Page 93 - moondani kyema
P. 93
ndani kyema, My Story - Ray Moore 93
Recently I got out my National Service medal. It attests to the fact that I served our
country in the armed forces for a short time and prepared myself to defend Australia.
I could have become a hero – but it didn’t happen.
It was like this. . .
January 1954 was over eight years after the end of the Second
World War. The Korean War was
finished and the Vietnam War had not
started. I was about to become a
National Serviceman. I was destined to
learn how to defend Australia at the
large army barracks at Puckapunyal in
Victoria. Unlike later call-ups to National
Service, ours was playtime. We were to
be at Puckapunyal for three months –
January to March 1954 - and then for the next couple of
years would be expected to attend a fortnight’s camp each
year and a number of weekends.
So, after reporting for duty at some place in Melbourne, we
were “entrained” – that is the word the army uses for packing
you on to a troop train – to a place called “Dysart Siding”
near Seymour. Here we were “detrained” or something of
the sort, outside a huge tin shed and lined up in the open
beside the railway track. We were ordered to remove our
clothes and a doctor came along and ordered us to bend over while he did some sort
of a test of our fitness to serve the queen by checking our testicles. We were then
issued with a duffle bag and a lot of clothing and other gear to fill it. Meanwhile the
main Melbourne to Sydney rail line was only a few hundred metres away and the
passengers on a couple of passing trains were treated to the spectacle of some
hundreds of naked defenders-to-be of our great country.
Eventually we were entrucked and detrucked to Puckapunyal where some 1600 of
our country’s finest young men were divided into groups of 200 and assigned to 8
companies A to H. They were then allocated their living quarters for the next three
months in long huts housing 25 men each. I was in H Company and they had run
out of huts by the time they came to us, so we found ourselves in large tents which
also housed 25 men in each tent.
Our beds were allocated in alphabetical order and so I started off between Private
Langford and Private Noakes. Next to Noakes was O’Meara, and for some reason
they swapped beds so that I had O’Meara and Langford on either side of me.
Langford was gay and one of the other men used to come and sleep with him on
many occasions. Noakes had a problem with his sexuality and had painted a picture
of the private parts of a woman on the inside of the tent above his bed. Private Black
who was opposite to me was a born again Christian and came from “Tommyhawk
Creek” in the Western District and did not like getting undressed in front of the other
men. So a few minutes after the lights went out, a very bright torch was used to light
Recently I got out my National Service medal. It attests to the fact that I served our
country in the armed forces for a short time and prepared myself to defend Australia.
I could have become a hero – but it didn’t happen.
It was like this. . .
January 1954 was over eight years after the end of the Second
World War. The Korean War was
finished and the Vietnam War had not
started. I was about to become a
National Serviceman. I was destined to
learn how to defend Australia at the
large army barracks at Puckapunyal in
Victoria. Unlike later call-ups to National
Service, ours was playtime. We were to
be at Puckapunyal for three months –
January to March 1954 - and then for the next couple of
years would be expected to attend a fortnight’s camp each
year and a number of weekends.
So, after reporting for duty at some place in Melbourne, we
were “entrained” – that is the word the army uses for packing
you on to a troop train – to a place called “Dysart Siding”
near Seymour. Here we were “detrained” or something of
the sort, outside a huge tin shed and lined up in the open
beside the railway track. We were ordered to remove our
clothes and a doctor came along and ordered us to bend over while he did some sort
of a test of our fitness to serve the queen by checking our testicles. We were then
issued with a duffle bag and a lot of clothing and other gear to fill it. Meanwhile the
main Melbourne to Sydney rail line was only a few hundred metres away and the
passengers on a couple of passing trains were treated to the spectacle of some
hundreds of naked defenders-to-be of our great country.
Eventually we were entrucked and detrucked to Puckapunyal where some 1600 of
our country’s finest young men were divided into groups of 200 and assigned to 8
companies A to H. They were then allocated their living quarters for the next three
months in long huts housing 25 men each. I was in H Company and they had run
out of huts by the time they came to us, so we found ourselves in large tents which
also housed 25 men in each tent.
Our beds were allocated in alphabetical order and so I started off between Private
Langford and Private Noakes. Next to Noakes was O’Meara, and for some reason
they swapped beds so that I had O’Meara and Langford on either side of me.
Langford was gay and one of the other men used to come and sleep with him on
many occasions. Noakes had a problem with his sexuality and had painted a picture
of the private parts of a woman on the inside of the tent above his bed. Private Black
who was opposite to me was a born again Christian and came from “Tommyhawk
Creek” in the Western District and did not like getting undressed in front of the other
men. So a few minutes after the lights went out, a very bright torch was used to light
