In his wartime account of the Australian Army’s operations in New Guinea, the journalist Alan Dawes insisted that the ‘volunteer fighting services … in a conscript world are Australia’s proudest boast’.Written in 1943, his account typified the importance that Australian society placed on volunteers at the time.This, and an attachment to ‘citizen’ soldiering, were the two defining attitudes towards military service before and during the Second World War. While the Australian Militia exemplified the latter trait, it was not the nation’s ‘boast’ because it partly comprised conscripted men. Among its various features, the presence of conscripts and an association with the more general notion of conscription influenced perceptions of the Militia more than anything else.