Ten years waiting: Ellis reflects on national service scheme

The stories of the men who never made it home from war still weigh heavily on David Ellis.

Having visited graves at Anzac Cove and Normandy, Ellis said the scale of loss is difficult to comprehend.

“They gave their lives and they didn’t ask to go,” Ellis said.

“The conscripts did not want to go war. They did not want to kill anybody. They have nightmares about it, they had their friends killed – awful things.

“When you go to the Australian rows at Anzac [Cove], it just shows you the brutality of it. It makes me cry.”

It is why Anzac Day remains so important to him. It is a time to remember those who served, whether by choice or not, and to ensure their stories are not lost.

Ellis himself did not choose to join the army.

Like hundreds of thousands of young men, he was called up under Australia’s post-war national service scheme in the 1950s, given little say in the matter.

“I learned a lot in the nashos,” Ellis said.

“We had 120 days of initial training. The first 60 days, we were taught how to fire things, how to shoot guns, how to pull them apart and put them back together. How to kill people basically – it’s awful.”

For a decade, he maintained his training, attending fortnightly sessions on Wednesday evenings, sometimes running as late as 10pm.

Each quarter he would head out on camp along the Great Ocean Road, refining his skills and preparing for the possibility of being called to active duty at any time.

The fear of being called into conflict never went away.

“We finished up with 320,000 of us trained,” he said. “We were on call for 10 years and at any time you could have been called up.

“It was always hanging over your head.”

But Ellis worked hard to earn respect and do his job well.

“I wasn’t a volunteer but I decided to make the best of it,” he said.

“After six weeks of basic training I got promoted – I was the youngest one there. I was made a lance corporal then and finished up a corporal.

“There were some who had the attitude they didn’t want to be there and mine was ‘I am here, I’ll make the best of it’ – and I did.”