On another occasion he was a
member of a four-man patrol sent out
to observe and set up an ambush after
the OC observed lights in the area,
but it didn’t result in any contact.
Merv was thinking – we ambush
the enemy moving at night and
here we are doing the same thing.
He vividly remembers December
2, 1972, when Prime Minister Gough
Whitlam cancelled national conscription.
“I was the Battalion’s movements clerk
and, when I had fi nished the leave plan
for the Christmas period and arranged
everybody’s movements, I asked to
go on leave early and it was approved
by the chief clerk,” Merv said.
He went on leave and that day, National
Service was cancelled with immediate
eff ect and the resulting rush for the exit
decimated Army, including 2RAR.
“Our Battalion, which numbered
about 800 went down to 200 personnel
almost overnight,” he said.
As a result, some battalions were later
linked - 2RAR and 4RAR included.
Merv was drafted into the offi ce
set up to co-ordinate the process
of linking the two battalions.
The black lanyard representing 2RAR
44 | APRIL 2017
was joined side by side with a scarlet
4RAR lanyard and stitched together.
The Battalion paraded, everybody
removed their 2 or 4 RAR lanyard,
shrugged on the double lanyard
and marched over to their new
lines, roughly where 3Bde HQ is
now - Geckos is in the building that
was the 2/4RAR Offi cers’ Mess.
Morale was high, and pride in
the new “linked” battalion was as
strong as it had been before it was
linked, Merv said, with a string of
stellar command teams to its name.
The Battalion worked hard, going
bush often in the name of training, but,
for at least fi ve years after returning
from Vietnam, those trips never
included Merv, now a corporal.
“As a clerk, I didn’t get
to go bush,” he said.
“I didn’t even get to go to a range.”
Of course, Army changed that
state of aff airs... but, typically, only
did so immediately after he had
changed his status to “married”.
Many years later, as a Defence
public servant, Merv watched with
a wry smile as the modern infantry
Battalions had to adjust to “girls in the
ranks”, remembering he had married
the fi rst female posted to an infantry
battalion - PTE Anne Reid 2/4RAR.
But he had a head start on his peers
- they were already an “item” when
she was asked to bring her typing
skills to Battalion HQ in 1975.
They met through work, although
the courtship wasn’t completely
straightforward, at least not intially.
Merv had been sent to Puckapunyal
to do his chief clerk’s course and
on a bus trip to Mt Buller, he and
his mates managed to engage some
service girls in conversation.
Merv befriended two of them and
corresponded with one for a while
“until she went and got married”.
Then, still looking for love to develop
from the trip to Mt Buller, he asked
the Battalion postie, “Jacko”, for help.
In a scene that could have been straight
from the television series, MASH, Jacko
assured Merv he was friends with “all
the girls who were down there” and
yes, he was sure he could get Merv a
date with his former pen pal’s friend.
Jacko rang PTE Reid (probably, if
truth be known, the only girl from
the group he had met), and she