Welfare Vehicles

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I may be wrong but I have never heard any Welfare Officer called other than that as a third party reference but more commonly Fred Smith. It could be qualified by "the YMCA/Salvation Army/Red Cross Welfare Officer" You would use the terms in a situation like this: "Take this box over to the Welfare Officer" or more likely " the YMCA bloke" and on arrival, Private Jones would say "Fred I have this box for you".

The Salvos were rarely sometimes referred to in formal written instructions by their Salvation Army rank but once again I never heard them addressed during personal contact by soldiers of any rank other than Fred Smith.

I think any welfare officer referring to himself as "Supervisor" or in the Salvos case "Major" would be pretty short of customers in the Australian Army. The social pygmies and there are a few in the mix usually struggle through because they have something the soldiers want but they are either the butt of jokes or lead lonely lives on the edge of the group.

Most military-attached Welfare people are popular because of their high social skills and personalities. I think they are special people in general who can maintain their personal high moral and social standards without preaching or judging the soldiers, many of whom have not attended Finishing School and have morals not encouraged by good Christian folk.


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