He was a young American from Chicago, via South Vietnam. He was lean and clean and crew cut, and he was telling us about his experiences up there. Conditions were really rugged, he said. Charlie was unpredictable and vicious.

Addo asked him, “Who's Charlie?”

“VC,” he said.

"Oh well, I s'pose you have to be unpredictable and vicious to get a VC."

Peto said, “VC means Viet Cong, you mug. Septic Tanks don't get VCs. They get purple hearts.”

“Oh.” Addo said. “Must be all that ice-cream they eat. Sends their blood pressure up.”

The young bloke said that where he was stationed they didn't get much ice-cream. And nearly every night they got mortared.

Addo said, “Peto just gets bombed.”

Peto ignored this slander, and the young American looked puzzled.

Addo said, 'Anyway, what are you doing down here?'

“I came down on R an' R,” the Yank said.

“Never heard of it, mate. Is it a ship or a ‘plane?”

“R an' R.” Peto said, "means rest and recuperation.”

Addo said, “From what?”

"From the horrors of war.”

"Oh. You mean not enough ice-cream?”

“Could be,” Peto said. “I remember in New Guinea in ’42, we didn't get any ice-cream for a fortnight. We were real upset.”

“I believe New Guinea was pretty rugged, too,” the Yank said.

“Yeah,” Addo said. “Once, on the old Kokoda Track, we didn't get any soap powder for a week.”

“Heard about that,” Peto said. "But that was the ASC right through. You were in the Western Desert as well, weren’t you?”

“Was I in the Western Desert? Now look, Montgomery

says to me . . .”

"I know what he said to you. He said, ‘That man there. You, soldier. Good God man, that is not the purpose for which the tin hat was invented.’"

"Oh well,” Addo said. “I'm just naturally modest.”

The Yank asked, “What's a tin hat?”

“Now you take soap,” Peto said, ignoring him and sticking to the subject. “I’ll admit they did a good job with the water. I mean a pint of water per man per day for drinking, shaving and bathing, is plenty, when it's only a hundred an' twenty in the shade. But every day we got a cake of Cashmere Bouquet soap. And if there's one brand of soap I can't stand, it’s Cashmere Bouquet.”

"Yeah. Same thing happened to us with tomato sauce. For a whole month we're getting steak an' eggs for breakfast, an’ all they've got's Rosella tomato sauce. No PMU. No Rich Red Fountain. Just Rosella.'

I remember that. But it wasn't the tomato sauce I was crooked on. It was steak an' eggs every day, when a man's dying for a decent feed of M an' V, or Goldfish.”

“Or egg powder. Now you weren't with us that time we were up in Kukukuku country in New Guinea, were you?”

“No, I missed out on that.”

“Mate, you were lucky. We only got clean sheets every third day. Only every third day. In the Tropics. I mean, sheets get sweaty in the Tropics.”

"Tough. Where I was, around Wau, we were all right for sheets. But the beer. Now, a man goes out on patrol. A fighting patrol. You know what that means. When a man’s risking his life he deserves some amenities, right?”

“Right."

"So we've got these blokes in the middle with the eskies an' the ice, an' it comes smoko time. An' you know what they've got? Bulimba Gold Top. Nothing else. Every esky full of Bulimba Gold Top."

"Gee, mate, I didn't know you were with that mob. It wasn't always the ASC though. The top brass did some shocking things to us. Remember that time they decided we needed some R an' R, an' they flew us back to Australia for a week with our wives?”

"Yeah. In a fleet of Catalinas. Couldn't stand those Cats.”

“Too slow an' noisy.”

"Where did your mob go?”

“Brisbane."

“We — believe it or not — we were flown to Melbourne, an’ had to stay at Young an' Jackson's, lookin' at Chloe all the time. An' the whole town full of Septic Tanks eatin' all the bloody ice-cream.”

The young American said, 'My father was down here in Australia during World War Two.

“Was he?” Peto said. “Did he get a purple heart?”

“He got one some place.”

“Probably some Nine Div bloke shot him,” Addo said.

“You know,” the Yank said, “I think you two are putting me on.”

“Don't know what that means, mate. But whatever it is, we wouldn't dream of it, would we?”

And Peto said, “No. We're just applying a little traction to the pedal extremities.”

Serious-minded young visitors, with recent memories of modern warfare, should beware of this type of Aussie conversational etiket. It is practised extensively by old soldiers.

And Air Force types. And Navy bods.

John O'Grady — Aussie Etiket or doing things the Aussie way — 1971.....

=======================

She has graced magazine covers, had wine named after her and poems written to her. She has experienced fame and adoration and has won high acclaim from critics. Her career began, like the many models after her, in Paris. She was created and moulded by a Master.

She is a Melbourne icon, mascot for the HMAS Melbourne, an extremely fine work of art; she is an ingénue, a nymph, a celebrity. She is Chloe, the famous nude portrait which has graced the walls of the Young and Jackson Hotel since 1909.

Throughout her life, Chloe has kept company with artists, poets, wharfies, Prime Ministers and drunks, soldiers, sailors, celebrities, bushies, labourers and art connoisseurs. Her history involves transformation, death, intrigue, love, war, depression and passion.

Chloe now hangs in Chloe's Bar, so you can enjoy a drink or a meal while you admire this true Australian icon.

https://www.youngandjacksons.com.au/chloe

Chloé is an 1875 oil painting by French academic painter Jules Lefebvre. Measuring 260 cm by 139 cm, it depicts the naiad in "Mnasyle et Chloé",[1] a poem by the 18th-century French poet André Chénier.[2]

The painting hangs in the Young and Jackson Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, where it has been since 1909.[3] One of the most popular paintings on display in Melbourne, Chloé is considered an icon of the city, and was the mascot of the Royal Navy frigate HMAS Melbourne.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloé_(Lefebvre)

SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/36700

SEE ALSO: https://www.leonardodavinci.net/st-john-the-baptist.jsp#google_vignette

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.