The Happy Warrior

by Kerry B Collison

  Away from the noises of war

  Away from the horror of living

  And all that had happened before.

  Contented and painless I floated

  In wonderous peace of mind,

  Not dreaming, but thinking and seeing,

  Though my body was left far behind.

  Below me the column, still marching

  I could see front to the rear,

  All in the sharpest of detail

  Each man showing separate and clear.

  On the head of a man in the centre

  The Russian-made headgear of Pat,

  On the left flank beside him a figure

  Wearing my battered slouch hat.

  I studied that pitiful creature

  That I knew was the body of me

  And wondered what kept it going

  When the part that mattered was free.

  At last when the daylight was dying

  I came back to the world of pain,

  Dragged through the gap that was closing —

  I was back in the column again.

  I believe that there is an Almighty,

  I believe in the power of prayer,

  I believe there is life after dying.

  I know. I have been Half Way There.

  Pte J. Wright

  (AWM MSS 1586)

  * * *

  POW Day

  No doubt that we were bunnies

  To swallow all their talk

  Of Yankees at Port Dickson

  And Pommies’ air support

  They marched us out to Changi

  Ten thousand men or more;

  The fallen by the roadside

  Made us yearn no more for war.

  We’re planting beans by numbers

  We’re sloping arms no more,

  We’re through with bloody fighting

  For Tojo topped the score.

  We live in shell-torn barracks

  Minus water, roof and tile,

  The NCOs and Pippers

  Eat with rank and file

  Our clothes they are most scanty,

  Our trousers ripped and torn,

  We’re bloody near as naked

  As the day that we were born

  Our charpoys they have taken,

  We sleep on them no more;

  There’s naught for us to do

  But doss upon the floor.

  We rise around eight hundred

  And creep down to the tong

  And think of old Rexona

  And hope it won’t be long.

  We fall in on the A Parade

  And answer to our names

  It’s “Stand at ease!” “stand easy!”

  Then the OC cries again:

  “You’re still in the AIF lads,

  And no matter where you go

  The Government of Australia

  Expects you to earn your dough.”

  Next up we have breakfast

  Our appetites to sate,

  In single file we get it —

  It’s rice upon our plate

  The greasy babblers moaning,

  The backups standing by

  And Corporal Death a leading

  With hunger in his eye.

  Next we’re duty company,

  It’s work to make us hard

  Collecting meager rations

  Or sweeping up the yard.

  Our after-lunch siesta

  Is spent in many ways

  With dreams of steak and onions

  We knew in better days.

  We’re wakened from our slumber

  By a voice that’s loud and harsh:

  “Come grab your dirty washing

  And to the tongs we’ll march”

  With shades of evening falling

  There’s visits we must pay

  To see Bill and Harry

  Who live across the way.

  There’s pals in other units

  There’s mates we’ll never see

  And dreams of dear old Aussie

  Our homes across the sea.

  The good old swy-ups going,

  We brought it to this land

  And though we haven’t got much dough

  I guess we’ll land a hand.

  “There go the pennies sailing!”

  You can hear the boxer holler,

  But luck is dead against us

  And there goes our only dollar.

  ‘Lights out’ will soon be sounding

  And though we all are broke,

  I guess that one amongst us.

  Will have a light to smoke

  It’s homeward to our billets

  We wend our weary way,

  To lie upon the concrete

  So ends a POW’s day.

  Anon

  * * *

  Journey Back to Changi

  Tommy 1942

  POWs, that’s a helluva flamin’ word

  And here we are, all rounded up, like a branded cattle herd.

  God, it seems there’s such a lot of us, confused and milling around;

  Well, I hope it’s all been worth it, for this little patch of ground.

  Ahh Mate, I’m bloody hungry, and you’re lookin’ pretty thin

  And these graves are gettin’ shallower, and I’ve got no strength to fill ’em in;

  All that keeps me goin’ is believin’ things’ll change

  Til then we wait behind these walls while the world gets rearranged...

  Ahh Bluey, you look like Death Warmed Up, and I’m feelin’ kind o’ weak

  And I feel I’ve got much more to say, but it’s gettin’ hard to speak;

  There’s so much I could’ve said and done, but it seems I won’t get the chance

  Got caught up in this changing world, Ahh, what a merry dance.

  Yeah Mate, I know I’m goin’; but I don’t want to really leave

  And I don’t want ’em thinkin’ I wore my heart upon my sleeve;

  And can you ask ’em, when you’re home again, were they really only bluffin’?

  And ask ’em for me will you, Mate, did we go through this for nothin’?

  Bluey 1992

  Well, I’ve come back here again, old Digger,

  And so many years have passed

  And things ain’t really changed that much

  They’ve just moved on too fast

  But, you and your grave, well, you’re still here,

  A symbol of past mistakes,

  And I see those old words that we scratched there:

  ‘That’s Life’ and ‘Those are the Breaks’.

  Ahh Tommy, old Mate, these thoughts take me back

  And a thousand things pass through my mind,

  Like the Wire and the Walls that kept us caged up

  And the Conflict that makes people blind

  And those ghostly old shadows of mates long gone now

  With my eyes closed I see ’em once more,

  And I wipe out the memory of skeletal men

  And recall how I’d known ’em before.

  And you, Tommy Brown, I remember you then

  And how you thought that we’d both live forever,

  What a cruel twist of Fate, when we lost you, old Mate

  And this place seemed a long way from heaven.

  Yeah, I remember, old friend, when they captured us then

  And how we thought that somehow we had failed,

  And we dreamed of the day we’d escape in some way

  From this hellhole they called Changi Jail.

  Oh Mate, I can’t linger there, those thoughts lead to despair

  And the question you asked, I can’t answer;

  “All for Nothin’” you said, and we both hung our heads

  As we listened to Fate’s hollow laughter...

  Requiem 1992

  Well, the crowds gathered now, once again there’s heads bowed

  And soft words raise those ghosts from the past,

 
And while memory’s tears fall, to that sad bugle call

  We pray your Soul’s resting at last.

  And while I’m standing here, silent, with head bowed,

  Trying hard just to hold back my tears,

  I can still hear the words to a song

  Sayin’ ‘Thanks for the Gift of the Years’.

  And Hey Tommy, old son, when my time’s finally come

  And, I think we’ll meet up before long,

  We’ll recall better times and forgive ’em their crimes,

  And I’ll teach you the words to that song...

  Les Mellet

  AIF Cemetery

  * * *

  Untitled

  There’s a plot of land that’s tendered by their comrades by the score,

  In which they’ve buried Diggers who died while Prisoners of War;

  They were every bit as gallant in their sufferings through disease

  As the men who fell in battle ’gainst the swarming Japanese.

  The men who died through shot and shell have made their names immortal

  But those who lay and waited death went quietly through his portal;

  A flag draped body, stretcher born toward the grave is ferried

  The Last Post sounds o’er Changi Camp: another hero buried.

  For surely though his end was quiet and far from the muskets rattle

  He gave his life to the cause for which his comrades died in battle.

  So when in peaceful times to come we turn to thank our Maker

  Just say a prayer for those who lie in Changi Camp, ‘God’s Acre’.

  Anon

  Yugoslavia Lost

  I feel sick at humanity’s naked truth

  (Though humanity may be too kind a name)

  For a people who blithely wound and claim

  Vilification and purity for their youth.

  Time has not repelled their hate

  Nor distilled the witching brew

  Of ancient tensions born anew

  To demand a people repatriate.

  Time shall surely quell their tears

  The anguish, the wounds, the pain,

  But time knows festering sores remain

  Weeping freely from the ears.

  Pity them their bloody ear

  That prevents strong screams from sounding near

  But pity not their eyes that hear

  That see and lust with passion clear.

  Yesterday’s history holds no lesson

  That has not yet been heard nor learned

  The page long read then overturned

  Quill dipped in blood, a new page begun.

  Tony Anetts

  * * *

  Our Life

  The blokes are out on the Cease Fire Line

  Thinking of home and the girl left behind,

  Of cold ale and beaches and sun shining free

  Of the land of their fathers where they’d rather be.

  It’s a place that they think of to help pass the time,

  For time there’s a plenty as they go through the grind

  Of daily patrolling out there on the front

  Between Arabs and Persians, the tanks and the grunts.

  Life at the front can be boring and dull,

  Except for that moment, the break in the lull,

  When time is compressed in a cold bead of sweat

  And your heart skips a beat and you think of things yet

  To be done with your wife or your family at home,

  And you question your presence and yearning to roam.

  Australia is home and it’s where we should be,

  But the war is not over and we’re not yet free,

  So we’ll finish our tour with a skip and a jump,

  No more to Iran with our swags will we hump,

  But travel again to our homeland and wife

  And get on with that thing we’ve forgotten — our life.

  Anon

  UNIIMOG

  (AWM PR 00431)

  * * *

  I Have

  I have driven crowded streets where people mill and stand

  Dodged through rack and ruin and a beggar’s outstretched hand,

  I have seen sights of shockingness, of open poverty

  The resulting devastation of a people’s anarchy,

  I have smelt the stale aroma of filth, death and spice,

  The stagnant pools of squalor fed by people, dogs and lice

  I have held the bony hand, of a starving, dying child

  Shared a mother’s anguish as her children’s bones were piled,

  I have dodged rocks and missiles, thrown and aimed at me

  Used a baton to deter unabashed thievery,

  I have run, sung and played, with children like my own,

  Tried to understand their language and the world in which they’ve grown.

  I have experienced a people’s fervour, at the Feast of Ramadan

  Watched in fascination as Muslim rites are done,

  I have been privy to the meeting of a dedicated few

  Who loathe their country’s lawlessness and wish to start anew,

  I have witnessed use of terror by bandits and their kin

  And the subsequent denials as the questionings begin.

  I have witnessed execution and the sorry stench of death

  As bandits and their kind suck their last dark breath,

  I have bartered at the markets, as the locals ply their trade

  Of selling simple prayer mats, on which Elvis himself has prayed,

  I have felt the sheer elation of a people’s shout of cheer

  Of the call of ‘Australia’ yelled from far and near.

  I have known so very much in so short a span of days

  The experiences of a lifetime in oh so many ways.

  Tony Anetts

  * * *

  Changing Tides

  The old men of Bagana, Bale and Tore

  Had slipped below the waters,

  Were brave and proud no more.

  Waves of greed and corruption

  Had taken their toll through the years

  No stranger saw them drowning

  And no one saw their tears.

  The oasis in the Pacific was paradise no more

  All hope was left behind then

  Washed up on some foreign shore.

  Midst the currents of resentment

  Drifted M16 and spears

  No stranger heard them crying

  And no one saw their tears.

  White teeth against black faces did little to hide their pain

  They hid amongst the jungle

  But their hiding was in vain.

  For the enemy within them

  Knew their deepest thoughts and fears

  No stranger felt them tugging

  And no one saw their tears.

  I stood in line and placed my stone

  ’twas a tiny thing

  But thousands more they did the same

  to make this place a home.

  And so it was the island rose

  The waves rolled back, the tempest clears

  And strangers to the island

  Had dried away their tears.

  L/Col Jack Gregg

  Wakunai, Bougainville

  11 March 1999

  * * *

  A UNIIMOG Ditty

  If I were writing from Balmain

  And pigs at last could fly

  The news from here in Kurdestan

  Would lack essential fire.

  And Canberra isn’t quite the place

  To ponder in your mind

  That every time you place your feet —

  It could be on a mine.

  Or yesterday on that grenade

  That rolled beneath your feet

  No risk? Well bar that little pin

  It was in fact complete!

  The aircraft violation

  That flew low above the ridge

  Was only ta
king photographs

  And not dispersing death.

  There’s interest in your gas mask

  As you watch the vapour trail

  Your hand preparing Atropine

  If that defence should fail.

  The thought “Is that for me?”

  Each time you hear something explode

  Instils appreciation

  For that rocky little hole.

  And as you wonder of your mate

  In sunny Khorramshar,

  He’s down behind a wall like you

  About to kiss his arse!

  Luke Carroll

  UNIIMOG

  (AWM PR 00431)

  * * *

  Silly Poem

  I’m sitting here in Persia, just wondering why I’m here, Dreaming of home, my wife and kids and a pie and a can of beer; It’s great here at the Team Site, but it’s open to debate, With no TV or shorts or the UN cars it makes us pretty irate; Of course we respect the laws of this rigid Islamic state, We eat their food and so not to be rude we say it’s really great; But the first thing I’ll do on my CTO is go to a place elsewhere, Where you can drink and swear and wear your shorts and nobody really cares!

  T. M.

  UNIIMOG

  (AWM PR 00431)

  * * *

  Diggers In Blue

  Australians should be proud of their Diggers in blue,

  Scattered around the world for a cause that’s true,

  The spirit of the Diggers surge through our veins

  As we answer the call again and again.

  Our standards are high which is plain to see,

  And that’s not small praise coming from me,

  We work hard and play hard and that’s nothing new

  Dinkum Sons of Anzacs wearing UN blue.

  The dangers are real as we toil day to day

  But don’t tell anyone, we’ll just laugh them away;

  Rifle, machine gun, grenade and shell,

  Mine or UXB could blow us all to hell.

  We try to take care and still do our job —

  Don’t tell them at home, let them think I’m a slob.

  Australians should be proud of their Diggers in blue

  As we strive for a concept that should not be new

  World peace — blissful peace. Then let me go home

  To my wonderful wife and my daughters unknown.