I was only 19 (1983)
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1. Mum and Dad and Denny saw
the passing out
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parade
at Puckapunyal,
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it
was a long march from cadets.
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The sixth battalion was the
next to tour
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and
it was me to drew the card,
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we
did Canungra and Shoalwater
before we left.
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And Townsville lined the
footpath as we marched down to the quay,
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this
clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean.
F#m
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And there’s me in my
slouch-hat with my SLR and greens,
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God help me, I was only
nineteen.
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2. From Vung Tau riding Chinooks to the dust
at Nui Dat,
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I’d been in and out of choppers now for
months.
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But we made our tents a home,
V.B. and pinups on the lockers,
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and
an Asian orange sunset through the scrub.
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And can you tell me, doctor,
why I still can’t get to sleep,
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and
night time’s just a jungle dark and a barking M 16.
F#m
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And what’s this rash that
comes and goes,
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can
you tell me what it means ?
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God help me - - - I was only
nineteen.
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3. A four week operation, when each step can mean
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your
last one on two legs, it was a war within yourself.
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But you wouldn’
let your mates down till they had you dusted off,
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so
you closed your eyes and thought about something else.
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Then someone yelled out “contact!”,
and the bloke behind me swore,
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we
hooked in there for hours, then a godalmighty roar.
F#m
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Frankie kicked a mine the day
that mankind kicked the moon,
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God help me - - - he was going
home in June.
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4. I can still see Frankie drinking tinnies in
the Grand Hotel,
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on a
thirty-six hour rec leave in Vung
Tau.
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And I can still hear Frankie
lying screaming in the jungle,
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till
the morphine came and killed the bloody row.
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And the Anzac legends didn’t
mention mud and blood and tears,
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and the
stories that my father told me never seemed quite real.
F#m
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I caught some pieces in my
back that I didn’t even feel,
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God help me - - - I was only
nineteen.
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And can you tell me, doctor,
why I still can’t get to sleep,
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and
why the channel seven chopper chills me to my feet ?
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And what’s this rash that
comes and goes,
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can
you tell me what it means ?
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God help me - - - I was only
nineteen.
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(Redgum)