Rex Kirkham
Rex Kirkham joined the National Service at Kelvin Grove in 1951 and retains a keen interest in the area’s military history. He has written extensively about his experiences and meets regularly with friends and colleagues he met through National Service.
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Transcript
History Matters
History is very important, because I feel that we owe it to the ones who’ve gone before us, because they actually had the much tougher times than we did. My first introduction to the army was into the National Service training, which was brought into Australia in 1951. We were 18. We were virtually at that stage much younger 18s than they are today—we just never had the same amount of freedom or we were very much under the influence of our parents. National Service training was actually a marvellous scheme because it gave us the discipline and it taught us the warfare, but it also gave you the ability to grow up much quicker. It did change your life too, because it was an area that you hadn’t realised existed. And to be treated as an equal by superior people to get the best out of you, and so you realised you actually had to share and think of the other person much much more and build up friendships and trust. And this is what they did and they did it very successfully. We were lucky. We didn’t have to fight, but we were prepared to fight. And there was, on three occasions, threats came in the world that put us on an alert. National Service was only a short time in the history of Australia, but it certainly gave us the greater emphasis on being an Australian and pride in your country, and to do the best that you can for your country.