We lived in tents, called the lines, and when there we were allowed to sit or even lie down. Such luxuries were not permitted anywhere else in the camp. Around were two obstacle course, two firing ranges, a replica of an all-purpose native village for urban operations, and a lot of hills and jungle for getting lost in. The heat was especially oppressive here, and more so because of the remarkable humidity that had in turn created their precious jungle. You did six weeks at Canuangra, and they were a very long six weeks indeed.

The Virgin Soldiers by Leslie Thomas went another stride toward capturing the truth about warfare. A bunch of recruits in Malaya are mostly concerned about getting their rocks off until the Terrorists’ attack and take their minds off sex for a while. It’s an old army joke about the primary effects of copping a ‘third eye’. It captured all the foul-mouthed vulgarity of army life, but clean missed on the confusion that Heller observed in Catch 22. Still, it wasn't a bad go at delineating the madness of war.
    This was a book I thought I needed to read but I was wrong. I knew it all already. I was off to a war and would get killed for sure, and worst of all, die a virgin. It just wasn’t fair.
    They made a movie which was the closest thing ever done to my military experience, in training at least. Hywell Bennett starred as my sort of soldier, i.e., a civilian with a gun, very slack, always in trouble, never able to take any part of it seriously. Vietnam, however, was quite a different story.