I was serving in the Australian Armoured Corp in 1981 and did an exercise in Qld. where we acted as umpires. A Marine Amphibious Unit was to attack the central Qld coast.

A platoon got lost on day two advancing through the scrub (it seems only the lead Sgt reads a map). We found them after a couple of hours and radioed their position to the mother ships off shore. The soldiers had no food or water left.

What got chopered out to them ? Two pallets of Ice cream and Coke (only). Probably more lethal than no food and water in their condition.

The marines were very a very happy lot but not too bright. The white kids were all uber patriotic southerners and the black kids, neighbourhood types who would probably never have travelled without joining the marines.

We swapped head gear as their peaked caps were very suitable inside our M113's and they seemed to love our black berets.

That year we also did a 5 nations exercise.

1) The Singaporean national servicemen were very small in build. Mostly poor fishermen's sons who couldn't dodge national service. You could fit 14 in an M113. Their rations were dry fish and rice (no joke).

2) Malayan Rangers. These were really tough and mean mothers who were (and probably still are) fighting communist insurgents from the north. I would not like to F*#@ with them at all. It was Ramadan and despite being tactical fires would spring up after dark as they cooked their food.

3) New Zealand Infantry. We could only fit 8 in an M113 as they were mostly Maori extraction and huge in build. Two had to ride on top.

4) Poms. We had a Geordie unit with. We could not understand a thing when they spoke. It was the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Di while were we out bush and the Pom officers had a formal dinning in night (in the Aussie bush) with generators and TV's so they could watch the wedding. It was incongruous to watch the Ruperts in formal red mess kit watching the wedding in the bull dust while swatting mosquitoes.

5) Gurkhas. Very professional and real silent. They deserve their reputation. Their officers are all from the UK and after 6 months the Gurkhas get to vote if the officer gets to stay or not. It is professional death if they get voted home. They had come from Hong Kong and even at 20 deg Celsius they froze. We would RV at 06:00 and they would appear out of the sub-tropical jungle with beanies and scarves and every stitch of clothing on shivering with the cold.