Foreword
No one could possibly know the feelings I felt, after my father handed me a telegram informing me that I had been conscripted into the British army to do two years national service. I couldn’t think straight for days after I got this bloody telegram. Why I thought didn’t I get it when I was 18 years of age, like all the other guys that were eligible for conscription. No, they had to wait until I was a married man with my wife over five Months pregnant to call me up.
As far as I was concerned I had no choice but to report for the medical examination within those six weeks. The telegram made sure of that. It clearly stated that I would be given six weeks to decide to go in to the British army, or I would be deported back to Ireland.”
My wife and I had just returned to London after celebrating two weeks holidays in Ireland. We had spent one week in my father’s house in Limerick City, and the second week in my wife Noreen’s house in a place called Cahirhayes in Abbeyfeale County Limerick.
We were madly in love with one another and looked forward to making a happy home for ourselves in London, when suddenly my father handed me the telegram. It just knocked me for six, and to make matters worse, my wife Noreen couldn’t stop crying at the thoughts of me leaving her to go into the army.
As a result of that telegram, I decided to write about my experiences as a two-year national service man conscripted into one of the fastest marching infantry regiments in the British army. The regiment I was assigned to serve in was called the 1st Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles. The home base of the regiment was in Saint Patrick’s Barrack, Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
