A Conference

 

Melbourne always looks black and white.

Last weekend, gentle reader, I attended a conference in Melbourne, looking in hindsight at the war in Vietnam.

It was attended by delegates from all over the country, and the keynote speaker was a Yank. His address was comprehensive and well researched.

The Saturday proceedings are listed below, and full transcripts will be posted soon. 

Walking into the conference resembled having a close encounter with my bookshelf. The authors of a large proportion of my books about the war were present.

The reason for attending was to develop a network of military historians, amateur and professional, who can help me with my doctorate looking at the subject of national servicemen between 1965 and 1972 who served in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia.

Obviously, this conference was about Vietnam, but when you consider that during that seven year period, the whole raison d'etre for the size and deployment of the army was Vietnam, it was well worth attending.

The only downside was its location. Melbourne is my least favourite Australian city, and nothing during my sojourn there, has altered that opinion.

Now that I've been accepted as a doctoral candidate, the hard work starts. 

Another Country

 

The phrase "the past is another country" is often quoted, but it is actually a corruption of "the past is a foreign country" from the opening lines of L.P.Hartley's 1953 novel The Go-Between.   

I won't pretend to have read it, gentle reader, but the work deals with loss of innocence, the nature of memory, and the ripple effect of a single event.

Yesterday, with a group of men about my age, I visited what used to be called the Canungra Jungle Training Centre after an absence of fifty seven years.

I went through Canungra in October 1969 as a member of 5 platoon B Coy 7 RAR. We did the battle efficiency course, and I recall 5 platoon actually winning the battalion prize for the best score on that course, which was a surprise, as none of us were individually brilliant. We were, however, a good team, with good leadership.

After being refused a vote at the federal election (held on 25th October), we headed South towards Wiangaree where we completed a post course exercise, characterised by rain and mud, and lots of slippery slopes.

The base has completely changed, although there were relics of the original confidence course still visible. These days, they're museum pieces, as most of us are. Back in 1969, the accommodation was mostly tentage. These days, there are some very fancy buildings, including an officers' mess built in neo-colonial style.

Photography was prohibited on the actual base, but we were allowed to take pictures at the Vietnam memorial just outside the barrier fence.

The photo shows a plaque commemorating those lost in Vietnam, and was written by a veteran. It reflects very well what many of us returning from Vietnam feel about the men who did not return.

A Welcoming Commemoration?

Pic courtesy Wikipedia

Since Anzac Day, gentle reader, we've been inundated, in both social and legacy media, with stories about people booing at dawn ceremonies.

The targets of the misbehaviour (because that's simply what it is) have been the welcome to country ceremonies delivered by a local indigenous person.

Almost without exception, people responding to the issue take opposing sides, and often become very aggressive about it.

For me, there are three aspects.

The first is about how we should behave at public commemorations. I was brought up in the tradition of respectfully observing these commemorations, and that booing (for example) is very bad behaviour. To me, it matters not form what the piece of public ritual takes, the mere fact that it is publicly symbolic means it should be publicly respected. 

If you object to it, you take it up with the organisers. You don't publicly abuse the presenter. I'm a lifelong republican, but I don't boo "God Save the King".

Then there is the nature of the ritual. In the case of Welcome to Country, it's a gesture of welcome. It can be seen as a measure of reconciliation. There is a ritual involved which has been appropriated from indigenous culture, and its intent in that ancient culture was to avoid conflict.

On that ancient traditional level, it's about peace. On another level, especially since the failed referendum, it's about reconciliation. How it can be seen as offensive on either of these two levels is beyond me.

Finally, there's the context of the significance and solemnity of the Anzac commemoration. My attitude to this has been coloured by personal experience. I was conscripted to fight in Vietnam in 1970, and finished up in a rifle section. Two of my companions in that section were Murris. One was from Alice Springs in Central Australia, an Eastern Arrernte man.  The other was a Bundjalung man from Kyogle. 

The digger from Alice Springs was seriously wounded when we hit bunkers in April 1970, and ended up on a  medevac flight back to Australia. He never completely recovered and died in 1996 at age 49. Both these men were respected members of our unit, but were not well treated on return to Australia. As far as I'm concerned, any misbehaviour directed at a Welcome to Country ceremony is a personal affront to every indigenous veteran.

The fact that some politicians have jumped on the outrage bandwagon (on the one hand outraged that there is a Welcome to Country at the dawn service, and on the other outraged at the booing) is sad.

We ended up in Vietnam on the back of a political exercise, and that did not work out well for us or the Vietnamese. It was particularly tragic for the five hundred plus Australians who died there, and the thirteen hundred plus wounded.  

Let's keep grubby politics out of the issue.

It dishonours all of those who served, especially the scores of indigenous men who defied regulations prohibiting their eligibility to serve and signed up anyway.

A Just War or Just a War?

Pic courtesy Leunig and Jason Goroncy

 No doubt, gentle reader, you have come across the criticism of Pope Leo by the POTUS.

On the face of it, none of Trump's Truth Social post  makes a great deal of political sense. He needs the conservative Catholic vote in states like Pennsylvania, michigan and Wisconsin, which were fundamental to his election in 2024.

What is also hard to fathom is his grounds for this criticism. His Truth Social post talks about Leo being "weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons", and mentions a meeting with David Axelrod. 

Now Leo has not made any definitive statement about crime since he began his reign as pontiff,  apart from criticising state crime in Iran after the reported killing of protestors. Maybe Trump doesn't believe there is any such thing as state crime..

As for nuclear weapons, Leo has described nuclear weapons as "a profound horror" and "an affront to humanity".

So maybe Trump is unhappy about the Pope's criticism of the war against Iran.

That criticism did not name either Trump or the USA, but did call for deescalation. 

In any event, the Pope is qualified (unlike J D Vance) to talk about the moral theology underpinning the notion of a just war. For a war to be just, a number of criteria have to be met. Frank Brennan discusses this in his homily given on the Third Sunday of Easter.

He quotes Cardinal McElroy of Washington, who pointed out that the war was not necessary, that diplomacy had been bulldozed, and that there was ambiguity about the intention and purpose of the military commitment.

The principles of a just war are that it has just cause, is a last resort, is declared by a proper authority, has a right intention, and a reasonable chance of success, and that the end is proportional to the means being used.

Trump's "just cause" has ricocheted between preventing Iran accessing nuclear weapons and changing the regime. Strangely enough, there was an agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency, limiting Iran to nuclear material insufficient to construct a bomb, but that agreement was dissolved in May 2018.

Guess who withdrew from the agreement. I'll let you guess. It wasn't Iran.

Trump appealed to the Iranian people to overthrow the mad Mullahs, but was unwilling to provide any material support, so any sane observer might be tempted to doubt that genuine regime change is part of a just cause.

As for "proper authority", Trump doesn't have congressional approval, and the "reasonable chance of success"  seems to have evaporated with Iran's persistent intransigence.

The USA's attack on Iran in the middle of diplomatic negotiations reminds me eerily of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941.

Was Imperial Japan's aggression part of a "just war" back then? The lead up and sequence events are similar. There's a fair chance that the outcome for the aggressor this time will also be similar.

The Mug Lair

Pic courtesy South China Morning Post

I've blogged before, gentle reader, about the relevance of language, and observed how it has changed and developed during my lifetime.

According to the Dictionary of Australian Slang, the term "Mug Lair" means a "flashily dressed young man of brash and vulgar behaviour". 

The Oxford Dictionary definition describes a "person who is stupid and vulgar", adding for effect "a two bob mug lair, all bleach and trousers", although I've heard "all mouth and trousers"

And finally, Acronyms and Slang uses "a bothersome show-off" as its definition.

If we break it down, a "mug" is generally accepted as a gullible person, and a "lair" as an attention seeker, although putting the two words together subtly alters the impact of the description.

It's a great shame that the Australian slang term has largely been left behind in common use. My grandfather and father would have been very familiar with it.

Mind you, they inhabited an Australia which was unsullied by language dragged across the Pacific by social media.

Across the pacific, one third of American voters* set up an electoral college that gave power to a classic Mug Lair. There were 241,184,779 eligible voters in 2024.  Of those, 32% voted for the Mug Lair; 31% voted for Harris; and 36% did not vote. 

The definition is a perfect fit, except he is no longer young.

*One third didn't vote, one third voted for his opponent, and one third voted for the Mug Lair.

  

Groundhog Day

M109 at the Horseshoe

Back in May 1970, I was a reluctant member of 5 platoon, B Coy, 7 RAR, and about one third into my sojourn in South Vietnam which lasted two hundred and ninety eight days.

I had been told that I was there to support a commitment to achieving freedom for the people of South Vietnam.  The fact that back home people were preparing for the Moratorium marches which were about to be the largest turnout of demonstrators in Australian history was a complication to that simple notion.

Another complication was that the people shooting at us, and routinely laying landmines to kill us, were actually Vietnamese. They apparently had a different idea of freedom from ours, and had dug up the mines the task force had deployed from Dat Do to the sea to use them against us.

I was bothered less by these complications than the media commentators. My focus was on keeping myself and my section mates alive, and I worked very diligently at that. Obviously, I was successful.  

The closest I went to being killed or wounded  during my tour was by our own people, in two different "friendly fire" incidents. I think the Americans coined the phrase. It has a similar ring to it as does "collateral damage". We're hearing plenty of US coined rationalised euphemisms at the moment, many of them coming from their president. 

The first friendly fire incident occurred during Operation Finschhafen on Friday 13th March. The second was a bit later, in May, although I can't recall the exact date.

By May, we had been doing heaps of ambushing. On this particular occasion, we set up an ambush on a track junction. It was within artillery range of the Horseshoe where there was a detachment of US mobile M109 howitzers.  These things had a bore of 155mm and a range of 20 kms depending on what they were firing.

We radioed our position (Locstat) back to ATF headquarters who would have notified all friendlies in the area of the grid reference of our location, and set about standing to just as the sun was setting.

We heard primaries at the Horseshoe going off in the distance. This was routine, as the Yanks used what they called Harassment and Interdiction (H & I) to annoy the VC. They would pick what they thought was a likely location for the presence of the enemy, and fire off a salvo or two in the off chance that they might kill someone. Their view of a "likely location", the track junction, coincided with ours. 

What was not routine was the incredible noise these things made as they tumbled over our heads and landed just forward of our position. Next morning we found that the distance they landed from our harbour perimeter was about 75 metres. Given that they were advertised as having a lethal killing effect within 50 metres, that was far too close.  

Our platoon Sig got on the radio without reference from our platoon commander, and called "checkfire all locations". We heard an acknowledgement simultaneous with the sound of a second set of primaries, and understood with terrifying clarity that a second salvo was on the way. The next 45 seconds or so was a very long time.

The second salvo was, if anything, closer than the first, but as the rounds were coming from behind, the shrapnel mostly went forward. We had not dug shell scrapes. The ground at that time of the year was not conducive to quick digging, and the soil rocky with a mixture of clay and granite.

On returning to the Horseshoe at the end of the operation, we would notice the sweet smell of marijuana wafting across from the lines of A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 35th Field Artillery, the unit in question, on many humid evenings. The gunners were obviously seeking solace from time to time. Perhaps there was a distraction which had prevented them from checking for friendlies.

Fifty six years later, the Yanks are still firing off ordnance without, apparently, any clear understanding of the consequences.

In my lifetime, not a lot has changed.

 

Quo Vadis Cuba

 

Havana in happier times.

Back in 2018, gentle reader, I spent a couple of weeks in Cuba.

I blogged about it at the time, and have been observing from a distance since.

Back then I noted that Obama's visit to Cuba in 2016 had a positive effect on the country, encouraged as it was by Pope Francis. Obama was the first sitting US President to visit the country in eighty-eight years, as the previous visit from Calvin Coolidge was in 1928.

When I was there, the optimism generated by the thawing of relations was rapidly beginning to fade, as Trump had been in the White House for a year and a half.

There were still plenty of tourists around, and cruise liners were visiting Havana. These days, since US restrictions introduced in 2019, all US-based cruise ships are banned from calling on Cuban ports.

In addition, the supply of oil from Venezuela which had pretty much kept the Cuban economy afloat has dried up since the US kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro.

Now we have Trump announcing that he would be taking over Cuba. His exact words were - 

"I do believe I’ll be having the honour of taking Cuba. It’s a big honour, I ​mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it."

Apart from the stark arrogance of this statement, it ignores the fact that the country is in trouble because of sixty-eight years of spiteful US embargoes. What I recall of my visit is the laid back happiness of the Cubans I encountered, which contrasted so strongly with what I had encountered in the Americans I met back then.

It appears that exporting misery has become fashionable across the Pacific.