news from duntroon

I just had a wonderful conversation with our Defence Force correspondent who is five weeks into his boy's own adventure at RMC. Apparently after 5 weeks of crawling through mud, under barbed wire, and through water pits covereed in ice at 6 in the morning, the staff cadets get an afternoon of R&R to call home, drink instant coffee and ponder what the hell they've got themselves into.

My security clearance allows me to tell you that Officer Cadet M. has learned to sleep with his eyes open, that you can still hear the chink of brass cartridges hitting the ground when you're firing a machine gun with ear muffs on and that you should never trust a sargent who tells you you can sleep in until 7am.

OCM has asked me to let everyone know that he's alive and well, and it's all "a bit of a lark". He will be graduating towards the end of September (I think), so if anyone is up for a road trip, we can go see him "parade around in silly unifroms".

I'm looking forward to hearing all his anecdotes, including more information on a ten hour caving session that cadets had to abseil into. Apparently you wouldnt want to be claustrophobic - it took some of the boys up to half an hour to contort themselves through the tighter apertures in this cave. You can count me out, I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I have to get on a PLANE to get to Perth.