As It Was For So Many

Reposted from Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association -

Some stories are written in the quiet ink of ordinary life. Others are cut short by the fire of history.

Private Ian William Kingston’s story belongs to the latter.

He was just twenty years old when he was killed in action in South Vietnam on 3 September 1969. A soldier of the 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR). A son of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. A young man whose life was taken before it had truly begun.

Before the Army gave him a number, Ian had a home. Born in Nambour on 27 April 1949, he grew up under the sun of the southeast coast. He worked as a bank officer, his future shaped by routine, community, and the ordinary promise of a young life.

But like more than 63,000 others, his future was decided by chance. The birthday ballot called his number. The Army called his name. And the quiet order of his life was replaced by the chaos of a jungle war.

In May 1969 he joined 6RAR. Within weeks he was thrust into Operation Lavarack, where the battalion fought 85 separate contacts in just over a month. For a young conscript, it was a brutal baptism of fire.

On 3 September 1969, three months into his tour, Ian Kingston was killed in action in Bien Hoa.

He never returned to Nambour. He never finished the life he had only just begun.

Ian’s story is not just that of a soldier. It is the story of a son, a friend, a young man taken too soon. A life redirected by the lottery of marbles, ended on foreign soil, and remembered still.

Because some stories remind us that the true cost of war is not measured in battles won or lost, but in futures that never had the chance to be lived.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings

Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association

An Ongoing Tragedy

 

                        Pic courtesy Norwegian Refugee Council

I've avoided blogging about Israel and Palestine, gentle reader, because it's difficult to see through the avalanche of propaganda from both the Israelis and the various Palestinian spokespeople.

Digging for the facts behind this conflict (which in its current form has endured for my lifetime - I was born in 1947, one year before the state of Israel was founded), is not straightforward, but I'll give it a shot.

The British, through the Balfour Declaration, published in November 1917, proposed the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It's worth reproducing the text - 

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Note the reference to the civil and religious rights of "existing non-Jewish" communities in Palestine.

The British had captured the territory from the Ottomans, and the Australian victory at Beersheba was a turning point in  this campaign. Success at Beersheba was a significant moment in the broader Sinai-Palestine Offensive, which continued for almost the entire duration of the war, and which had begun in January 1915 with the Ottoman raids upon the Suez canal.

So you could say, gentle reader, that Australia has an historic stake in the Middle East. 

The British terminated their mandatory power (granted in 1922 by the League of Nations) in 1947, and the UN General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states - one Arab and one Jewish. The two-state solution is hardly a novel idea.

The Arabs rejected the plan, but the Israelis ostensibly accepted it, and declared the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948 at the end of the British mandate.

The situation collapsed into civil war between the nascent state of Israel, and bordering Arab countries. During this conflict, 700,000 (about 80% of the Arab population) were driven out of territory won by Israel and weren't allowed to return. The Arabs called this event the "Nakba". Starting in the late 1940s, about 850,000 Jews, mostly from the Aran world, immigrated to Israel.

All of these facts of history simply underline the irreconcilable differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and don't provide much hope for peace.

Based on my lived experience, the situation has the smell of Vietnam about it. Around that conflict, we saw the great powers pick a side and prolong the conflict until it had killed 57,000 Americans, 521 Australians, and millions of Vietnamese. The Americans attempted to bomb their way to victory. That didn't work. The Israelis seem to be doing much the same.

The USA seems to back Israel come what may, but most of the free world, including Australia, has not lined up with them. 

I can see no resolution. In a perfect world, a stabilisation force would be sent to control the Gaza strip, and the Israeli settlements would be terminated, as they are a form of trickling invasion, but the likelihood of this is impossible.

And the military incursion will continue, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians will continue to die. 

Perhaps the only possibility of peace resides with the collapse of the Netanyahu government. 

  

Fitout Progressing

Politics is depressing, so I'm blogging about cars....

Lost and Found - An Ancestor

 

Kate Ryan's name on the Erin Go Bragh's passenger list

Like most us when we retire and have time on our hands, I've done some basic research on ancestry.

What I know is that my father's family descends from Irish immigrants, and what my father and his family believed is that they came out in the mid eighteen hundreds at the height of the Irish potato famine. 

The enduring family story, handed down by my father, was that one ancestor (presumably named Whittaker) arrived on the migrant ship, Erin Go Bragh, and subsequently married a fellow passenger, a Kate Ryan, and settled in the Drayton area. 

The problem is that there is no documentary evidence of this, as a search of the passenger list of the Erin Go Bragh, the boat my dad assumed brought him here, did not show a Whittaker. There was, however, an eleven year old girl, called Kate Ryan, on board.

One of my nephews who was also curious, did some research through Ancestry.com and came to the same conclusion, i.e., that there was no marriage between Kate Ryan and any fellow passenger.

This left an intriguing puzzle. Who was this original arrival, and when did he get here?

A different nephew who lives now in Singapore, has discovered a newspaper report which at the same time deepens the mystery, but sheds new light on the original family story.

This story, in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 31st August 1897, reports the death of a George Whittaker, (born 1837 in Kilkenny, Ireland) who was apparently my father's great grandfather. Dad's father was also called George, and according to the report, had six sons and three daughters. One of the sons was called John, which may explain a family tradition of naming the youngest son John, with no second name.

My dad was called John (always abbreviated to "Jack"), and had no second name, which always seemed curious to me.

The family belief that does stand up is that a Katherine Ryan, was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in Moreton Bay on August 2nd, 1862. The passenger list does indeed identify a Kate Ryan who was eleven years old on arrival.

Whilst this report debunks the belief that the original Whittaker was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in 1862, It does not dismiss the possibility that  George Whittaker married Kate Ryan. 

Back then, it would not have been out of the question for Kate Ryan to be married at age seventeen, which would have been 1868, by which time George Whittaker would have been thirty one. Family history has it that Kate was working as a housekeeper in a presbytery, and if the local priest was supportive, such a marriage would not have been unusual.

The new mystery is how George Whittaker arrived in Australia in the first place.

Obviously, further research is necessary.

And that's just my father's side....

Real Sovereignty

Polling on subs. Pic courtesy Lowy Institute

An article by Peter Varghese in the "Pearls and Irritations" weekly is worth a read.

Varghese, now Chancellor of University of Queensland, has a distinguished career as a diplomat and public servant, from 1980 until 2016. 

He served as diplomat in Vienna, Tokyo, Malaysia, and India and completed his public service career as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2016. 

He has served in both Labor and Coalition administrations, and was appointed Senior Adviser (International) to Prime Minister John Howard from 2003 to 2004.

From 2004 to 2009, he was Director-General of the Office of National Assessments, an Australian government intelligence agency which reports directly to the Prime Minister. 

In other words, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to international trade and security, and strategic intelligence.

His essay makes the case that Australia can and should defend itself by itself, and that the old alliances have changed to the point that they are now irrelevant. He points out the advantage of our geography. He sums up Trump's administration very clearly - 

More likely than not, Trump's presidency will be judged by history as venal, incoherent, and driven by a penchant for manufactured drama.

He urges self-reliance, and points out that Trump is a naked transactionalist with no regard for historical alliances. He suggests that the US may withdraw from AUKUS, which he suggests would be a good outcome, in that it would force our government to quickly develop and implement more effective force projection.

Whilst he's not as clear as Hugh White in terms of his rejection of nuclear submarines, his thinking is similar, in that he advocates higher defence spending, and building our relationships with Asian countries to our North.

The rapidly changing situation is most likely the reason for the Albanese government's abundance of caution in relation to Trump. Perhaps ignoring his volatility is not a bad strategy.

Trump is nothing if not attention-seeking, and my teaching experience reminds me that ignoring attention-seeking behaviour works pretty well.

We live in interesting times...

Senior Driving

 

What the stats say. Pic courtesy of ABC news.

A recent tragedy in Victoria has highlighted the issue of senior drivers and safety.

This is personally relevant, gentle reader, as at age 75+ I need an annual review of my licence. In my case, my GP demands a optometric assessment. This doesn't bother me, and I reckon he's simply being thorough.

He is, or should be, expert on my general health as it relates to driving. He's been my GP for about thirty years.

I first rock up to my optometrist who provides a through assessment (including skills relevant to driving such as state of visual perception). Armed with that, I head to the GP who checks me out for muscle power, coordination, cognitive function (including attention, comprehension and reaction time). He is in the best position to compare any decline in functionality because he's been observing me for thirty years.

He then issues me with a signed chit which I laminate and carry in my car. Interestingly, my state issued driver's licence, both plastic and digital, carries no reference to this. I guess that's because my age is obvious, and my date of birth is on the licence.

It seems strange to me that Victoria doesn't follow this process. Perhaps that's under review.

To be honest, I'd have no objection to compulsory testing once a driver is 75. The medical assessments don't necessarily translate to the real world behind the wheel.

I've done, over the years, three different training programmes. The first was to make sure I was up to the task of training teachers to drive the various
Toyota Coasters my schools ran, and the other two were sessions in Mount Isa and Toowoomba respectively dealing with driving in the outback.  

Coaster

At age 78 I'm still learning, although much of that is about mastering the various driver assistance technologies installed in modern cars. To be frank, I'm not sure that they help. Touch screens really should be outlawed in favour of buttons.

Once you have learned where the buttons are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road to activate them. Touch screens - not so much....

Quarantining Care

 

Pic courtesy UQ research.

Disgust and outrage as a response to reports of child abuse in day care centres is completely understandable.

It is also justified, but I strongly doubt that the disgust and outrage will, in the long run, make any difference.

A possible royal commission is offered as a solution, and tightened regulation and enhanced supervision will no doubt result from this tragic set of circumstances.

Unfortunately these measures can be dismissed as knee jerk responses, and they follow whenever a vulnerable section of the community is abused. This holds for seniors, people with disabilities, unemployed people and refugees.

The NDIS is a novel institutional response which has tried to put one specific minority in a position if power when it comes to decisions about quality of life, but it has its own failings. Unscrupulous individuals have used it to fill their pockets.

Frankly, I don't see much difference between fraudulently cashing in on a scheme like NDIS, and paying child care centres taxpayers' money through the CCS scheme.

There is a fundamental flaw in taxpayers' money being paid to parents and caregivers for a service which in Australia in 2024 is simply essential.

Forty years of experience in special schools, where the most vulnerable children are supported, taught me that child protection is fundamental. This was in a publicly funded organisation where the motive was learning, not earning. As soon as an organisation supporting the vulnerable is run for profit, it creates the risk of putting that profit ahead of care. Care and protection are simply incompatible with making money.

This very simple proposition ought to be obvious, but given the history, it clearly isn't.

Any organisation created to care for children cannot safely be used as an earner. After all, profit depends on minimising costs and often cutting corners.When Child Care organisations become investment vehicles, it becomes obvious where the priorities lie.

There is one very simple solution. We need legislation that outlaws care for profit. If we haven't learned that from the tragedies that have dogged aged care and child care, we never will.

The child care industry should be nationalised. That is the only sure way of quarantining it from the profiteers.