I joined the Australian Army in 1990, far far away in a lifetime long long ago. Things have changed quite a lot since then. And not always for the better. I was only 17 and despite having spent a few years in the Army Cadets, this was the first time I was away from home for more than about 10 days.

I was living in Adelaide at the time, and after going through the enlistment ceremony, we were put on a train and shipped off to Kapooka, which is where basic training is undertaken just outside of the town of Wagga Wagga.

As I have told my family and friends over the years, arriving at Kapooka was quite a culture shock. We were bussed from the train station to the base, where we stopped at the front gate to let a Corporal (CPL) on board. The yelling started soon after that, and ended three months later when the training finished.

Kapooka was about as close to Hell on Earth as I’ve experienced in the last 20+ years, but it did teach me a lot about life in those 13 short weeks. A lot of what I learned back then is still with me today. Including my pyjamas.

You do a lot of seemingly mindless crap at Kapooka. “Character building” they call it. An excellent example is the layout of everyone’s locker. I will never forget the first time I walked into my room at Kapooka and seeing a photo on the wall of what our lockers had to look like – complete with measurements.

My memory’s a bit rusty now, but I’m pretty sure our handkerchiefs had to be 11cm x 11cm. Our white singlets were something like 12cm x 20cm. Our PJs were something like 20cm x 30cm. All of our socks had to have “happy faces”, and all of our coat hangers had to be equally spaced along the rod.

I’ve scoured Google for a picture of happy socks, but can’t find one, so I’ll try to explain it to you. Take one sock – any style, and length – and lay it down flat, sideways. Take it’s buddy and lay it on top. Starting at the toes, roll the socks all the way to the top, keeping it relatively tight. When you get to the top, take the top single “layer” of sock and fold it all the way back over the entire roll all the way around. Now turn the roll over to where you can see the backwards fold you’ve made – and manipulate it until it creates a slight upwards curve – like a smile!

ALL of our socks had to be “happy”…..or else! I sadly witnessed our Section Commander completely trash someone’s locker because their socks weren’t happy enough. How bloody funny is that? Well, let me tell you that it might sound funny here, but when you’re 17 years old and an angry CPL yells at your room mate and then throws EVERYTHING from their locker on to the floor – it ain’t so funny. I nearly poo’d myself! One day I even saw a CPL throw someone’s mattress out of the window – from the second floor!

Basic Training was long days and short nights. We never seemed to get enough sleep before the dreaded wake-up call came. There’s no pleasant wake up at Kapooka. At 0600h, the lights in the hallway come on and one of the CPL’s shouts “Hallway Four” (I was in 4 Platoon). You had to get out of bed and stand in the hallway next to your bedroom door – with your sheets over your shoulders. Sound odd?

The reason for sheets on your shoulders is to prove that you slept in your bed. Even crazier right? Maybe. But consider this: In the Army, it takes two people to make a bed. There is a specific way to do it, and if it’s done right – and ONLY if it’s done right – then a pen will bounce when dropped onto the bed. We had a counterpane with a Rising Sun embroidered on it, and the tip of the Rising Sun had to be one bayonet’s length from your pillow.

I mentioned my pyjamas earlier, and how I still have them. I have never worn them in my 21 years and they still have the original creases from my basic training. The winter pyjamas are primarily blue, with thin red and white stripes – plus the odd blue stripe just for fun. They had to be folded to exact measurements, and folded in such a way that both the shirt and pants sat on your shelf on top of each other – showing one single fold for the shirt and one single fold for the pants.

But that’s not all. All the stripes had to line up. And that meant that you couldn’t fold either the pants or shirt symmetrically, because the stripes were all off centre. When you got the folding right, you starched them to the point that they were like cardboard. It took me THREE DAYS to get my PJ’s right! Is it any wonder I have never worn them? Everytime our platoon did something wrong, our CPL threatened to make us wear our pyjamas in the shower and then have a room inspection.

Our daily routine consisted of morning ablutions – 15 minutes to shave, make your bed (and your room-mate’s) and get dressed. It sounds impossible, but after a couple of weeks we had it sorted. After breakfast, we trained until lunch. Drill, weapons, PT, navigation, and much much more. In the early days, we even had a lesson to teach us how to iron our uniforms.

After lunch, there was more training. Often, we would do PT after lunch which was torture. You work your butt off in basic training, so every chance you get to eat, you stuff your face. But imagine then going for a 10km run, or going over the obstacle course over and over. On the good days, we had a lesson that was more “administrative”. We got spend a bit of time with the Padre (chaplain), as well as having some lessons on entitlements and conditions of service. We LOVED those lessons, but it was SO hard to stay awake!

I got in trouble only once at Kapooka – and it wasn’t my fault. Another member of my platoon needed to use my iron, but my section was going to a lesson. I told him he could borrow it, but had to lock it back in my room. They had this process where you could lock the cord of your iron through the padlock on your locker – so that you didn’t have to put the hot iron in your locker.

When I got back from my lesson, the guy had just left my iron on the floor. I got disciplined for insecurity and forced to do one day’s “CSM’s”. This was named after the Company Sergeant Major, and involved doing an hour of drill with your pack on, followed by a VERYshort meal break. After dinner was another session of drill and then something else that I can’t remember. I think that after drill, the CSM chose a random uniform which we then had to go back and change into. Sounds easy, but it was far from fun.

STAY TUNED…

In Episode Two, you’ll hear how I swore at my Section Commander, out-drank my father and how we finished up our time at Kapooka.