Rowan Cahill interviewed for the documentary "Hell No We Won't Go"

Rowan Cahill’s birth date was drawn in the second call-up ballot in 1965. In 1966 he destroyed his call-up card and informed the authorities. A student at Sydney University, he was very active in the anti-war movement. He refused to attend several medical examinations. When the National Service Act’s penalty provisions were strengthened in 1968, he applied for conscientious objector status but this was not granted and he was assigned to non-combatant duties. He appealed the decision and was granted CO status in 1969, with assistance for legal costs from the Sydney University Committee on Conscience. He became a member of the Committee for the Rights of Servicemen and distributed literature at induction centres. Cahill was a member of the Board of The Australian Left Review published by the Communist party of Australia, worked for the Seamen’s Union of Australia as a journalist and later became a teacher in TAFES, prisons, etc. and ultimately worked as a part-time academic at the University of Wollongong. (Description provided by interviewer).