BALLOTED RETURNED SOLDIERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 169, 19 July 1941, Page 6

BALLOTED RETURNED SOLDIERS

y 1 ? nc] orse the action of the Vhangarei R.S.A. in requesting the lJominion executive to request the Government to exempt all returned a J rs L r, om the Territorial ballot? as a balloted returned soldier at present serving three months in a leiritorial camp, I am in a position to see how these men stand up to tne rigorous training at present being carried out by the Territorial forces. So far as first-line soldiers are concerned the returned soldiers at present in this camp, with one or two exceptions, are a complex washout. After a couple of clays training they are generally placed on some fatigue or other and kept in camp for the three months' period of their training, when obviously they should never be there at all and would be a great deal more use to the country in their civil occupations. -Men between the ages of 43 and years cannot be expected to foot it with the young bloods of 19 and 20 years of age. Further living in tents in mid-winter surrounded by anything up to 14 degrees of frost and fog, with blankets etc.. continually damp, are hardly conditions to be relished by young men let alone middle-aged returned soldiers who have already done their share.

EX-DIGGER.