EFFIE BATEMAN | Brisbane | CONTACT
Though he loves his grandsons quite dearly, a Betoota Grove local reckons they wouldn’t last five minutes in a war – which is an odd thing to vocalise during a family get together.
Richard Bradford-Morgan, 77, had been attempting to roughhouse one of his daughter’s toddlers with a few head noogies when understandably, the child began to cry.
Perhaps bereft of any form of affection himself, Richard was quick to admonish his daughter for consoling the wailing child, adding that ‘mollycoddling couldn’t be good for him.’
“These kids would be useless in the war. Bloody all mummy’s boys now.”
“Back in my day real men died to save their country. What do they have now? Facebook and spray on pants? No wonder the sperm count is lower.”
Despite these claims, Richard himself never fought in a war, having been born in a family rich enough to afford a doctor’s ‘special fee’, or in Richard’s case, a sudden onslaught of ‘acute pancreatitis.’
His idyllic visions of brotherhood in arms stem only from the countless Tom Clancy novels he’s read but this hasn’t stopped him from romanticising the atrocities of war, or associating military service with manliness.
Though he too could have been victim to conscription had he not been born with a double-barrel surname, he of course, fully supports conscription should it be up for referendum again.
During World War I, full conscription in Australia was attempted but quickly abolished when put to the public, resulting in two plebiscites voting against young men fighting overseas, choosing instead to station soldiers on the mainland.
Full conscription was, however, successfully introduced during the peak of WW2, and again in 1964 under the national service scheme, where ‘birthday ballots’ sealed the fate of thousands of men unlucky enough to win the world’s shittiest lottery.
Those who did have their birthday called could choose to conscientiously object under the grounds of religion, which was notoriously hard to prove or prove themselves medically unfit for drafting.
Rather than risk prison by outwardly resisting conscription, men from affluent families easily found ways to avoid being drafted, resulting in poor people, as usual, dying to line the pockets of greedy men.
More to come.
