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Camp life and personal batmen

Heroes Remember

Camp life and personal batmen

We were in like in a tropical, or a semi-tropical climate and we had these different type, we all had these little steel push-in beds with these palliasse mats that we piled up on. It was a different system and style then what we're used to in Canada, and then we had mosquito nets over all, hanging down over all our beds on account of malaria from mosquitoes. It was different and it was really an eye opener for Canadian troops because you'd wake up, you wouldn't... you'd be sound asleep and first thing you know, there’s somebody shoving a shaving brush all over your face like that, about an hour before it was time for you to get up, and you'd jump and wonder what was going on there and here was some Chinese guy giving you a shave in bed and here your uniforms were pressed, your boots were all polished and it cost you about 20 cents a month for this stuff, you know. It was amazing to us guys, you know, how cheap and how free it was and to have, you know, a batman for every individual guy as you might put it. It was new and it was kind of hard for us to get on to it to start with because we were all brought up and trained and used to doing things for ourselves but it was quite unique, it was good.

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