Being a proud former member of the Royal Australian Regiment, I went to the Remembrance Day ceremony today at the RAR Memorial Walk. The ceremony went along the normal sort of lines, there was a Catafalque Party from the 8th/9th Battalion, the 6th Battalion were all there, there were some speeches, some wreaths were laid, The Last Post was played, a minute of silence, and then Reveille. It was pretty standard, except for the speech from a member of the RAR Association who is a Vietnam Veteran. In the interest of brevity and coherence, both attributes the speaker sorely lacked, I’ll paraphrase in point form the speech that was made.
• Despite knowing about this speaking engagement for some weeks, I just penned a couple of ideas last night on the back of a beer coaster.
• War is bad m’kay. War will always happen while there are men with testosterone in charge of things (I shit you not, he actually said that)
• I was too poorly educated to know what I was getting myself in for when I went to Vietnam. I couldn’t even point it out on a map until it was pointed out for me on the ship on the way over. Even then I wasn’t really that interested.
• I am now a big fan of learning about history. I hate reading though, so I watch documentaries. I don’t have Pay TV, so I don’t get the History Channel, or National Geographic or Discovery, but I still watch whatever is on free-to-air, usually the ABC.
• I saw a good documentary the other night. It was about WWI (finally, are we approaching a point?). When Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith was in Germany (WTF?!) flying against the Germans, he didn’t know what he was fighting for.
• Then there was a British family and there were three boys and…….(A long story that had nothing to do with Australia at all followed. He rambled on for some time with no real discernable point, except that he tried to make out that “this is where we come from”.)
• I saw some of the current generation of soldiers once. They were from 2 RAR. They were smoking! One of them looked like my old Platoon Commander.
• I don’t agree with where you are serving or what you are doing, but you are doing a good job at it.
This bloke stood in front of a battalion of serving Australian infantrymen, with a collective operational resume that includes Somalia, Rwanda, Bougainville, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan, and made a weak political point about their service, At the same time, he managed to make a Remembrance Day speech that rambled vaguely about WWI, but generally talked about himself and his own experiences.
This is what really annoys me about certain elements of the Vietnam Veteran Community. Somehow, it all comes back to them. Whatever the topic, the conversation will inevitably come back to Vietnam. Not all Vietnam Vets suffer from the same blinkered view, but those that do spoil the reputation of the rest.
I can understand that if a soldier has only ever served on one operation, or in only one theatre, that their whole military experience is shaped by that particular set of circumstances. Every operation and every theatre is different. You can’t template every war from now until the end of time on Vietnam. I spent the first half of my military career exposed to that mindset. Things changed very quickly when it became apparent that the world had changed since the early seventies, and we needed to evolve - very quickly. A narrow breadth of experience does not excuse a closed minded view. It certainly does not excuse the tendency to anchor a whole personality to a single experience forty years ago, as terrible as that may have been.
Just after the first rotation had returned from East Timor, I went to an RSL for ANZAC Day with a bloke from 5/7 RAR who had only just come home. He had only been in Australia for such a short time that he hadn’t even been issued his medals for East Timor. All he had was an Infantry Combat Badge (ICB) that he proudly wore to his first ANZAC Day as a returned serviceman. As the afternoon wore on, and he had been heartily congratulated by a number of WWII Vets who had certainly learned their lesson about how to treat younger generations of soldiers, he was approached by a Vietnam Veteran. “What do you think you’re doing wearing that?” he was asked by a bloke tapping his ICB. “It’s all I’ve got at the moment” he replied, “we haven’t been issued our medals yet”. Then followed a long tirade about how East Timor wasn’t a real war, and that he’d assaulted bunker systems with no tank support and my mate had only been giving rice to villagers (not the actual term used to describe Asian people, but I don’t need to go into that). How dare this little upstart turn up on ANZAC Day wearing an ICB when he didn’t know what a real war was?
I would have thought that after the fairly atrocious treatment that soldiers returning from Vietnam received not only from the usual suspects on the left, but also from the WWII Veterans in organisations like the RSL, that Vietnam Veterans would be more accepting of the fact that all wars are different. All have their own challenges, dangers, restrictions, and indeed rewards. Judging someone else’s service against their own is exactly what the WWII Vets did to them. Using someone else’s service to make a political point is also what the left did to them when they got home.
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8 comments:
Perhaps your problem with Vietnam Veterans is that the war we were involved in doesn't fit your romantic stereotype of soldiering. It's too untidy - and had an unsatisfactory ending. (The Gallipoli campaign also had an unsatisfactory outcome).
This is hardly a fitting post on Remembrance Day, when the nation pays collective homage to all service personnel (including Vietnam Veterans).
Ultimately, the fact that they died in the service of all of us is of far greater significance than the rationale for the conflict.
I would have thought you'd have the generosity of spirit to point that out somewhere in your post.
You’ll note that I specifically excluded from what I said Vietnam Veterans who don’t suffer from that sort of blinkered view. I didn’t name names, but if the hat fits......
I don’t have a problem with all Vietnam Veterans. The ones that do irritate me do so not because of the nature or outcome of the conflict, but because of their behaviour now. As I mentioned in the post, and have discussed with you before, the first half of my career was spent re-fighting the Vietnam War. As a young soldier we would hang off every story from the veterans of that conflict, because they had been there and done that. There was no more current or recent corporate knowledge than that. We revered them for that. They could tell us how fighting was done because there was nothing more up-do-date than that. That has changed. The crowd attending the service were mostly from the 6th Battalion. Most of them have been to Iraq at least once, a significant proportion have been to Afghanistan, and East Timor as well. There were also a smattering of Bougainville, Solomon Islands and assorted UN deployments included as well. It should be noted that often only the most junior soldiers or those who have been particularly unlucky with posting cycles have only deployed once. That is not to say that they have discarded their respect for the achievements of their forebears in Vietnam. Quite the contrary, 6 RAR in particular holds Vietnam in special reverence. The reasons for that should be painfully obvious.
Remembrance Day is about honouring the fallen from all wars and conflicts. It is less about paying homage to all servicemen than ANZAC Day is. The focus is on remembering the sacrifice of those who didn’t come home. If you want to talk about generosity of spirit, how about starting with the joker today who made the speech. When he should have been talking about the fallen from all wars, even the fallen from his own conflict, he just talked about himself. The only reference he made to any other conflict was to make some rambling, irrelevant, and factually incorrect statements about WWI and tell a battalion due to redeploy in less than 12 months that he disagreed with where and why they were going. How is that for a fitting thing to say on 11 November?
It's the shoulder chips that some carry that their service was somehow in a theatre worse than anything anyone is serving in now.
Well, the danger is still there. You can still be killed.
You can be killed just by the equipment you use to practise for war, or peacekeeping.
17, I suspect you know nothing about Mr Sharpe's experience or service. Perhaps you should accept that he has a valid opinion.
I read his post and did not find it "disrespectful" at all.
Richard
I read your post before scribbling anything about what I did today. If I had gone with you and listened to that bloke, I probably would have written something even more unflattering. It's hard to keep your mind on the significance of the day when a Wally stands up and buggers it for everyone concerned.
Teach, you need to just relax here. It's Richard's blog, and he is actually allowed to post what he chooses, whether you like it or not.
I would find it offensive, also, were I to attend a Remembrance Day service and have the speaker bleat about how ignorant he was and also that he didn't approve of the role of the military I'd probably be a bit more blunt about this.
For the record, no, I've never served, but my dad spent 21 years in Sigs, including a year in Vietnam, and he was not one of those who disparaged their time there.
He never complained about missing his daughter's first birthday, or losing a year of his life.
He didn't bitch about an unsatisfactory war.
He didn't say much about it at all, actually.
He also didn't join those Viet Vets who are happy whinge about how poorly they were treated so rort the system by getting themselves a TPI.
Soldiers are men, but on days like today, we remember that they are men who are so much more than we civilians are.
Even those who disparage their service and whine about how hard life was when they were there, like this speaker appears to have done.
"He also didn't join those Viet Vets who are happy (sic) whinge about how poorly they were treated so rort the system by getting themselves a TPI."
So those who are incapacitated (Vietnam Veterans or not) are rorting the system?
Care to join me at a pub of your choice to explain that little gem to a few TPIs of my acquaintance?
Does the fact that I'm still working for a living and not on any kind of pension absolve me from your obvious contempt of veterans?
"Teach, you need to just relax here. It's Richard's blog, and he is actually allowed to post what he chooses, whether you like it or not."
And readers are allowed to comment. - unless you see the free flow of ideas and opinions as a threat. I would have thought that this is one of the values that veterans fought for.
Sharpie, I am seriously disappointed that the RAR Memorial Walk "powers that be"chose an incompetent/ illiterate speechmaker on this most important occasion.
There is a group of dedicated volunteers who maintain the surrounds, and this group includes some legendary old soldiers, well noted for their ability to speak in public. It is a damned shame that the speaker was not chosen more carefully, or that he failed to take the time and effort to prepare himself. I recommend that you send a copy of your post to the Qld RAR Association. Might prevent future blunders of this type.
Despite living in WA, I have visited the Walk twice, and find it a wonderful comtemplative and respectful memorial to the fallen soldiers of the Regiment.
Teach, there are ratbags in all groups of people, and the Vietnam Vets are no exceptions.
With regards to those who rort the system, don't expect me to name names. Ain't going to happen. Whether I agree with their action or not, this is where the cone of silence descends.
As for others I know of, my dad was a Vet, and he was on a partial disability. He never spoke much about it, but he was honest to a fault so when it was suggested by a group of his mates that he go for a TPI because he deserved it, and the government treats the diggers like crap so get what you can, he was upset enough to tell me about it.
He wasn't totally incapacitated so he didn't go for gold.
I can't name names on this one, as my dad passed on a year and a half ago, but this was something that really got his goat.
There are always people who rort the system, whatever system, and it makes it difficult for those like my uncle who is incapacitated due to his service, and took years of struggle to get his TPI.
That's a whole other rant, and not for today.
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