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      ‘Me too, bye.’

      The boys were excited. All the girls were stunners, not just Sarah. It became a race for first shower and stealing the best aftershave, which happened to belong to Joshua. By the time Joshua came to use the bottle it was half-empty.

      Dressed in their best boardshorts and t-shirts, all wearing healthy amounts of Calvin Klein ‘Obsession Night’, they caught the lift up to the seventh floor and found apartment 72. Joshua rang the bell. Emma, who had been on the beach with Sarah, answered the door. She looked awesome.

      ‘Hi guys come on in.’

      Entering the apartment and waving to the other girls preparing drinks and food in the kitchen, the boys all suddenly felt quite shy, not the confident young men of fifteen minutes ago.

      Once they all had a drink in their hands their trepidation quickly eased. Conversation flowed and well before midnight everyone seemed to have paired up. Joshua and Sarah were the first to slip away into one of the bedrooms. Other couples took their lead and before long the bedrooms of both apartments were occupied.

      The rest of schoolies week was taken up by sun, surf, and sex.

      Feeling a Little Piste

      Chapter 5

      2015 - Winter

      Cameron and Joshua had settled into university life; enjoying both their courses and their social life.

      The two friends had decided to rent a unit close to Melbourne University; they found suitable digs in the nearby suburb of Flemington. To help pay the rent they both found part time jobs, Joshua in a bottle shop, Cameron in a call centre.

      Both students were keen snowboarders, travelling to the snow at

      every opportunity.

      The snow season in Victoria was proving to be one of the best ever. Snow had been falling since the middle of June and by the end of July it was possible to ski in sections not usually available.

      The two young men were having a beer on the balcony of their Melbourne unit despite the temperature hovering around freezing.

      ‘Hey Josh, when do you think we can stay in your parent’s lodge? I’m hanging out for a bit of snowboarding.’

      ‘Dunno mate, they’re up there most weekends. Who can blame them? I’ll give Dad a call tonight and check it out.’

      Joshua phoned his parents and discovered the lodge was available the following weekend. His folks were more than happy for the two friends to stay. They decided to make it a long weekend away as both students only had one lecture on Friday morning.

      On Thursday afternoon they set out on the five-hour drive to Falls Creek, arriving at the lodge by 8.30pm.

      The boys didn’t unpack, they headed straight for the ‘High Plains Bar’ to enjoy some schnapps and hopefully meet a few girls.

      Although the bar was crowded with young snow-bunnies, alas they both went home alone.

      Next morning they woke and peered out of the lodge’s full-length windows, it was snowing steadily. They gulped down some breakfast cereal and drank a hot chocolate before setting out on what looked to be an awesome day for snowboarding.

      Despite the early hour, the chairlift queue was quite long but fifteen minutes later the boys were making their way to the top of the mountain.

      Cameron and Joshua headed off down the run the snow was good but not powder as there were too many skiers and snowboarders for completely perfect conditions. After their first few runs the slopes were even more crowded.

      ‘Hey Josh what do you think about going off-piste?’

      ‘Yeah I was thinking the same thing.’

      ‘I reckon we do the Maze, it’s supposed to be awesome.’

      ‘OK let’s do it’ said Cameron.

      The experienced snowboarders again rode the chairlift up but instead of taking the black run they boarded under the chairlift and over to fresh snow country.

      Here the snow was powder. With no beginners to stuff up their runs they had a ball going over small jumps and screaming down the mountain.

      Josh was particularly enjoying the thrill of sliding up embankments and jumping natural mounds in the snow. Gum trees were starting to appear above the snowline as they boarded further downhill.

      Taking a particularly high jump, Josh lost control landing on the base of a large gum tree. Although wearing a helmet, he hit the side of his neck, hard and lay still in the snow. Cameron was two hundred metres behind and when he came upon his best friend, Josh wasn’t breathing. Cameron quickly began CPR and after a few minutes detected a faint heartbeat.

      He was in two minds; if he left his mate and sought help would Josh be dead when he arrived back with the medics? But if he stayed with Josh and continued CPR, how would he get them both down the mountain?

      Deciding to go for help, it took him twenty minutes to reach the village. Medics raced up the mountain on snowmobiles accompanied by Cameron, their guide to Joshua’s location.

      Snow had been falling constantly making it difficult for Cameron to find the tree. Finally they reached Joshua, now almost covered in snow. The medics checked his heartbeat and although very faint Joshua was still alive. He was stretchered down the mountain to the medical clinic where they attempted several methods to increase his heartbeat. After sixty minutes of trying the doctor proclaimed Joshua dead.

      He was only eighteen.

      The Difference Being…

      Chapter 6

      Joshua died doing something he loved; he wasn’t shot by an enemy bullet or ripped apart by shellfire. His generation and the fact he lived in Australia provided every opportunity for Josh to live a full and happy life. It was fate that he died on the slopes of Falls Creek.

      This book is about war, yet it’s not a novel about enemies fighting to the death or examining the strategies of battles. This book is about young boys some as young as eight fighting killing and being killed.

      The first six chapters follow the lives of two normal happy teenagers attending school playing sport and learning about girls.

      Joshua dies at the age of sixteen in a snowboarding accident.

      The contrast between the experiences of Cameron and Joshua and the other boys in this book is stark. Teenage years are some of the most precious times of our existence when innocence and bravado are taken away at such a young age it is tragic, like Harry Jordan.

      “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

       Socrates 450BC

      Teenage years should be spent attending school and learning so that a career can be forged in the later years a time for playing sport and socialising with the opposite sex. According to UNICEF 300,000 children are engaged in war today. They are not learning mathematics or science but learning how to be ruthless killing machines. This is a catastrophe that must be addressed by the governments of this world.

      Billions of dollars are spent annually on research to alleviate aids, measles, malaria and other diseases that are devastating the earth’s children yet very little being done to minimise the loss of children’s lives in war.

      The stories that follow in Boys Own War will sadden you, shock you and hopefully inspire you.

      They’re in the Army Now

      Chapter 7

      London 1914

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