Chickenman Remembered

One of the very few entertaining aspects of serving in Vietnam was the opportunity to listen to episodes of Chickenman broadcast on American Forces Radio.

They were universally funny and a send-up of the genre of radio serials that had been popular both in the US and Australia throughout the fifties and sixties.

By the time I was in country, this genre of programming was no longer popular back home in both countries, but they enjoyed a resurgence amongst service personnel during the war. They were at the same time a reminder of home, and a bizarre diversion.

There was also an Australian radio station set up by members based in Vung Tau, which supplied news, sporting broadcasts and other reports from home. From memory, it didn't broadcast around the clock as the American station did, and was bereft of the "commercials" which punctuated the American broadcasts, which reminded GIs to fasten their buttons, take their anti-malarials, and secure parked vehicles, amongst other things. 

This broadcast coincidentally was made on the day I arrived in country aboard HMAS Sydney. 

You're probably familiar, gentle reader, with Robin Williams' Good Morning Vietnam.

We used to listen through earphones to AFN on transistors secreted in our basic pouches. It was tolerated, but not encouraged by our commanders. Listening without earphones was  a chargeable offence, as was listening (with earphones) on picquet.

The Americans were prone to playing radios at all times, even when patrolling in the case of some units.

 

"Jellybeans" in Hindsight

About thirteen years ago, I finished putting together a series of blog posts and converted them into a memoir, had them printed by USQ press, and published it.

1000 copies were printed. There are about 80 left.

Looking back on the experience is interesting.

I wrote it because it was something I'd always wanted to do. The story was in my memory and had been for years. I had also been back to Vietnam a couple of times, and those trips had put a lot of things in perspective.

The school I had retired from in my last principalship was happy to organise a book release as a fundraiser, and I undertook to provide a percentage of the proceeds to the P & C.

It was marketed through word of mouth, a couple of radio interviews, a website, advertisements on a couple of websites, and most recently in DVA's Vetaffairs newsletter. 

I travelled to the USA in 2018, and established contacts with Vietnam veterans across the Pacific to help sell the eBook version. Selling hard copy overseas was never a possibility because of mailing costs. It was reviewed by Marc Leepson in 2018.

It has been stocked in a couple of Dymocks bookstores.

Since release, about 900 copies have been sold, and quite a few (I haven't counted) given away, mostly to fellow Nashos.

Apart from the experience of writing it, it has been a reliable minor earner, and helped keep me in coffee and beer money since released. The P & C also did OK. 

I've given a few author talks at libraries. What surprised me at these functions was the deep ignorance of our Vietnam commitment demonstrated by audience members. Where these author talks were conducted with veteran groups, as a few were, the acceptance of some toxic myths surprised me.  

This was substantially what motivated me to commit to further research about National Service Conscription at USQ. 

It's still available, by the way. 

I have no regrets, gentle reader, everybody should write a book. Have a go....

 

Covid Continues

 

It's finally caught up with me - the dreaded Covid.

It's probably my own fault because I wasn't up to date with the vaccine. I was lulled into a false sense of security, as much as anything else because the issue has been completely ignored by the media.

I had made a booking to get the most recent version of the vaccine but had come down with mild respiratory symptoms on the day of the booking, and when I turned up at the surgery was banished to the carpark.

My GP sent me off for testing, and sure enough I was positive. He was apologetic for not seeing me in the surgery, but explained (from about three metres away on the passenger's side of the car) that he'd had so many bad experiences with himself and staff going down with the bug that he was being very cautious.

What I found confusing was that the pathologist wasn't masked or gowned. I hope she doesn't contract it.

One the positive diagnosis was sent by text, I was booked for a telemedicine appointment which resulted in a course of antivirals. The guidelines were pretty clear, so I've been isolating since diagnosis, which is a greater inconvenience than the virus itself. I have a few days to go.

Mind you, the first few days weren't pretty (burning eyes, sinus headaches, and sandpaper throat). I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. That only lasted a day or two, and has cleared up. The antivirals seem to have worked for me. They have side effects, but in my case minor - a metallic taste which persists.

So far, my bride seems to have escaped, so fingers crossed.

As to how I caught it - who knows. I did venture unmasked to a large shopping centre congested by the Christmas rush a few days before onset of symptoms, so perhaps that's where it originated. The fact is, the virus is still rampant, even if mainstream media has decided to ignore it.

I's no linger a story that sells papers or attracts clics, I guess.

The statistics speak for themselves in terms of how it was handled in Australia, but the wingnuts across the Pacific (which has a death rate four times ours), and a few here, continue to make a big noise. 

What remains unmentioned is that 135840 cases have been reported in Queensland this year, and weekly averages are around 1500 weekly. When you consider that many cases go unreported, it's likely that the real incidence rate is much higher.

Wear a mask in congested areas, gentle reader, and ignore the outrage merchants who really don't have anything to complain about.

  

Hysteria in Politics

                        Image courtesy The Guardian

No doubt, gentle reader, you're acquainted with the recent media about the High Court decision releasing detainees from indefinite detention.

In summary, that decision ordered the release of stateless detainees as it ruled that politicians don't have the constitutional power to punish. The High Court found that punishment is the role of the courts, not parliament.

That principle is nothing new, but as a consequence of political decisions (supported by both major parties) hundreds of these people were in indefinite detention. Whether or not indefinite detention can be supported morally or legally is not the issue. The High Court found that it was illegal, and for what it's worth, I regard it as morally indefensible. In any event, they had to be released, and they were.

The people caught up in this were stateless, and the reason they remained in detention was that no country would accept them. Some of them had committed serious crimes, and all of those had served sentences as a consequence. Some had committed no crime, but they were deemed to be of poor character. Those who had been convicted of serious offences had served their time. If they had been Australian citizens, and not stateless, they would have been released into the community, just as thousands of other ex-prisioners are annually.

The opposition has lapsed into hysteria around this issue, in an attempt to make political capital, as fear of refugees has always been a politically powerful meme, and has worked well in the past.

They seem to have forgotten that the legislation that the High Court deemed unconstitutional was strongly supported historically by the Coalition, and that it had been introduced for political reasons which were, as it turns out, found to be in breach of the Australian constitution. 

Nevertheless, Dutton and fellow shadow ministers have been doing the rounds whipping up hysteria. The irony, of course, is that it was legislation introduced by the Keating government, and amended in 2001 by Howard's cabinet at the height of the Tampa incident. A further irony relates to the fact that Dutton has always been prominent at exploiting law and order issues for political capital. 

It will be interesting to see if the Coalition cooperate with Labor in instituting new legislation that puts these non-citizens back in detention.   

Whether they do or not makes no difference to the fact that indefinite detention, as a concept in a civilised society, is morally bankrupt.

 

Personal Pronoun Primer

 

Image courtesy Liveabout

Perhaps my teaching background is an issue, but the misuse of common English grammar both in social and corporate media drives me nuts.

Even when working as an itinerant consultant in bush schools between 2007 and 2017, I frequently had to restrain myself from correcting the grammar written on blackboards by teachers that I saw from time to time .

There are two common examples.

Take "your", and "you're" for example.

"Your" is the first person possessive pronoun. Its usage is very straightforward. Yet, somehow people confuse it with "you're" which is a contraction. "You're" is a shortening of "you are". 

For example - "You're late for your appointment".

Then there's "their" and "they're". 

"Their" is the third person possessive pronoun. "They're" is a contraction, a shortening of "they are".

For example - "They're going to collect their wages".

It's pretty simple.

I reserve the right to correct any grammar errors that are posted in comments on this site. I will always correct them on any sites I comment on, and am, as a consequence, often accused of pedantry.

It's weird that the same people who are bemoaning what they consider an erosion of Anglo values, are disrespecting the heritage they claim to honour by abusing the basic grammar of the English language.

Strange but true.

The Media Megaphone

        Image courtesy Medirect

The State of israel was proclaimed on May 14th 1948, so that makes it one year younger than I. 

Since that time, there have been eighteen different episodes of conflict that Wikipedia classifies as "wars" involving Israel and its neighbours, including Six-Day war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. There have been many other episodes besides these two which resonate in my memory, but many of them have rumbled along in the background without making the news, routinely killing and maiming the participants. 

In the course of these wars or skirmishes, around eleven thousand members of the IDF have been killed, and approximately 4000 Israeli civilians have also died. During the same period, reliable statistics recording Palestinian casualties have not been kept, but some data is available since 2008 indicating that over 120000 have died. This figure does not include those killed by the current Israeli activity in the Gaza strip.

The war in Vietnam was the first conflict televised daily into western living rooms, and many historians insist this exposure of the horrors of war to everyday citizens was largely responsible for the loss of support in both the USA and Australia which began to decline measurably in 1968. 

This pattern of weariness with the conflict does not seem to have been reproduced in the Middle East. Those wars have endured throughout my lifetime. Perhaps we have become accustomed to them. I doubt that the people involved (Israelis and Palestinians) have.

And this tolerance for the slaughter by both sides, gentle reader, is a conundrum that I can't get my head around. Both sides of the conflict use the media megaphone to advance their respective causes. All this seems to achieve is division on the streets of our capital cities, and political point scoring. 

Perhaps it's time to try a novel approach. Rather than using confronting imagery as a means to attract eyeballs and clicks, both corporate and public media could agree to help resolve conflict or at the very least, move it from a violent to a non-violent phase.

This, of course, will never happen so long as the media is conceptualised as a market, and the story will need to be sold to the highest bidder.

Australians at War Film Archive ..

Pic courtesy Marlowes Books

In the process of completing my master's thesis I encountered this archive of videotaped interviews prepared in the early 2000s by the University of New South Wales.

The collection was commissioned through the Department of Veterans Affairs and is a diverse and exhaustive collection of personal military histories. 

It is also a remarkable historical resource of information about Australian social and cultural life.

Anybody with any interest in military history will find it of enormous value in understanding the political and cultural history of the time, as the men and women interviewed were encouraged to describe the context of the era, and their place in it.

What fascinated me were the interviews with people who had served in Vietnam across a range of units and corps. Almost to a man (or woman - as there were a few nurses and one physiotherapist interviewed), they described the disillusionment they felt when they compared what they had been told before disembarking with what they encountered in country.

Also consistent within the hundreds of interviews were the reports of the consequences of service on participants for the decades that followed. There was a clear pattern. Initially, on return to Australia, most simply put the experience behind them, and in most cases were happy not to admit their veteran status.

 As time went on, many found that they succumbed to a range of problems, which in many cases meant that they were no longer able to function well enough to live productively. 

The temptation to continue with research, advancing to a Ph D proposal is strong. This time, I'd like to examine the stories of Nashos who remained in Australia for the duration of their service. 

These soldiers were indeed the men Australia forgot.