Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (For
Those of you not in the know, Eromanga is a small town, west of
Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland)

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil
that the Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to get
in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone!
I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don't hafta
get outta bed until 6am. But I like sleeping in now, cuz all
yagotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya
uniform.


No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack -
nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz
there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!


At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo
steaks or possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don't get fed again
until noon and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a
'route march' - geez its only just like walking to the windmill in
the back paddock!!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I
keep getting medals for shootin' - dunno why. The bullseye is as
big as a bloody possum's bum and it don't move and it's not firing back at
ya like the Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their
prize cows before the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do is make yourself
comfortable and hit the target - it's a piece of piss!! You don't
even load your own cartridges they comes in little boxes and ya don't have to steady
yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you
reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real
careful coz they break easy - it's not like fighting with Doug and
Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after
the muster. Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best
the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from
the Engineers - he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles
across the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight
stone wringin' wet,but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the
boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick
before word gets around how bloody good it is.


Your loving daughter,

Sheila