Life in the Australian Army...

[Floater]

Life in the Australian Army...

Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga (a small town, west of Quilpie
in the far south west of Queensland) to Mum and Dad.


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

[SatansHobbit]

Army-daughter-a-chow

Strewth, it's a rip-off, and replacing the Canadian phrases with a few generic Aussie ones does not make it fair dinkum Strine.

I wonder what country was the original based in.

[UEL]

Based upon the vernacular (trimmings), and the military terminology (Platoon Sergeant), I would say that it started off as American.

Still, it's mildly humourous.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Do they have possums in Australia?

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Do they have possums in Australia?

They are native to Australia aren't they?

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

They are native to Australia aren't they?

So they are - I've no idea what I was thinking of.

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

So they are - I've no idea what I was thinking of.

You could be thinking about the Opossum - an American Marsupial, which is itself probably a remnant of the days Australia was attached to the Americas, y'know, a year or two ago

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

You could be thinking about the Opossum - an American Marsupial, which is itself probably a remnant of the days Australia was attached to the Americas, y'know, a year or two ago

Two different marsupials:

Possum

Opossum (also confusingly called "possum," at least colloquially.)

Nick

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by Nick Theodorakis

Two different marsupials:


Nick

Aye, but they 'are' distant relatives.

[qualli]

awww.. the aussies have prettier possums than we do!

...and oddly enough... the commercial that came on while I was reading this was for aussie brand shampoo

[geminilee]

I knew a guy from New Zealand who swore up and down that our opossums are prettier than theirs

[me, no really]

I'm not sure if the "translation" was even done by an aussie.

ya don't have to
steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you
reload!

It's a ute - not a truck. I doubt any aussie would have missed that.

me

[SatansHobbit]

Originally Posted by me, no really

I'm not sure if the "translation" was even done by an aussie.



It's a ute - not a truck. I doubt any aussie would have missed that.

me

What about "Big as a bloody possum's bum?" Who the hell says that?? All the possums I've seen have quite petite derrieres, and for all you Northern hemisperites, honestly we don't eat them.

[Salamander]

I began writing a far more Aussie translation but I got exhausted halfway through. There is just so much that needs changing!

[Tenko]

I can pretty much guarantee this is American, because of the possum-eating. SatansHobbit says they aren't eaten over there, but I know opossums are eaten over here.

Still, this is very funny! XD

EDIT: Isn't eromanga a term for an erotic comic?

[me, no really]

Originally Posted by Tenko

EDIT: Isn't eromanga a term for an erotic comic?

Welcome to Eromanga

[llewtrah]

I got 2 versions of this so far - one is US Marines and the other is Aussie

Letter from the army

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by SatansHobbit

Army-daughter-a-chow

Strewth, it's a rip-off, and replacing the Canadian phrases with a few generic Aussie ones does not make it fair dinkum Strine.

I wonder what country was the original based in.

I get a message that I'm not allowed access to that board - not even read-only

[Em]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

I get a message that I'm not allowed access to that board - not even read-only

You need to clear your cookies.