Anniversaries

The Bone is almost in the centre of the map. Look for the centre and move your eyes to the left and up.

The older you get, the more anniversaries you accumulate.

Yesterday (Friday 13^th March) is an anniversary of sorts for me. The last Friday March 13^th I lived through was in the year 2009.  

The one I remember best however was Friday 13^th March 1970.

If you will indulge me, gentle reader, I will tell a short war story, triggered by this anniversary.

On Friday 13^th March 1970 my rifle platoon was patrolling near the Song Rai (a small river) in Phuoc Tuy province, South Vietnam.

We were tromping through decayed paddy and bamboo, interspersed with light scrub, the kind of country depicted in light green in army ordinance maps. Our formation was single file, and I was third last in line in the platoon, as my section was trailing, and there were two diggers behind me.

There was supposed to be a fair gap (over 500 metres) between us and 4 platoon which was bringing up the rear in a company move. We were on our first long operation in country – Operation Finschhafen.

We had been resupplied by chopper that morning, so backpacks were full and heavy.  It was stinking hot, we had been on the move all day, and water was being consumed at a rate threatening our meagre supplies. It was about 3.30pm.

I had a specific job to do, and was the only digger in the platoon doing it. I have no idea if other platoons followed the same practice. The practice I’m referring to is counting paces. This was achieved by clicking a sheep counter which was taped to the stock of my SLR. I would, every 500 paces, pass a signal up the line to the platoon commander (we called him the “skipper”).

This was used to assist with navigation, something not straightforward in this terrain, although it was even more difficult in jungle with lots of secondary growth.

I have no idea why I was singled out for this task. Perhaps because I was a teacher in Civvy Street, the skipper had assumed I could count. The task was not a burden, and it helped me maintain concentration, or in army parlance, staying “switched on”.

We had just traversed a small clearing (I think it was called the “bone” because of its shape on the maps), when all hell broke loose.

Rounds were landing amongst us, and the vegetation was being chopped to pieces by this small arms fire. You never forget the distinctive angry snap of incoming fire. I recall it as clearly and sharply as if it were yesterday.

Instinctively, I went to ground, dropped my back, and found what cover was available. There wasn’t much in this spot.

The firing stopped as quickly as it had started. Company headquarters had heard two almost simultaneous transmissions – “Contact front” from four platoon and “contact rear” from five platoon.

It didn’t require much imagination to realise that this was a “friendly fire” incident, and the command “cease fire” was transmitted and shouted up and down the line.

It was quiet for a second or two, and then I saw our West Indian section commander make a crouching run past me and towards the rear of the section. He’d heard our tail end Charlie saying he had been hit.

Indeed he had. A round had opened the left side of his face, creating a wound which would require 76 stitches. He was a very lucky digger. To a lesser extent we were all a bit fortunate given that about 200 rounds of M60 had been sent in our direction by the gunner in the lead section in four platoon.

Their forward scout had seen a figure dressed in what appeared to be black pyjamas, wearing what looked like a headscarf, and assumed be was VC. The reason his greens looked black was that they were soaked with sweat. This particular digger had been part of a squad that had unloaded the resupply choppers earlier and had been sweating profusely. I’m not sure why he had substituted a sweat scarf for his bush hat. 

The wounded digger was choppered out on the CO’s Sioux. We found out at the end of the operation that he had made a full recovery.

We dug shell scrapes that evening for the first time in country. This incident had concentrated our minds wonderfully, as they say in the classics.

I didn’t discover until 2008 (thirty-eight years after the event) that I was not responsible for the the loss of separation between four and five platoons. I had assumed that I must have miscounted the paces.

Talking to my now ex-skipper in 2008, I was relieved to hear that there was a lot of iron in the soil in that area, and the problem was unreliable compass readings caused by this, and not my count.

I remember wishing he had told me this at the time.

An interesting sequel is that if you take the trouble to read the after action report in the AWM archives, the incident is reported as “overshoot” on the basis that enemy were seen.

They weren’t and it wasn’t.

American Gun Law - the Funny Side

A fellow Vietnam Veteran sent me this - thanks Garth.

He shared it across the ex-digger community - a bunch of people who have a better understanding than most of firearms and their place in the scheme of things.

The comedian (Jim Jefferies) demonstrates the point that the US gun laws are prime targets for ridicule. He was, I think, in Boston. It's a wonder the NRA didn't pull a ban on him.

You have to laugh - a culture in which laws like those are tolerated deserves ridicule. It's a pity it kills 30+ Americans daily. It reminds me of the cliche -  if it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

Strong language warning.

Used by All and Sundry

Pic courtesy South China Morning Post

I wonder how you, gentle reader, see the two members of the Bali Nine slated for execution.

I see them as two young men who made a stupid mistake years ago, before their adolescent brains had settled down to something approaching maturity. Any males who have never done anything stupid in the throes of adolescence may read no further.

It’s well known, incidentally, that adolescence persists well into the twenties for some men.

Smuggling dangerous drugs is about as anti-social as you can get. It doesn’t however earn the death penalty in most jurisdictions, except in a number of countries in SE Asia.

OK, I see them as recovered (and apparently rehabilitated) ex-adolescents.

It’s interesting to consider how a few other notables regard them, based on current and previous behaviour.

Let’s start with Abbott and Shorten. It‘s pretty obvious that these two see them as opportunities to swing the polls. It seems to be working for at least one of them.

Then there’s Widodo Frankly, he is operating from the same frame of reference as his Australian counterparts. They don’t seem to run polls routinely in Indonesia, so I’m not sure how his popularity is responding. If you know, tell me.

The Indonesian police and military see the situation as a great rationale for playing with their most expensive toys, including their Sukhois.There are also opportunities for selfies.

As for the death penalty - put simply - it doesn’t work. There’s no correlation between capital punishment and deterrence.

If the Indonesians were fair dinkum about tackling drug importers, they'd start with dealing with corruption in their police and military.

So we’re left with a media spectacle. These guys are being used in the most despicable manner.

Project Boring Update (6)

See it here.

The Real Welfare Cheats

Unemployment in this country is at a twelve year high.

We keep being told, particularly by News Limited, that unemployed people are dole bludgers.

Many individuals and corporations have made a great deal of money from the privatized job placement industry.

$18 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent on this scheme since 1998.

Now, Four Corners has revealed fraud and exploitation of job seekers by some of these organisations.

Surely it’s about time the heat was turned on these agencies, and a royal commission established. After all, we’ve had royal commissions into all and sundry since the Coalition came to power.

There is something about conservative governments that creates a default position of exploitation of specific groups. It can be soldiers, indigenous people, or the unemployed.

It is an absolute disgrace.

Many years ago, before the advent of the privatised system, Special Schools in Queensland saw it as part of their role to find post-school opportunities for their students.

At that time, I was principal of Petrie Special School, and we had a programme for the senior students called “Transition”. It was run by an experienced teacher who was off class for a few hours per week, when he would liaise with prospective employers.

In the three years I was there, we were successful in finding work for a large proportion of these students. Remember, these were young people with disabilities significant enough to get them enrolled at a Special School.  

The school did this for free – we saw it as part of our role. Most Special Schools operated in this fashion.

It seems to me passing strange that well-resourced agencies set up specifically for the purpose in the year 2015, have less success in placing the unemployed than we did at a school back in the mid-eighties.

Isn’t privatisation wonderful?

For mine, it’s way past time the real welfare cheats (the companies to whom we outsourced job services) were nationalised and the perpetrators of these frauds were put behind bars.

Nationalise them so that the focus is on finding jobs not making a profit for wealthy shareholders.

Tony Gets Tough

Cartoon courtesy Peter Howard - Newcastle Herald

So our government is “getting tough” on jihadists using the institutional arms of government - our police and security systems.

Excuse me whilst I yawn (or laugh).

This is not an institutional problem, so there is no institutional solution. The War on Terrorism is likely to be about as effective as the War on Drugs.

The problem is cultural (as “culture” means “a medium for growth”), so the solution is most likely to be cultural. It is certainly not going to be fixed by “getting tough”, either metaphorically or practically.

To change it, the source of the problem (the culture in which it grows) will need to be targeted.

In fact, it can be argued with a great deal of validity that “getting tough” will actually make the situation worse. Daesh revels in macho posturing, and would love to get into a verbal stoush with the authorities using this kind of language. The verbal stoush is a great metaphor for physical violence - It’s their bread and butter. They are essentially a reactive phenomenon. That reaction energises them – they feed on it.

The US military went into the war in Vietnam using strategy designed for conventional warfare. We know where that went. If our national security apparatus uses conventional policing strategy against the threat of fundamentalist terrorism, the result will be exactly the same.

As it looks now, and based on Abbott’s national security statement, that seems to be where we’re headed.

It’s time for a completely different approach based on changing the culture which breeds terrorists.

First, the at-risk community needs to be identified. That should not be difficult. Then it needs to be the target of action, some covert and some in the public domain. This action should involve both punitive and supportive activity.

We could, for example, establish anti-jihadist cadres in secondary schools in areas where there is a high proportion of practising Muslims. These cadres should be helped to develop their own coercive strategies. Some would be covert, some not. They would have to be the best and brightest, media savvy, and situationally aware.

Social media should be overwhelmed by these cadres, and the jihadist messages deliberately targeted for ridicule. It would be important to ensure the operatives were of the same age as those they were targeting. Infiltrating these communities should, over time, reveal the hard liners and those likely to be a threat.

To balance that, these schools and communities should also be targeted with social and material support, not through the welfare system, but through existing agencies. Some of these agencies could be mosque based. The most radical mosques would be those identified for activity.

Local businesses affiliated with jihadist groups and individuals should be identified and their money flow dried up. Again, extra covert powers should be used if required. Above all, this action should be low-key.

As soon as it is trumpeted as the authorities “getting tough”, it will fail. All of this activity should be undertaken quietly and behind the scenes.

Above all – it should not be centrally controlled. And, above all, it should not be used to seek political kudos.

Our national security should be above politics.

Of Cyclones and Family

Pic courtesy Brisbane Times

Cyclones have been in the news, which is scarcely surprising, given it's Queensland in February/March.

My family has had a number of close encounters with these things, as we lived most of our lives as kids North of the tropic.

The most dangerous of these, on March 11th, 1950, still comes up in family conversation, although only my brother and I were around at the time.

This memory was jogged by my brother the other day when he sent me a newspaper report he found on Trove, from the Cairns Post of the day. Here it is reproduced in full -

CYCLONE FLATTENS CARMILA,  A SMALL SUGAR TOWN

YOUNG GIRL KILLED AND FOUR OTHERS INJURED

BRISBANE, Mar. 12.

Telephone communication with Carmila, the small sugar town 65 miles south of Mackay, which was flattened by a cyclone on Saturday morning, remains disrupted. A train from Rockhampton with Post Office repair men on board has been delayed by track washaway between Rockhampton and St. Lawrence.

Four persons injured when the cyclone struck Carmila were taken to Mackay Hospital today. They are. Wilmer Bahr (67), who has a probable fracture of the arm and ribs and injuries to the face. He was struck by the branch of a falling tree, which killed his 18-year-old daughter, Evelyn, on Saturday morning. Five-year-old Beverley Russell, of Carmila, who has a probable fracture of the collarbone and leg. She was struck by a falling tree. James Randell (31), who has a deep punctured wound in one foot. It was cut with broken glass while he was inspecting cyclone damage at his cane farm near Carmila. Michael Mandrusiak (35), of East Funnel Creek, near Sarina. He was struck by a sheet of roofing iron and suffered a deep cut on one arm.

NOT ONE BUILDING ESCAPES DAMAGE

Not one building in Carmila escaped damage. Three cottages and a dance hall in the town were completely wrecked and 15 cottages and business places are uninhabitable, including the school residence. The balance of the buildings in the town are without verandahs, roofs and steps.

Homeless families and a teacher are occupying the school, while six families are in Anglican and Catholic churches.

Twenty farm houses, within a 10 mile radius of the town, have been extensively damaged and cane crops flattened and wind- mills blows down. It is estimated that 50 per cent of the cane harvest would be lost.

Only the railway telephone line from Carmila is open. All other phone wires have been cut to ribbons and mixed up with timber and furniture from wrecked houses.

BELIEF SUPPLIES.

A relief train from Mackay arrived at Carmila today in light rain. The train took relief supplies of building materials and skilled tradesmen, including five Mackay plumbers who responded to a call from their union secretary to go to Carmila with him and give their services free to the stricken townsfolk.

Over 50 homes and buildings were damaged in and near the town and it is believed that the damage will. exceed £50,000.

Plumbers and Works Department employees worked throughout today to restore the damaged buildings in case further torrential rain should fall. Twenty P.M.G. officials, still working tonight to restore communications to the town, said Carmila seemed stunned but not dejected. Townsfolk walked about today and talked and talked.

Kalarka, Flaggy Rock. Eulalie, Karloo West, and Orkabie, between Carmila and Sarina, suffered heavily. Railway buildings and farmhouses were seriously damaged for 20 miles from Carmila.

One of the "homeless families" was ours, and the "teacher" was my father. I still have memories of the noise, the gable end of the house ripping away, and the sight of dead possums blown out of the trees.
At daybreak you could see for miles through what once had been dense scrub, as all that was left of most trees was the trunks.

The interior of the school residence was awash, as the roof was completely gone, and my brother was sloshing about saying "Dis is da beach". That story was told for years.

The reference in the newspaper report to the unionized plumbers helping out is interesting. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the place of unions in our history, especially given the orchestrated demonization of the union movement recently.

I remember my mum and dad saying the rosary whilst we huddled under a sturdy dining room table in what was left of the school residence. It worked - we all survived without a scratch.

I also remember living in the school for a few weeks after the blow with another family whose house was destroyed. The father of the family became ill and was soon diagnosed with TB, which meant my mum was instructed to burn all our sheets and pillowcases because of the risk of infection.

Much of this bed linen was wedding gifts, and my mother was pretty distressed, but that was what was done back then. I can still recall the smell of the burning bedclothes.

I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone caught in a tropical cyclone. So far, at least, TC Marcia hasn't killed anyone.