This silent, secret scourge took hold in Cairo in 1914, and continued until 1919 when survivors of the war waited in Europe to be repatriated. Nobody wanted to know about it, at first and the general public back home was, of course, kept in the dark. Moralistic commanders in Egypt ordered strict punishments for men with VD, and the young victims were sent back to Australia in disgrace, most of them inventing amazing excuses for their inexplicable return. Many of them re-enlisted, but some felt they had to change their names to do so.