Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:24 pm
Wow what a life you've lived so far. Truly amazing! My husband and I have alot of friends that are marines or served as a marine before injuries incurred during missions. I have a tremendous repsect for those who serve in the military. My husband for the time being is working as a contractor for the navy/marine intranet as a nework techy. my husband and I have always wanted to live in Aussie land.quikstrike98 wrote:Sara, I was in Oz back in '97. I'll copy 'n' paste a brief story of my adventures down there, which I wrote up recently for the benefit of an Aussie on a military affairs forum which I help moderate, who inquired as to my experiences Down Under. Apologies for references to places of which you may have no knowledge:SarawithouttheH wrote:quikstrike98 wrote:
Oh dear Lord, Snow White plays video games?
Be still my foolish heart...Pant...Pant.....okay I had to go through all 69 (
69
) pages to find out about the whole "snow white" thing. nancymakuhari nice pic! Okay now I feel half way in the loop skimming through all the pages. By the way quikstrike98... how was Australia? Were you there for military? My lil family might be moving there.
I was out in April/May of '97; we flew into Sydney, connected to Brissy. Then a bus drive up the coast to Rocky. Spent a few days there prepping LAV's we got off the MPSRON (In shite shape too, another story for another thread), and almost drowned in the rain--a cyclone was off the north coast. Drove up the coast to Camp Growl, spent maybe a week & a half up there. When it came time to rotate back to the rear, we had two vehicles deadlined. Another Marine and I were detailed to spend the night after our units returned to the rear, and ride shotgun on the civilian flatboys which came out the next day to bring the veh's back to Gladstone for return to the MPS. Rode 8 hours or so shotgun with a mad Aussie truck driver, who made a stopover in the Rocky suburbs so we could have tea with a lady friend of his--with his flatboy parked at her curb with my LAV loaded on it, and me being rather smelly in oil-soaked CVC suit and no shower for a couple days.....she was quite the gracious host. Arriving in Gladstone, the other Marine who'd ridden shotgun on the other flatboy came up to me and urgently informed me that we needed to get the Hell out of Dodge--our mission as briefed had been, drop off the LAV's, get showered up, go out on the piss in Gladstone, and catch a US Mil shuttle up to Rocky the next morning; our rear-party was going to clean the deadlined LAV's after we'd already returned to the States. Instead, there was some CWO4 who was insisting that he and I alone, were going to clean both these LAVs for turn in. So much for going out on the piss in Gladstone. So, I turned in my LAV, got some minion of the temporarily absent CWO4 to sign for the pig, and my counterpart and I started walking. To Rocky. It's a long way to walk. Fortunately, we passed by my truck driver a short way outside of the American enclave, and he asked me where the heck we were going. We told him we were getting the Hell out of of Gladstone by hook or by crook, and he went on the CB, and asked if there were any truckers headed north to Rocky who wanted to give a ride to some Yank Marines. He then gave us a ride to the other side of town where another mad Aussie trucker picked us up, and dropped us near the encampment up in Rocky. Quite the adventure, got to see a lot of Australian scenery, meet a lot of interesting characters, and some incredibly gorgeous chicks! We got a 72 hour liberty in Brissy too...be glad you missed the platoon's drunken rendition of "Okie From Muskogee" in a Brisbane Karaoke bar....
Wish I had the money to go back. *sigh*
Oh yeah, on the trip back up to Rocky from Gladstone, we made a pitstop in some one-horse town, the woman who ran the store had a pic of a drop-dead gorgeous girl on the counter--her daughter--and proceeded to try to marry her off to me. If only I'd been able to stay a couple days...
You'll love the Aussies. They're great people, they're fun, loud, boisterous, a bit vulgar, and just a hoot to be around. I truly envy you your possible residence down there. It's a paradise for a single Yank, but I'd have loved to go down there with my wife and her kids.
Right now they have work visa's open there. Not 100% if we will move there in the near future or wait until law school is done. Hopefully in the not too off future 
oh...I didn't know. I feel like a jerk......
He told me I was the only one!