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Letter home from a Mayo Kid

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  • 03-09-2006 7:31pm
    #1
    mathias
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,174 ✭✭✭


    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


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