What Happened to Returning Australian Soldiers after WWI...

What was expected of soldiers on their return to Australia after WWI and WWII? How did soldiers respond to these expectations? The process of repatriation of servicemen who had fought in the First and Second World War was uneasy, as these men returned to a society that had undergone great transformations. The responses to the socially accepted standards of behaviour were widely variable, however this essay will aim to demonstrate some of the ways that returned soldiers negotiated the transformed social milieu that they had returned home too. This essay aims to also explore how expectations placed upon returned soldiers was shaped by the influence of pre-war gender roles as well as the emergence of the culturally mythology of the†¦show more content†¦Thus soldiers used the ANZAC mythology to ignite guilt within the public consciousness. An example of this was the story of the ‘Man in the Bath.’ Published in 1924 in the Sydney Morning Herald the piece depicted the eulogy of Trooper Rolph. The odd placement of the eulogy within mainstream new content demonstrates an active attempt, on b ehalf of the soldier writing the piece to bring the consciousness of service men’s suffering to the forefront of public discussion. The piece was written by a fellow solider and the article tells the horrific story of the soldier who was ‘flayed alive by barbarous Huns’’. These lines play on the ANZAC myth of the Australian for example the brave Australian hero battling a vicious enemy. The article details Rolph’s return home, as a result of gas poisoning, suffered inflictions that caused daily suffering until in the years leading up to his death. The article written by one of Trooper Rolph’s fellow servicemen uses the graphic imagery of Rolph’s physical afflictions, such as ‘his skin peeled off and refused to grow back’ to elicit concern and a guilty conscious of the public. The discourse relating to veterans suffering is one means soldiers used their role as a powerful symbol to attack the bureaucratic system. Garton argues that this