Granddad's brag Pix

[Peter Laidler]

Paul, we wore the RAEME badge on the left, raised side of our hat and the pugaree had a grey (8-RAR) band with the rising sun only on our right arm. On the left we had a light and dark blue badge with a Crown or something similar on it (or vice verca....). The crunchies/nashos/Battalion blokes wore the RAR badge where we had RAEME. In about 1968 or so, we went over to black berets. Our RSM was RSM LEE,

I wore my RAEME badge until I finally retired a year or so ago and nobody ever noticed the little extra 'A'. We all wore pom REME stable belts in the LAD workshops and my mum used buy them as required and send them over to me. She must have sent about 30 over and I promised to repay her but never seemed to get around to it. Maybe she's forgotten now!

Regards, Pete the Pom

[Paul S.]

Yeah, they put in alot of uniform changes about - I think, 10 years ago about the same time as the Army's 100th Ann. They brought back the flashes, moved the Regt./Corps badges from the side - where we had them (Post-WWII-'the change') - and put the Rising Sun badge back.

We also only wore the 'Australian Military Forces' Rising Sun shoulder patch outside of Oz. Remember that? This generation now wears the Australian Army shoulder patch you can see in the photos. Stable belts disappeared - seems like early or mid-80s (???), and we infantry lost our 'different from the rest of the mob' belt buckles along the way.

[whiterider]

great pics mate...you must be proud as..... :-)

[smle-man]

Great photos and a STRAC looking Trooper! She needs to know though, no smiling in the ranks!