I admire the Australian soldier. Once I observed a soldier standing beside a troop of APCs, where most of the vehicles’ commanders had their heads stuck out. The soldier asked the officer inside the leading APC: ‘What’s it like riding around in one of them things all day, sir?’ The officer said: ‘You probably think it’s a lot of fun. Quite frankly, it’s bloody dangerous. Your head is stuck out of this thing like you’ll get it blown off at any minute, you could run over a mine, and you bruise your shoulders the whole time going over the paddy bunds.’ The kid’s taking it all in, and he says: ‘Yeah… Well, sir, it’s a fuckin’ sight better than a shirt.’ Sorry about the language, but it doesn’t tell the story without it.