said she would go on a date with Merv.
“We went to Lowth’s Hotel for a drink
and just chatted,” Merv said.
Apparently, she was less than complimentary
about Merv’s character when his mates later asked
her how it went, but it didn’t get in the way of
true love and they married on December 13, 1975,
at St Margaret Mary’s school in Hyde Park.
He got his third stripe just after they
married, then a year later was promoted to
staff sergeant, which precipitated one of his
few postings away from Townsville - to the
Central Army Records Offi ce in Melbourne.
Anne, meanwhile, the fi rst woman to be
posted to an infantry battalion, fell victim to
a directive from the Army Chief of Staff (the
position later changing to Chief of Army)
ordering women out of infantry battalions.
Merv is very proud of the fact she was fi rst in and
the last out (in 1977) and even prouder that during
her time in the Battalion, competing against all
the men, she was twice singled out for promotion.
“And, in 1976, when she was swimming
against the men in the Battalion swimming
championships, she won two events before tiring
in the 800m swim to only fi nish second,” he
said, smiling even more broadly, and waving
his (half full) coff ee mug about for emphasis.
Merv decided even before he was promoted to
WO1 he had too much time ahead of him in his
career to stay at that rank forever and a day.
And he was given a little push when his position
at Army HQ was civilianised and his career
adviser could only off er him the prospect of a
job as a Quarter Master if he was prepared to
commission as a Prescribed Service Offi cer.
So his fi rst WO1 posting was as QM to Sydney,
at the University of New South Wales Regiment,
basically an offi cer-producing factory.
In 1986, having been QM for some time, he
was fi nally sent on a course to learn the job.
It was at Canungra and there were
two other warrant offi cers on the
course, with the rest being offi cers.
On his second last day there, he was the duty
student and one of his jobs in that role was
to march the company to PT and back.
“I was doing the RSM thing, ‘by the
left...’, ‘change direction, left’, ‘left
wheel’, that sort of thing,” Merv said.
On the way back, he again started bellowing
commands: “Change direction left”, then,
“Left wheel... left, left, left, right, left”.
“They started to turn on command, and
they kept turning,” Merv said .
And still they kept turning, until, before he
realised what was going on, they had looped right
around, picked him up and thrown him in the pool.
He got the nod of approval and was commissioned
with the rank of captain on January 1, 1988.
He was posted immediately as
quarter master to 2/4RAR.
Above - PTE Anne Reid at her desk at 2RAR
Left - Battalion Ball 1975
APRIL 2017 | 45