mr mover

You B/m will probably understand,this more so than any one ,having been in oz, and seen how life works here [city&country ] when i was 16 i left high school, and went to work for a fencing contractor, on Moonera station. W.A side of the nullabor, i learnt more about life,and being a man , from this exprience than any thing else i could have done. i remember asking the boss one day , what should i do , if i get bit by a Dugite[nasty little snake], his reply was, "put your head between , your knees " i then asked why , the reply was "so you can kiss yer arse good bye", that brought about the realisation that this bloke was not joking ,and first aid was 50miles away over rough terrain, and by the time the flying docter got there, i would have karked it......makes a kid smarten up real quick, these people lived with this every day, and dwelling on it would only send you mad ,so they got on with life. later on i worked on oil rigs in the Cooper basin, sth AUST ,you meet some real down to earth people in this industry, like the truckies who drive ,hundereds of miles across ,desert at night ,just so you can get your supplys in. 16 yr old kids driving ,bulldozers and graders, making the pads for the rigs to sit on, one kid from Queens land had never been to school,never wore shoes , yet was the nicest kid i ever had the pleasure of meeting ,best D9 driver i ever seen as well. The kids i see walking around the streets of town {adelaide]today, all seem like clones they all dress and look the same. The young guys we get at work ,even though they are phsysically capable of doing the work .seem mentialy fragile , the old saying "when the going gets tough! the tough get going" today when the going gets tough they just "bugga off" go back down the dole queue. prehaps its, my age group which have made it too easy for them, but i really feel for what is happening,are we creating a generation of LOSERS. ?? ....ok i have finished my rant ,so all the social apologist's and P/C people can jump on me now...... MM

bondipom

I hate the term battler. It seems to glorify mediocity and underperformance. I find it patronising and shackle on Australia.

tennisoz

Pardon my ignorance but what is CFT and BFT? I've only just worked out what LOL is

TennisOz

WBB

it's an army thing, they have abbreviations for everything.

b.f.t = basic fitness test

c.f.t. = combat fitness test

tennisoz

Thanks WBB

TennisOz

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BFT - piece of piss - a 3 mile run, the timing and organisation of which used to vary a bit depending on what sort of unit you were in - and may now have been codified and standardised.

CFT- used to be 8 miles in full "combat equipment gear" as civvies would probaly call it (makes it sound like a "paintball" exercise, eh?)

We never did CFTs. Ours was a fair bit longer, AND we had less time to do it in. ;-)

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