Ned Kelly – The Original Iron Man.

I have had ancestors in most major skirmishes that have happened in history....
Not quite sure what that says about them?...
Hero or Gullible?...
My stint was Falklands era and AWACS systems, 'Lec Teck A/R, electric technician air radar, it started off that I fixed the bloody things when they broke, more ground based than anything, was a general "Gofor", I went around searching for parts, got involved with what would now be called Logistics, and ended up as supplies....
As in, I hid in the cupboard and when anyone came in the room, I jumped out and shouted "SUPPLIES"....
They got the joke eventually.
This is why I an now Transport based... it started off me trundling from one parts shed to another in a landy of questionable parentage, as it it was nick-named Bar-Steward every time it refused to start?...
Which is where a common phrase came fro, after several fails, a fiend was seen under the hood, and a string of Bar-Steward Bar-Steward Bar-Steward Bar-Steward Bar-Steward later, someone was heard to remark that he sounded like someone trying to kick-start a wet sea-lion....

Strange that, here we are,(Were) a bunch of highly skilled electric technicians, but we never DID get the wiring fault on the landy sorted?...
But I then got to go for the BIG parts in a small 7.5, and I liked it.
Yes we did have people I could phone and ask to send things over, 'cept it was always "Maybe tuesday next week", it was much quicker to go fetch it myself?...

Back to armourments, the "Tradition" of wearing certain uniforms, yes, in later battle, strange things got worn, but that was more Identity than usefulness, that brigade ALWAYS wore that particular item?...

My Granddad, after turning up late to a parade, nearly started a tradition of having a Bulrush in his Buzby , 'cept by the third occasion it was quashed.... something about the number of them going missing from the lake in Windsor....

He was born in Australia, but at at time when many of the settlers would have included people who had fathers, and Grandfathers that may have been at Waterloo, even some older men may have been there themselves. He was born in 1854, 41 years after Waterloo, 3,years after the state of Victoria became a Colony.

But I am not arguing about wether Ned Kelly or the Police knew about armour, just mentioning that Armour was in use on European Battlefields later than 230 years before the events of 1880.

From what I remember from my history class there were NO reporters on the scene at the time of the shootout between the Kelly Gang & the Police, & that they (the press) were given all the information about the story from the Police who'd been involved & were NOT allowed to speak to Ned Kelly to gain his 'side' of the story. Unlike today press back then didn't travel to & report directly from the scene of the crime. & the modern concept of 'free press' didn't exist back then, the authorities in colonial Australia weren't to keen over all on the press & did their best to control what information the public received. The press often had to wait & received their 'information' about events like this from the authorities - often several days after the events had happened, &/or from 'witness' who'd been there at the time. Again this would often take place several days after the events had happened giving them (the 'witnesses') time to embellish their 'stories' in the hopes of being paid by the press for their 'help' &/or getting their names in the paper.

just fill in the appropriate wars to customize it to suit.
(actually, Napoleon is the only commander we have reports of ancestry fighting directly under - the other wars are correct, but we don't have units or commanders handy - though my grandfather says he was mostly driving a garbage truck for the Navy in the Philippines - close enough to have air raids but not so close as to be directly in combat.

ah, good point.