What is a choco or chokko ?
This was a derogatory term given to the partly volunteer partly conscripted Militia by the all volunteer AIF in WW2. It was from the term ‘Chocolate Soldier’ which was to indicate a soldier with a ‘pretty’ uniform but no intention of doing any real soldiering. It was unfair, in many cases untrue and was hated by the men of the CMF, many of whom were unable to join the AIF for age or enlistment standards reasons but who were able to volunteer for or get conscripted into the CMF. Many CMF soldiers transferred to the AIF when age allowed them to, but they stayed with their existing unit. If the required percentage of men in a CMF unit volunteered for the AIF that unit was allowed to become an AIF unit. You could not join the AIF until you were 20, but you could be conscripted at age 18. While the whole thing might sound a bit petty looking back from 2002 in 1942 it was the cause of many a stoush.
