PACIFIC IMPACTS. CHANGING KIWIS.

Dozerdust, Volume 2, Issue 2, 11 December 1943, Page 5

PACIFIC IMPACTS. CHANGING KIWIS.

(By

"Curly" Griffin)

"WE are looking to the Wharf Oper - ating Coy, to supply aw article for our Christmas issue - say we make Deo. 7th. the deadline " That was the first intimation that we had to supply an article and that I had to write it. I protested in — vain. Dozerdust usually gets what lit wants. So you will gather that this introductory chapter is a further protest and an apology to the reader which should throw all the blame where it belongs - to the Editor. ::: HE usually gets the articles which goes to show that I in common with most other members of the Unit have dcvel - opcdjwrc self confidence than we poosea on our arrival. And I think this is true of most Kiwis in the Pacific. Wo have been called upon to turn our hand to many differing jobs, thrown upon our own resources and toughened by military training that we are much more 1 sure of ourselves than we were twelve months ago. Chaps like Sgt. Wally Hobson • ( spare me Sarge ) and He c Mulholland ( no relation to the Farmers Union ) who spent most of thoir time behind shop counters have added not only to their vocabulary ( a considerable addition, ■. I might add ) but also to what happens . in the open spaces. Nod Sainsbury will be a different type of . bank clerk on his return and Civil Servants such as ” Short- Haired” ■ Richmond and myself will find tho Dept, irksome. ALL of us have been accustomed for so long to Army discipline that on our discharge wc will not know what to do with our freedom. We will want to use it for the sheer pleasure of telling the boss where he gets off. And l u dnnt think we will worry very meh what our friends say or think ; we have learnt that ths conventional ties of the suburb are not the beginning and end of everything as wc once did. WE have also learnt that N.Z, is much smaller than wc once thought it. In tho past it was 'the, centre of the Pacific - - there wore other islands, but they were just namop on tho map, not very important. They .are still unimportant, but .they have reduced N.Z. in perspective. The dometin > questions wo looked upon as so vital no logger scorn so: we sense that wo art digest as negligible in world affaiffli Ap the Kanakas who Shuffle aloftf feiQ roads.

This is emphasised, I think, by our meeting soldiers of Allied Services many of whom too, are cocksureof their nation’s greatness. This opportunity to compare our life with that of other mon makes ours stand out by comparison; got a Kiwi; hot under tho collar and you will soon find that all Kiwis are linked by a powerful and characteristic language; you will find he has all ths parochial loyalty of the family, the conviction that he can do anything as wall as if not better than most mon of any country. And surprising enough, ho justifies the claim. He doesn’t talk very much about what he can do, or who he is: he floes the job and takes for granted that ho should be able to. :: :FINALLY, there is this I’ve learnt : the Kiwi io < a matter of fact kind of guy wht the girls. If she<does not like him, he looses no sleep; if she does he compliments her on her common sense. it ii ti ii ii ii ti it n it