Controversial topic particularly given recent coverage of ptsd and suicides by former soldiers.
No matter what industry you work in, safe work (and post work care if injured) should not be questioned.
What are OzBargainers views on the attention generally given to veterans matters, particularly given conscription is no longer a thing.
WWI and WWII Get nothing but my total respect and everything I have and I am.
Korea and Vietnam to Stop the commies to a lesser extent as they wouldn't have made it anyway.
Current Middle East stuff, i respect them.
When i watch the Anzac parade on telly and hear the last post i get emotional.
Soldiering is a job, and an important one from time to time.
It has a high rate of injury including mental injuries.
We should make sure people who need help get it, but I don’t think the American idea of giving military veterans preferential service is a good idea.
Rather, we should ensure that no veterans miss out on needed help by ensuring all members of our community don’t miss out.
Letting the board aircraft first and other nonsense is patronising and embarrassing.
How good is the Morrison government!!
Farmers and veterans are an inconvenience for the Libs
They are all self fulfilling scum, whats your point?
If there was conscription that would be one thing, but there isnt.
Coming from a family that has history of military service and police service. Whenever I meet a person whom has served in any high stress job whether its military, police, paramedic I always try to be thank them for their service. Working in IT earning double is far easier. But saying thanks is a nice small way of giving back and I personally think its a thing that the American public does right. Plus its free! A small compliment to someone can make there day!
The sentiment (and recognition) its good, but it is untruthful to state "saying thanks" is any form of "giving back". Many people do this, and blog about it on social media, and get some fake recognition and validation. I despise such behaviours. Yet, it's certainly not the hell experienced by veterans when they came back from Vietnam and the public spat on them in the airport. But words are free. I know there are actual veterans out there in need of assistance, and helping them with their health or wealth, is some form of "giving back".
PS: I'm not against the military, they are a necessary evil. But they shouldn't be worshipped nor vilified, unless their actions demanded it.
Few servicemen these days experience actual battle conditions and many support personnel like to pretend they are trench digging warriors. Most are clerks, cooks, storemen, technicians, etc… They use the term "served" which is a farce. Most work regular hours like their civilian counterparts and are paid extremely well. You can look up their rates of pay on the net.
The people that fight the worst battles these days are the paramedics and police.
Suicide of ex military personnel receives a lot of publicity but the reality is that it is happening to people from all occupations these days on an equal basis.
Came here looking for a bargain, found a bunch of assholes.
Do you seriously believe the government should say (profanity) you to anyone with PTSD or suicides?
Did you read his post? He said he belives that they are similar rates to similar non military service industrys. I dont have the information to make a non speculative argument on this, either way i dont understand why we would even debate it. If people need help we should either give it or shoot them dead. And im not a fan of shooting people 😂
Yes, I read his post, the poll results, and the comments from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
I was thinking the same thing. Would be interesting if the poll results and/or comments could be correlated with nationality/background. I'd say there's a lot of more recent "Australians" who couldn't give a toss, and a large number who's loyalties don't lie with Australia in the first place.
You are right, special forces do the dirty work, it’s mostly guerilla warfare now and attacks on targets are increasingly just performed with dropping bombs from drones
Police. Lol.
How many years did you do and what corps were you in? I served in RASigs and never deployed (no wars on at the time). In the 90's I remember a guy that was killed in my unit in peacetime and another 2 that took their own lives either in the lines or during brigade stand-down. I remember an episode in Shoalwater Bay where a young 24 year old guy fell off a retrans site on Mt Townshend at 3am and was left practically a vegetable. I knew a couple of the SF guys that died in the Blackhawk crash, one of my soldiers was left partially blind from a vehicle rollover where the batteries in the FFR Landrover leaked in the crash and battery acid got in his eyes, would have been blind if the Corporal didnt pour half a jerrycan of water on him in the wreckage. Also remember an accident where a Pay Corps soldier was shot in the chest with a pistol and killed immediately on the range and a couple of guys getting killed with a grenade accident on the grenade assault course. It didnt seem like a regular civilian job at 3am in the CP when we were trying to get a Medevac to the guy that had fallen off the retrans site and was lying on a ledge.
Thank you for your service.
Years ago on an Army promotion course I caught up with some friends that were in the first batch of people to come back from East Timor. I had a beer with a friend who was in the Ordnance Corps (warehouse, stores and supplies). A rear areas supply person, not Infantry so probably the type of person you are referring to. The Infantry had gone through, cleared the area and were on the border keeping the bad guys away. The local village had been the site of an atrocity where the milita had murdered a bunch of locals including women and children and had thrown the bodies down the village well to poison the water supply. My friend had to organise 'work parties' from the local support units to remove the week old decaying bodies of women and kids from down in the village well. People were literally told to put down whatever else they were doing and get down the well to pull out the decaying bodies of kids. No specialist training, no special equipment, just roll up your sleeves and work it out. I think the selection process was literally each unit provide a couple of people, any random person got grabbed and sent along to the work party. Nobody checked what corps they were in.
I understand that the decaying corpses weren't shooting at them but i imagine this would have been a pretty devastating job for a 19 year old storeman grabbed at random 15 mins earlier. Put down that clipboard and get over there to pull that dead 6 year old out of a well along with his dead mother etc. I wasnt there, the story is second hand but I've no reason to doubt it. I can understand if some of those kids from the work party had problems later on.
Reading some comments above the 'there isn't conscription anymore'; I wondered when did it stop?
If I read the following correctly, forced service of types (National Service Scheme) was still happening until 1972.
https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/conscription
.
Thats right, but here we are talking about post conscription veteran’s issues. Particularly those raised from first gulf war, second gulf war and more recent deployments to Afghanistan.
The way our sycophant in chief Scomo is trying to cosy up to the veterans makes me rage.
Yeah. Like that pudding of a man would stand up to anything.
Australian governments doesn't care about veterans. If anything, they dedicate most of effort to making a profit off the military.
They dedicated half a billion towards upgrading a war memorial with the latest war toys. Also see pollies that were in defence now work for private military companies. Ie pyne
The RSL clubs with pokies take advantage of the poor veterans and communities, and they get away with it for many decades.
They have chaplains. Got to convert some vulnerable people to white man religion.
They used to test nuclear bombs on their own military and they heavily censored Darwin bombing disaster. There's medical experiments too at least in USA because the government can. They even love this propaganda character called Captain America to make it look cool. If you do not support troops allowed to disobey orders, YOU are sending them to die like this or to a lifetime of suffering.
There's more. For Australian governments, they pick: It’s a job they chose to do voluntarily - they earned a wage/salary for that job
White man religion? I'm offended.
The RSL are a disgrace
How can the government make a profit off the military? They dont rent them out to other governments as mercenaries. They have chaplains but they dont push religion, cetainly not in the Army anyway. the unit Padre' as they call them is normally a pretty good guy that most soldier see as a safe person outside the chain of command that they can talk to. You are looking for conspiracies that dont exist.
The first link is about a politician looking to move into a defence Industry job after he is finished in politics. There are strict rules about 'conflict of Interest' but that's not the government making a profit on the military, that's an individual seeking a job post-politics. Wgat's he meant to do if he needs to keep working to have enough money to live? I am a former Army officer and I work in the defence Industry. I kind of have to, it's all I know, I'd never get a job or I would have to start all over again if I moved into another industry. There are companies happy to pay me to work for them using the skills and experience I acquired working for the military. This is no different to a building company hiring a former dept of Infrastructure person or a company that makes fire fighting gear hiring a former fire fighter to help them build fire engines. If you spend 15 years in a particular career its difficult to start all over somewhere new, particularly if there are people offering you good jobs that allow you to use your skills and experience. You cant be concerned about Veteran suicides whilst in the same breath say they shouldnt be able to get jobs after they leave the military (even though Pyne wasnt a soldier, he was a politician).
The second link is for donations to the War Museum in canberra. Operative word here being 'Museum'. That's not a government profiting from the military, that's a not for profit organisation seeking donations from industry. That's no different to Westpac donating money to a charity. I think big Defence Primes SHOULD donate some of their profits to Defence charities and not-for-profits. This is corporate philanthropy, not profits.
The youtube clip is so bad I dont even know how to comment. factually inaccurate, naive, and a poor attempt at being funny. Frankly i'm ashamed to have watched it. Sometime in the next 10 years some submarines are going to be welded together in Adelaide. We will need those submarines in the years to come to confront China threatening the APAC shipping lanes. Hopefully they wont ever need to be used but their presence and the threat they pose will protect Australia's sovereignty. They need to be welded together by somebody, why shouldnt those somebodys be Sth Australian kids? Why would we subsidise French Apprentices when we could be growing careers for Australian Apprentices. If we dont have a domestic defence Industry we wont be able to make, support and maintain whatever gear we send our future kids off to war with. I could go into a whole range of stuff about global competitiveness, the importance of a strong domestic market, the need for foreign orders to support economies of scale and the attractiveness of High tech manufacturing vs low tech mass manufacturing for the type of skills and capabilities Australia has but I suspect it will be wasted here. Suffice to say, most everything in that video is garbage, the numbers might be right (I havent checked) and it probably feeds the sheeple who believe in conspiracies and I suspect they are it's target audience. Was it produced by the Greens?
The RSL clubs with pokies take advantage of the poor veterans and communities, and they get away with it for many decades.
From first hand experience several RSLs very reluctantly had to take on pokies just to survive.
Many refused to do so. Most of those had to close their doors.
Kind of reminds me of walking into a catholic club out west. There was a picture of JP2 and right behind it looked like Vegas.
I understand Aust policy of basically fighting whatever front to appease the US is the only insurance IF Aust under direct attack the US will hopefully save our A$$ .
I respect those who fight for that insurance because ultimately if we don't have that we could not defend ourselves without that alliance .
All and more should be done for those suffering mental illness on defending this front .
since the yanks just stabbed their main allies in the back - the ones who defeated isis in their own back yard - if you think the yanks are to be trusted then would think again.
the yanks just gave Syria to Russia - yep by presidential order - never seen anything like it in my life - a yank president giving Russia a country .. defend us is seriously questionable now…
… yes, but Trump won’t always be Commader n Cheif. Normality will return.
Trump pulled out of Syria leaving it to Turkey (aka NATO) but NATO is brain dead as Putin knows.
No he left it to Russia - Russian tanks are now stationed at the border with turkey because putin (who elected trump) is best buds with Erdogan.
There were no russian forces in that area previously.
And the reason why Nato is destabilized is because America has made clear its lack of commitment to any treaty with anyone.
Petry is right. This isn't the first time the US has turned its back on its Allies. Lets not forget they aided Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, when he was using chemical weapons against the Iranians and Kurds. Also, I don't think it's realistic to think any country would bother invading us. We're one of the largest countries on Earth, on the other side of the world and an island. To invade would be a monumental effort. If you think they won't sell us down the river, you're delusional. The US is an imperialist nation, and owes its success due to it, electing someone who isn't Trump isn't going to fundamentally change that. Even if someone like Sanders wins the presidency, he won't be able to eliminate US imperialism in its entirety.
That actually is their normality. The recent overthrown governments were mostly American allies once before.
I'm not educated enough on the matter, so I don't know how good our current care is. While they do earn a wage, they're doing a job that means seeing and experiencing some of the least desirable aspects of life for the interests of the government. So the least the government can do is make sure any aftermath from those experiences is taken care of.
I don't think it should bleed into culture like America though.
I think somewhere in the middle of the 2 options. Its a job, but its not just an ordinary job like working in administration. They put their lives on the line and witness traumatic things. They should be supported in trying to reintegrate back into society once their service is up and be assisted in any mental ways required, but not praised like gods like they do in America
I’m quite surprised by the votes.
Ultimately, the question we have to ask ourselves is, would you be willing to do it?
As a soldier, you’re not given the option of saying you don’t like an order, or you don’t want to close with, and engage with an opponent. You’re given orders, and you obey them. It’s the entire principle of chain of command. For instance, saying servicewomen and servicemen shouldn’t be given compensation because they fought ‘unpopular’ wars. Just imagine if a soldier could simply choose not to serve somewhere because it was too hot over there? The entire military apparatus would be pointless, and totally unreliable.
These folks don’t get to decide if they’re injured, or killed. They don’t get to choose if they see their mates blown up, or shot. They don’t get to choose who, or when, or where they fight. They serve. It’s that way so that if an aggressive foreign power threatens the interest of our nation we have people who will defend us, no matter what. That’s the point.
Would we have this ridiculous attitude of ‘they chose to do it’ if we were talking about soldiers wounded fighting the Japanese in their invasion of the South Pacific, or Papua New Guniea, or Darwin? Of course not. But for some reason people think it’s okay to say ‘they volunteered’ because our women, and men were injured in what might be seen as ‘unpopular’ wars. The whole point is that these folks don’t know where they will serve, but they did decide to defend, and serve our country.
So, if you’re not willing to enlist, and be potentially sent anywhere, to defend our country, even if that means you fight insurmountable odds, then who are any of us to decide that these people don’t deserve care, or long-term treatment?
If you want to see how different a country can be in only a few years just look back on the history of the world. Years can mean the difference between empires existing, and not existing, or countries being overrun. This is why we have a military, so that we can defend ourselves.
Perhaps it was summed up best in A Few Good Men, ‘We have softball games and marching bands. They work at a place where you have to wear camouflage or you might get shot!’ So, if you work as a plumber, or an accountant, or a cleaner, or a delivery driver or any other civilian role you can think of in a very safe country, and you don’t have to wear camouflage because someone isn’t actively trying to kill you, maybe step back and think that there are people who are working in places where people are actively trying to kill them, but even so they still do it, because ‘they chose to serve’. The least we can do is make sure when they come home they don’t want to kill themselves.
Personally I think you’ve bought into the myth of military service. It’s a job they chose to do imo.
That being said, if their job caused trauma, absolutely they should be cared for, just like any other worker should be cared for if injured at work.
I also believe some veterans had no idea what the realities were of what they were signing up for. I remember when I was 17, the army came to our school to talk about career choices. Be a mechanic or a cook or a engineer - travel, mateship, tax free pay. It was all very appealing.
If I'm working as a plumber and I'm having an off day, or my boss is being a dick, I can just leave, or I can just quit. If I'm a soldier overseas in a combat zone and I just can't be bothered I'm putting other people's lives at risk, and people could get killed. I have an obligation to do what I said I'd do because people's lives are at risk. I'm also able to just pack up and leave, and go home.
My great grandfather was an ambulance bearer in World War One. The kinds of horrific shit he would have seen is something I can't even imagine. I don't believe he was just doing a job. But, if the people overseas are just doing a job, so was he.
I think you've touched on the reality of the problem when you said "I also believe some veterans had no idea what the realities were of what they were signing up for", this is true, many (most?) who sign up for service in any of the 3 services are largely unaware of what the are getting into and also not prepared for what they experience.
The other big issue is the lack of support (especially in the past) for veterans when they have returned, PTSD wasn't even recognised for years, was largely known as Shell Shock and there was no treatment.
It's a real throw away statement, but unless you've been there and done it, comparing a serving member to any other job is largely insulting to those that went and did it.
Apart from those that were manipulated (clever marketing to basically kids), I do think people need to take some responsibility for their life decisions. I mean, what do you expect will be asked of you when you join?
There are plenty of necessary jobs in society that are just as arduous physically and/or mentally, but we don’t put them on a pedestal. I think we’re heading down the American path of glorifying soldiers. Do they deserve any more respect than anyone else? In my opinion no. And I say that having done my 12 months compulsory service.
That said, I think every worker deserves support if they have suffered as a result of their job. This is where we fail not only veterans, but a lot of workers.
How many years did you serve Pedro? You seem think you know a lot about service life, which units were you posted to? Did you deploy?
I understand from your quite reasonable post earlier the position you post from. I certainly do believe the mechanisms of discharge are quite lacking, for many of the reasons you mentioned. I did my compulsory military service overseas. I never served voluntarily nor in a warzone but did do a two month deployment in I guess you could call it a peace keeping mission but really it felt like a formality.
Your points would be valid if our military limited its actions to purely defending this country.
I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread so far, but have you thought that there would be less mental suffering and suicide if our country didn't engage in offensive wars at the behest of the USA? What do you think happens to soldiers who (eventually) realise that they aren't defending their country? What do you think goes through their mind when they realise that war is a racket? How do you think they feel when they or their friends get injured to protect some foreign gas pipelines or oil fields? How about when they realise they're fighting against the "terrorists" that their military masters helped create? What happens when they realise they've killed innocent people based on bad "intelligence"?
It's the soldiers with morality and human decency that end up suffering the most mentally - either through their own personal demons and guilt or from mistreatment from those who have been blinded by war propaganda. The soldiers with psychopathic qualities and who are best-suited to military service don't suffer in the same way. The best way to treat our soldiers would be to stop engaging in offensive wars.
I think it's important to recognise that there needs to be a delineation between political processes, and the military. Certainly, if society has a grievance of where, and how our military is being utilised, then it must be addressed through our system of democracy.
The issues you raised are important to discuss but they can't be the determining factor of whether soldiers receive adequate post-war treatment.
Fair enough. I just feel like it's more effective to deal with the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms. The poll discussion has been framed in such a way that it's akin to asking how many band-aids to treat a bullet wound.
@kahn: I agree, as a society, we should be discussing why our soldiers are being put into these horrible situations, and as you so correctly say, address the cause of why these people are ending up with PTSD, and doing everything we can to avoid it as much as possible in the future.
This so this,
How can any person live with themselves knowing their killed in these profit wars, they got sold a lie. With over a reported 70% civilian causality rate, how can anyone other than the psychopaths deal with this?
If you've got some spare time, there's an excellent recent YouTube video (26 minutes) by Jimmy Dore that shows his disgust with the US military and the cunning methods used to entice desperate people to join the army. At 13:15, US veteran Mike Prysner gives a powerful and moving speech that I consider mandatory viewing.
@kahn: Thanks for that, will watch when I get home.
A friend of a friend who served in Iraq had PTSD and was disillusioned with the military. He provided support for Navy operations, basically what he did was support for weapons deals and shipments conducted on Navy frigates.
Interesting thing he said, "USA is just a business", if you look at their actions through that lens, then their actions (and lack on actions strategically) fueling endless wars makes sense.
@Bid Sniper: Yeah, something like 21 trillion USD unaccounted-for and a huge number of complaints within the Pentagon of which only a miniscule amount actually get resolved. It is simply a racket.
"War is a racket"
Everyone should read that book.
I never deployed, I served 15 years in the 80's and 90's and early 00's. I never went to war. I carry injuries and I know lots of veterans from my era that never deployed that are injured, mentally scarred and a few that have taken their own lives. I remember soldiers taking their own lives whilst I was serving. Without demeaning the trauma of PTSD, there are more injuries that service-people suffer than just experiencing traumatic battlefield events. I'm not saying PTSD isnt serious or needs treating just that there are many more injuries than simply PTSD. The worst thing I had to do in the military was, as an area duty officer, pickup the unit Padre and go around to a families house late one evening in the early 90's to let them know their 19 year old daughter had been killed driving home on leave from her interstate posting. I still remember the look on the mothers face when she answered the door at midnight to see 2 Army officers in Service Dress, one of whom was obviously a Padre (religious chaplain) and a young Lieutenant (me). This was around 1992-93 ish. I still remember the look on that mum's face and the tears to this day. I had never even seen her daughter I was just on duty that night when the Noticas (notification that kicks off a process) came through. I also remember the Corporal that worked for me who put a shotgun in his mouth and took his own life when his girlfriend dumped him because he was going overseas on a posting. None of this was even when a war was on.
I never experienced combat so I cant talk from experience about that but I know that most veterans I talk to are more damaged by the process of leaving the military. You go from having a purpose, from being a key integral member of a high functioning team with real life and death decisions to make and genuine importance to being an unemployed waster potentially with the stroke of a pen. The feeling of isolation from the support mechanisms you've grown up with, the loss of sense of purpose and the instant removal from the well ordered machine that you've come to understand, the rules you've lived by and the ordered world you've adapted to essentially just being unemployed. Veterans are upset by this, not because they want to be treated specially but because discharge from the military is an administrative process that seems to damage so many people. It is controlled by public servants, why cant they change the process to get better outcomes. I personally think the discharge process and the Dept of Veterans Affairs handling of veterans kills more vets than comnbat trauma. once again, no offence to combat vets but there are loads of vets who never saw combat who are struggling.
To inject some humour into a serious subject - veterans sometimes join gangs and become bikies. So they get to service the ozbargain community by settling neighbour disputes and administer justice to people committing insurance fraud.
@kahn: Correct - in fact, many motorcycle groups (both outlaw and law abiding) were formed from (rightly so) disgruntled ex soliders (Vietnam era).
'Sprayed and betrayed'
They were originally law abiding, believed in the system, 'do the right thing' folk - who then did a 180 when they came back after being done over.
maybe u should add in aid worker or medic in a yank war zone - all of whom in the last few years have become legitimate targets for allied strikes….
There was the famous US air strike in Afghanistan on the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders where dozens of innocent people were killed. The hospital's location was known all along, it wasn't some secret operation, and yet it still got targeted for several minutes. Simply horrific.
American gunship with heavy cannon pounded that place by agreement with local forces - no action taken by yanks afterwards. The ozzie nurse saw it first hand - the yanks burnt patients to death in their beds and blew doctors and nurses to pieces ala Rambo.
@petry: I love that they’ve come up with a term to downplay when they kill innocent civilians:
Opponents: War Crimes
US/Allies: Collateral Damage
https://recognition.dva.gov.au/how-veterans-can-apply-inform…
Might have something attractive on the deal front for the lads with this card :)
I don't think most of Australia's military excursions overseas are a good idea and I detest military culture, but Australia does have a duty of care to provide support for soldiers who come back with PTSD and the like. All of the soldiers I have talked to (mostly American) who have seen action for any significant length of time have all seen some (profanity) up shit, including having knife fights with civs in the street, fratricide incidents etc.
I don't think most of Australia's military excursions overseas are a good idea
I don't really know anything about this topic but I thought we were doing this to support the US, because we'd need them if ever we were to be invaded / to prevent anyone from nuking us.
Invasions seem to have dropped off a bit in recent years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasions
Although, some would argue that the USA, China and Russia are behind a few of those.
I'm not convinced that Australia has any specific resources that another country would invade for; we seem to be happy to sell off our resources to foreign interests without the need for any messy invasion / defence events.
For nuclear attacks, the top end may be within range of a potential adversary but, again, not sure why they would do that to this country.
aauustralia is a racist country, with racist politians and policies still covertly following a white immigration policy - with a foreign policy based on disrespecting our neighbours.
To offset that we cosy up to America - the worlds biggest bully - to cover our arse.
playground antics costing us billions
the reality is Australia is too big with too little population to be defensible from anyone capable of launching an attack. All the US would do is jump up and down and maybe some sanctions as any country with the military might to attack us the US cannot afford a war with.
I feel like most people who commit suicide are beyond the subsidized help we can give them anyway. We already have subsidized therapy on Medicare (10 sessions a year I think), plus Lifeline and a range of other government initiatives. This is open to everyone. Those who commit suicide usually knew help was avaliable if they asked for it but were too proud, skeptical, or just didn't want it. It's hard to help them.
Similarly and unfortunately, those who buy V8s and don't go past 4000 RPM are also beyond help.
I've found all those mental help services are not promoted enough. Hardly anyone except the educated few know about them.
When I was having some personal issues. One of my friends was the one to inform me about services such as Relationships SA and free Psych visits. Without them I would be continuing to suffer in silence.
Things like RUOK day are a good start. But alot of the time the interpretation is that you should be talking to your friends about it, and the movement doesn't seem to mention or incentivize contacting the services that are qualified to deliver this kind of treatment. Often friends are absolutely not the best people to help you.
I'm happy that veterans get some perks (tax, pension, HCC etc) and I think they could get more support especially for mental health issues. However I'm even more happy that we do not worship them with nationalistic pride that elevates them to some hypocritical god like status.
Answer will depend on whether you think they are serving the country and defending your freedoms and other patriotic stuff OR war is just a business and they are simply disposable pawms.
They should receive health care much like rest of society but more on mental health considering what they are going through.
I was considering joining when I was younger. Glad I didn't. I believe in protecting human life, but these days idiot US policy, you're basically a mercenary in a for profit wars. I can see why solders would come back depressed, its one thing to fight to fight for to protect but its very different in today's pointless wars.
If government was serious about protecting their solders they would think long and hard about their deployment, need clear objective, goals and exit strategy. Not war by twitter….
or cover up Australian troop war crimes - maybe keeping thumbs in your fridge for parties is a symptom of ptsd these days as opposed to just degenerate psychopathic behaviour….
Conscripted soldiers in times of war: Admire and respect.
Soldiers who join during times of peace: Like any other job.
How many years did you serve to understand and make that assessment that the Army is just like any other Job?
Sure. I meant to say they should* be treated like any other occupation.
From what I have seen (and experienced directly) of individuals who have served Australia in it's respective armed forces, a significant amount of them do not wish to be singled out or have themselves put under a public spotlight about what their job is. In my experience, those people that choose a career in the AU armed forces are just like any other person in the end and they just want to be able to do their job/perform their duties without causing a fuss. Not sure if I've contributed anything to this conversation, but that's just my $0.02 about the matter.
No Australian soldier alive has ever actully faught to protect Australia (it has always been other nations interests).
Zero respect. They made a conscious decision (some less conscious then others).
They are a nothing but bunch of bored bogans with big toys.
If you wan't to fight for a real cause and not just service vehicles at an isolated military base, join the French Foreign Legion.
"Bored bogans with big toys" sounds like some AJ screwed your wife, ey? Big call calling them bogans when you can't even type a rant without primary school level grammar.
I agree with the sentiment that current soldiers made a conscious decision, but to say they have no real cause is utterly ignorant.
The Engineer regiments spent years in Afghan slowly building the population up by cycling from tours of securing a region, then removing the constant IED threat from a region, then building shit tons of schools, hospitals and bridges etc.
Same goes for the Infantry and Mechanised regiments, a great deal of their work was patrolling secured zones so the locals could go about their lives without being murdered and blown up like they were previously.
If freeing a disadvantaged people and providing them healthcare and education facilities is 'no cause' then wtf is worthy of your time??
I'm stumped by your Foreign Legion comment too, how is becoming a glorified mercenary used for jobs too dodgy for France's national army somehow more of a cause than serving in a national defence force?
I agree they did a lot of useful work while the yanks were buying tons of drugs and doing deals with warlords. But why were we there helping them destabilise and rot out a country that just came to realise that western values were trash talk and turned back to the Taliban?
if the yanks hadn't sought to use the drug trade but end it, the result would in all probability have been very different but yanks love the dollar first and nothing second - so what we did achieve as a result besides displaying a shared love of the opium trade through our support of the yanks?
Remind me again… how was the Afghan population and infrastructure decimated in the first place?
the Taliban when in control had virtually decimated opium production - that was when the yanks moved in - effectively not only to restore production but to increase it…
I fought to protect Australians.
One of the main reasons we received before going to Afghan was to protect American and Australian interests. I honesty didn't care for that. I just tried to be the best medic I could so I could bring everyone I served with back home.
I don't ask for your respect, I don't want your respect as I didn't serve for you, but for my mates.
I hope this gives you come clarity.
Thankyou sir.
And I thank you , this #@ ing thread doesn't look that good in the read though . Don't mind that just most only motive is bargain hunters and don't understand the bigger picture .
Thank you for your service.
As an Afghan and close friends with Iraqies….I do not respect the Armed forces (not the individual soldiers per say but the institution)… There was/is no threat to Australia, let alone Western nations from Al Qaeda, taliban or Sadam… They all went in for the oil/ natural resources and sold a lie. If you really believe a bunch of nomads with AK's are a threat then sorry u are gullible.
Why should I respect someone who involved in destroying nations and part of system that murdered many innocent lives. And all they have done is made things more unstable (that's what they wanted).
The reason why Australia was involved in the first place has nothing to do with us stealing their oil. If you believe that then you have also been sold a lie.
Our master the USA has allies in the middle east, and these alliances rely on a balance of power being maintained with the Saudis and the Israelis.
It is in Australia's interest to maintain a close relationship with the USA. Our only defences in a war is how isolated we are from the rest of the world. We don't have a European Union to defend us, and the British great fleet isn't what it used to be
I agree 100%, but just like the mid east is in the best interest of US and thus got involved, so is australia, It doesn't matter whether we fight with them or not, If say China attacks, it's in US best interest that it defend Australia.
Why would our biggest trading partner invade? the only possible reason for that is the expansion of American military facilities in Australia. Soon we the Australian public are going to be paying for big new ports designed primarily for use by the American military machine. How dumb we Australians show ourselves to be.
We pay for foreign military installations and then consider afterwards why we made ourselves a legitimate nuclear target.
Did you not notice that America now has no interest in defending any other borders than its own regardless of treaties or agreements?
@petry: What is and what isn't a war crime is judged by the winning side.
evidence: nagasaki, hiroshoma, vietnam war, WW2
@funnysht: I just noticed you've only listed contentious events (questionable as to whether they were war crimes, arguably Hiroshima, Nagasaki and potentially the firebombing of Dresden by the RAF were all as legitimate a target as was London during the Blitz) however beheading journalists, murdering POWs (sandakan, Burma Railway etc), the Holocaust, burning alive captured pilots, all verified, identified war crimes you've all left out. You've only listed conspiracy style events by the allies, no mention of the multitude of verified crimes by some of the world's worst historical regimes, some of which were the catalyst for the world to stand up to them by way of war to stop Human outrages like the Holocaust. It seems like you are defending some of the worst regimes the world has ever seen whilst admonishing those that stood up to them. Have you read the casualty estimates for an invasion of Japan? Weight that up against Hiroshima and Nagasaki and look at it from the perspective of the parents of a US Marine and tell me if you still think they should have invaded instead of dropping the bombs.
@petry: Mai Lai was indeed a War Crime but it was uncovered by a US Army Whistleblower, a helicopter pilot called Warrant Officer (WO1) Hugh Thompson, Jr. He saw the massacre from his helicopter and landed to help the civilians. One of his crew members actually climbed into the mass grave to rescue a 4 year old girl which they took to their helicopter and flew her out to safety. All his crew were decorated for their actions. Although there were courts martial after an investigation the punishments were light. Not the US Army's proudest moment but hardly an organised, intentional policy, most probably some local fruitloops taking action into their own hands. I agree the perpetrators werent punished sufficiently.
Kandahar was a rogue nutcase out of his mind on a solo attrocity. Not an organised sanctioned event. The guy snapped and went on a killing spree. Staff Sgt Robert Bales I think, to avoid the death penalty admitted guilt for the atrocity at his court martial and was sentenced to life in military prison with no hope of release. Not the first well armed American to go nuts with a gun and kill a lot of people resulting in life in jail. Not condoning his actions, totally abhorrent but still a rogue nutcase is much different from state sponsored murder.
Kunduz seems to have been a mistake by someone. The general in charge was punished. Anecdotal evidence is that the crew of the Gunship actually questioned their orders. It seemed like the Afghan national Army requested the strike and the US Commanders approved it. Not sure much more than that. I guess if you make a mistake with a C130 Gunship bad things happen.
Kashoggi was a Journalist murdered by a Saudi Prince's Death Squad as far as i know. Not sure how this is related the to the Australian or allied Military unless the assertion is that the US Government didnt sanction the Saudis hard enough in the follow-up?
Aside from Kashoggi, none of these were state sponsored, sanctioned oficial policy, most were either mistakes or rogue nutcases. There have been plenty of incidents where friendly troops have made the same kind of mistakes and killed each other "blue on Blue' they call it or friendly fire. in the first gulf war US Aircraft mistook 2 UK Armoured Vehicles for Iraqi vehicles and killed a bunch of UK soldiers. The point being that mistakes, collateral damage and incidents dont just happen to the opposition.
A deceased veteran claims no benefits.
Insurance doesn't pay out on suicides (to my knowledge).
It's a win-win situation for the people/organisation that want to send people to war.
Our military friends and family are not respected nor understood. You are conditioned for service.
We do have it much better than other countries (in terms of benefits for being in the military, i.e. health dental education), but that doesn't amount to much, when the situation we find ourselves in is related to the war economy, and the expenses in personnel, hardware and equipment is the reason used to continue spending money on destruction.
We're not smart enough to know a better way, or so we're told.
I'll support my friends and family always.
(apologies if this offends, and if it's already been said in this sad thread)
@HighAndDry: Wars fought within the Australian continent are wars fought in Australia champ. And lol, "many of which wouldn't have even been aware of one another." Your ignorance is astounding.