By Nick Mazzarol
Introduction
For some time during my tour I was attached to 4 RAR/NZ
(ANZAC) and deployed on operations with that unit. One such
operation was the rather ambitiously named ‘Operation
Overlord’. This involved the Headquarters 1 Australian
Task Force (HQ 1ATF) moving forward from Nui Dat to occupy
the top of Courtenay Hill which overlooked the old French
rubber plantation of the same name. At the same time
we (Ken Mackenzie, Bob Martin, Mick Jauncey and Myself) were
part of a battalion heliborne insertion into an old Fire
Support Base (FSB) named Trish in the central northern area
of Phuoc Tuy. In June 1971, we relocated from FSB
Trish to Courtenay Hill when the HQ 1ATF returned to Nui
Dat.
As you would expect, our facilities were pretty basic.
For example, our latrine on Courtenay Hill consisted of some
holes in the ground surmounted by metal ‘thunder boxes’ and
surrounded with star pickets and a hessian ‘privacy screen’.
It was known as the ‘dump site’.
One day a grunt colleague of mine and I were taking our
constitutional at the same time. I recall we were
waxing eloquent about the futility of war and how good an
icy cold beer would be when suddenly there was an enormous
gust of wind. The gust was caused by an incoming CH-47
Chinook helicopter which landed on the pad a short distance
from us.
Needless to say the downdraft of the rotors blew the hessian
to buggery.
Doughnut Dollies
Suddenly, the back door of the chopper opened and a troupe
of Doughnut Dollies emerged singing and prancing around as
if they were in a kids’ playground.
So, as these perky, cheerleader type
girls came bubbling out of the Chinook, the first sight they
encountered was me and my mate sitting on thunderboxes with
our pants down around our ankles, taking a dump. I
don’t know who was more surprised.
We nonchalantly said “G’day girls” and we stood up to pull
our pants back on. However, I think the girls
misinterpreted this gesture because they disappeared,
red-faced, back in to the safety of the chopper, as if they
had just had an encounter with Satan himself. The
Chinook hastily departed our location but we laughed about
the incident for ages.
Our Yank colleagues were an unwitting and endless supply of
humour at times.
Author’s Note: ‘Doughnut
Dollies’ was the euphemism for girls from the American
United Services Organisation. They used to arrive in
US field locations and distribute donuts and play rather
childish games with American service personnel to ‘lift
their spirits’. Very few of the Yanks were interested
but the ‘entertainment value’ was provided by the ‘perve
factor’ as most of these girls were honeys. On this
occasion the chopper had mistakenly landed on Courtenay Hill
when they were actually meant to go to a US base called
Black Horse, a few kilometres to our north.
Regards
Nick
Mazzarol
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