my finger and hand were in the process of repairing themselves, I met up with Trev, the senior apprentice at the Tonsley Hotel. Everything was going swimmingly as we were playing eight ball on one of the billiard tables, and I was waiting next to the table for Trev to come back from the bar with our beers. It must have been a local who took a dislike to me, but he came up and started to roll the balls from our game into the centre of the table. As I was only mildly interested, I just asked him what the fuck he was doing. After I had disengaged myself from a small round table and several bar stools, I returned to front him. There was no need for any further discussion and as I still had my billiard cue in my injured hand and seeing Trev returning with my beer, I just cut loose. I watched, like in slow motion, the clown going down with blood gushing out from his crushed right ear. Quickly dropping my bent cue and jumping over the downed clown, taking my beer from Trev, and downing it in one mouthful. Discretion is the better part of valour, and without saying a word, the night was over as we both legged it to our cars. I knew that going back to the Tonsley in the near future, especially if he was a local, would not be conducive to my good health; besides, luckily for me, in a short time I would be out of here. After I returned to work, things with the coppers just got worse, and I was again fully interacting with Ben, Brian, and the lads from the Norwood. Looking back, ah, such is life.

The drinking laws are certainly upside down and inside out in this country as the governments and the self-serving minority-interest groups feel that a person under twenty-one years of age is still a child. Moreover, the under-twenty-ones are unable to be trusted to make consciously thought-out adult decisions like having a quiet drink and voting for the State Government and the Federal Government which was sending the twenty-year-olds off to war. Having no trust in us in the making of everyday decisions and on whether to partake or not to partake in the consumption of alcohol, beggars belief, it is rather odd that only by turning twenty-one, you suddenly achieve this maturity and join the ranks of the adults. The government voted in by the majority of the electorate had involved Australia in a far-flung war in South Vietnam, once a little colony of France. Committing Australia to this war without fully understanding the consequences of their decision and the Australian Defence Force being unable to fulfil the obligation of this commitment, which the government thrust upon them, the then government, to honour their commitment and their egos, imposed an unfair draft on the male population aged twenty by drafting them by virtue of their birth date. The draft was conducted by a lottery ball plucked out from a small lottery barrel, and the date inscribed on that ball, was the birth date of the new draftees. The lottery was on a required basis and held several times a year to ensure that there was the required amount of cannon fodder service within the ranks of the army. Once in the army, the government was despatching these draftees, more commonly called or known as Nashos, off to war at the tender age of twenty with the regular soldiers as young as nineteen, to kill or be killed. It is very pronounced that our adult leadership and the self-serving interest groups seem to think it’s only reasonable and fair to have young Australian males under the age of twenty-one to go off to war and fulfil the then government’s self-serving and self-made commitments to the Americans, hence all the way with LBJ, the American President. You tend to scratch the top of your head in amazed wonderment—if they are not adults until reaching twenty-one that would simplistically mean they are children. If they are children, that would mean the government is guilty of child abuse and negligence by placing children in actual endangerment by drafting them and then sending these servicemen and their regular counterparts under the age of twenty-one off to a war. The Australian Government and the defence force are culpable in sending the under-twenty-ones to fight a war in which they were being killed or maimed. To date, nothing has been attempted to rectify this anomaly, and to further compound this wanton disregard, the under-twenty-ones are unable to cast a vote for or against their abusers. I am no longer interested in listening to their hollow shallow arguments for keeping the legal age for consuming alcohol at twenty-one. It is a bit hard to accept and swallow the double standards imposed on the wider community by our politicians and those self-interest minority groups.

Having arrived in Australia in August 1956 and commencing my education at fives of age in the area school for all the local sheep stations surrounding the rail maintenance town called Kingoonya, in the centre of Eyre Peninsular and then finishing it in Adelaide, South Australia. It appears to me that the politicians administering this great nation cannot make decisions in isolation for the country to forge ahead without pandering to past and new allegiances; you need strong leadership, not a bunch of yes-men. Personally, I have made some very poor decisions while growing up, selecting the low road to nowhere. I had to face my personal dilemma, prior to enlisting; I spent several months of incarceration for larceny and drunken brawls causing actual bodily harm, to quote the beak who placed me on a good-behaviour bond for three years for these misdeeds. Not listening to any of my probation officer’s counsel and continuing my slow slide down and along the low road to nowhere. Finding myself cornered in an environment of my own choosing, and even after attempting, of recent times, to rectify my past deeds by myself, I was still heading nowhere. Finally, I consulted my probation officer; he concluded that for me to repair the damage, which I had caused, it would be far more conducive for me to make a good clean break and leave the state. Having come to that same conclusion, it was only a matter of how I could make this break and make amends. Prior to enlisting, I had gone through all the thought processes of eliminations for all my civil alternatives—none. Which had only left me a the choice out of the navy, air force, or army. Not at all too happy about becoming a homebody, ruling out the air force; not at all that fond of bobbing up and down in the middle of the ocean, but swaying towards the navy—the bright side being a girl in every port. No! Not a good idea as my brother Hartmut is already serving in the navy, which cancels the navy out. Leaving me with my last and only option and that’s the army. Besides, by the law of averages, if I did absolutely nothing at all, I would still end up in the army by the draft. Under the guidance and direction of my probation officer, I first applied for and accepted enlistment for three years in the Australian Regular Army, on the proviso, the court releasing me from my good-behaviour bond. I had to front a magistrate in the South