Letter home from a Mayo Kid

mathias · 03-09-2006 6:31pm #1

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell big brothers Sean, Paddy
and Mick
that the Army is better than working on the farm -
tell them to get into the Army quick before the jobs
are all gone.

I was a bit slow in settling down at first, because
you don't get
outta bed until 6am. I like sleeping in now, but all
you do before
brekky is make your bed and shine your boots and clean
your
uniform. No cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed
to stack---nothing.

Men must shave, but its not so bad, coz there's hot
water and a
light to see what ya doing.

Breakfast has cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no
fillet steaks
or sausages. You don't get fed again until noon, and
by that time all the city boys are buggered because
we've been on a 'route march', just like walking to
the well in the meadow.

This will kill Sean and Paddy with laughter. I keep
getting medals
for shooting - dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a
bloody bull's
head and it doesn't move and its not firing back at
you like the
Johnsons did when our bull got their cow pregnant
before the
Ballina show. All you gotta do is make yourself
comfortable and hit the target - piece of piss. You
don't even load your own cartridges - they comes in
boxes and you don't have to steady yourself against
the rollbar of the tractor when you reload.

Then you gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta
be real
careful coz they break easy - it's not like fighting
with Sean, Paddy, Mick and all the other local fellas
all at once like we do.

Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like
I'm the best
the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this
guy from
Dublin - he's 6 foot 8 and 120 kilos and I'm 5 foot
six and 65 kilos, but I fought to the end.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get
in quick
before word gets around how good it is.

Your loving daughter,
Siobhan