Army bloakes

I have been doing the promo work at the uni this week and met a couple of guys who are in officer training for the Australian Army. We talk a lot throughout the day and it's been real interesting to hear what they have to say. They feel that Australia owes a lot to America starting with WW II. The Japs were coming to invade Oz and the American's helped the Aussies stop the Japs. Apparently, Australians are afraid of being invaded because they feel they cannot defend themselves so they want to remain good friends with the U.S. Some of the general public does not like the alliance because they feel America is to quick to send troops out. For this reason many people here don't like George W. Sometimes you get the vibe that they don't like American's but then you turn on the TV or open the paper and it's all about Americans. And then there's the girls who want you to keep talking to them cuz they love our accent. (I've had a few people recognize my accent as not only American, but Southern.) The army bloakes say that right now it's somewhat trendy to be "anti-American" but that it's only amongst the crowds who follow the trends.
The Army guys also talked about how laid back Australians are and that some people take this to mean they are lazy and not hard working. They said the average Aussie now works longer hours than Americans. When I asked how long they work, he responed with 50 hours a week. I had to tell him that I was working minimum 50 hours/ week at my job and I don't think its uncommon to work that much or even more.
We also discussed the Prime Minister's receant statement about acting as an Australian while in Australia. He spoke out against primarily the Muslims in the country who want to bring their own culture, religion, and laws to Oz. The PM said if they can't be Australian they may loose their visa. The guys said that Australians don't really care if it seems to be racist because they are tired of some internationals causing problems here (like the riots in Cronulla).
Anyway, we talked about all kinds of other things but I want go in to any more details.