Mythbusting

 

Image courtesy 6PR

I came across this post the other day.

I have never met Normie Rowe, but have deep respect for him as a fellow Vietnam veteran and Nasho. He left Vietnam just before I got there, but I certainly travelled in APCs belonging to his unit (3 Cav) in 1970. 

It was noisy, but beat walking. It helped to forget about land mines....

Rowe is also a very talented musician. The post is attributed to Normie, but without actually asking him, gentle reader, I won't know whether he wrote it or not. 

In any case, I'm interested in the facts of history, not (in this case) how a Vietnam veteran (including a respected celebrity) allegedly reflects on his experience. There is a time and place for that. 

I find myself agreeing with much of what is attributed to Rowe in the post, especially his remarks about conscription being a political exercise. 

The part that doesn't hold water refers to an anecdote about the deathbed confession by an advisor to Harold Holt. All Normie writes is that he'd heard the anecdote. He makes no judgement about whether it is real.

To cut to the chase, the post alleges that Normie ended up as a conscript because the government believed that calling up a celebrity would improve public support for the scheme, support that had never been on firm ground. The substance of the myth is that his birthdate was never drawn, and that he was enlisted as a publicity stunt. 

Indeed, his birthdate (1st February 1947) was not drawn in the fifth intake on 10th March 1967, but that was irrelevant as he hadn't registered. He was absent from Australia at the time making music in the UK. 

He was required to register when he got home, and did so, in one of the fifteen supplementary ballots held during the course of the scheme. There were sixteen regular ballots, one more than the supplementary ones. I had registered in the normal ballot he missed and my birthdate was drawn in that 10th March ballot. Strangely, that's my bride's birthday, although we hadn't met at the time.

The routine supplementary ballot was held for those registering on return to Australia, and Normie's birthdate was drawn. He was enlisted in January 1968, assigned the regimental number 3793130, did recruit training and was allocated to Armoured Corps.

He was in Vietnam from 14th January until 19th December 1969.

The myth has been bouncing around the interweb for years, and has been debunked before, but it persists. It featured on Media Watch in March 2008.

I was at a meeting of ex-Nashos the other day, and heard the myth being floated again. I had my iPad with me and was able to show the ex-Nasho who was proclaiming it, chapter and verse showing the Normie's birthdate drawn in the supplementary ballot. 

It made no difference, and we parted with his belief in the myth still firm. He claimed the whole thing (including the record of the supplementary ballot draws) was a government conspiracy.

Obviously, the myth is more entertaining than the history.

Shared Values - Take two

 

Monthly value of US merchandise exports to Australia (A$ millions) since 1988

Monthly value of Australian merchandise exports to the United States (A$ millions) since 1988

Pics courtesy Wikipedia

I've posted about this before, but the issue is much more significant now.

The rationale of "shared values" is routinely advanced by our political class to support the notion that we should, as a matter of policy, go along with much of what is happening under the Trump administration at the moment.

Given that, it would be useful to examine just which values we share with Americans, at both the individual and community level. This is difficult, in the first instance, because the diversity that exists across populations in both countries makes it difficult to determine what those individual values are.

Would an African-American from Chicago hold the same values as a white American from the Midwest, or a Latino from Texas? Would a hipster from urban Melbourne hold the same set of values as a wheat farmer from Merredin, or a Murri from Dajarra?

The answer, of course, is that individual comparisons and assumptions simply do not hold, so we will have to look at institutional and political values.

AI will tell you that Australian values respect mateship, and the notion of a "fair go', whereas Americans value individual achievement, free will, and economic success. The institutional outcomes of these factors are universal health programmes, strong social security and welfare structures in Australia, and private insurance and a relatively scelorotic welfare system in the USA.

It describes an Australian laid back attitude to leadership, and a lack of deference to authority, whereas Americans respect authoritative leaders and those in positions of power. These values feed consensus (not weak) politicians in Australia, and authoritarian leadership in the USA. The current situation mirrors that.

It says Australians have a more relaxed approach to the work-life balance, and focus more on enjoying life than making money, but Americans value career advancement and are tolerant of long working hours. 

The cliche of the tall poppy syndrome is cited in Australia, but Americans are painted as admiring "superstars" and those who are very successful.

And when it comes to class structure, Americans are described as categorising people by status, whereas Australia has a relatively low degree of class structure.

Frankly, I believe that there is confusion generated by the fact that we share a common language and there are strong parallels in our national history narrative, as we are post colonial societies which began as British settlements. These commonalities mask or hide significant differences.

These differences were demonstrated starkly to me when I served beside Americans in Vietnam fifty five years ago. I vividly remember situations where the hierarchical culture of many American military units got in the way of getting the job done. As Australians, we often exploited this culture when we were scrounging for materials. It was very easy to use rank as a wedge to get what we wanted.

The attitude towards race demonstrated by the Americans was in strong contrast to ours. We saw indigenous diggers as of equal status. The Americans didn't, and this was sometimes a source of tension when we fraternised with African-American soldiers when on leave.

I remember being pulled aside by a well-meaning GI in a nightclub in Saigon, and being told "You don't want to associate with those motherfuckers". He was referring to a group of black Southerners who were great and generous company.I saw these same attitudes, especially to race and status, when I visited the USA in 2018. Nothing has changed in half a century.

In summary, I believe that the rationalisation of "shared values" as a basis for our alliance is mythology.

We need something more solid than that, given what is at stake.