Another Anniversary

Post-Christmas and pre-New-Year greetings to all. When I looked at the calendar this morning and realised it was the 27th of December (Australian time), my thoughts went back to what I was doing on this day 39 years ago. It was on the 27th of December 1967 that I first set foot on the red dusty soil of South Vietnam at the beginning of my tour of duty.

Unfortunately, I have lost most of my memory of that day. I remember boarding a Chinook on the deck of HMAS Sydney, but I don’t actually remember how I felt when we touched down at Nui Dat. I know the first memory of Vietnam is an important one for a lot of veterans, but somehow, for me, the events of those extraordinary months of February, March, April and May of 1968 seem to have wiped most of the remainder of my tour of duty from my memory banks.

Anyway, the anniversaries keep stacking up. But at least I’m still here to count them.

Season's Greetings

I've just come back from a short holiday. That's why there hasn't been anything new on this blog for a couple of weeks. There were a couple of significant events while I was away, on which I intend to comment. That will have to wait until after Christmas.

In the new year I will be moving to a new home, a couple of suburbs away from where I am now, which means that the next three weeks will involve frantic family activities, with precious little time for blogging. So I will just take this opportunity to wish everybody a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2007.

I'm on the ABC

One of my poems, The Thousand Yard Stare, has been put on the ABC Radio National website.

It's all part of a 40th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Long Tan.

There's a lot of other stuff on the site too. It's well worth checking out.

David Hicks & Prime Ministerial Logic

I note that a group of lawyers has today taken action against the federal government over the case of David Hicks. Hicks is an Australian citizen who has been held by the United States government for five years without any charge being brought against him. That would be reprehensible enough, but the worst part of this case is the fact that the Australian government has made no attempt to have Hicks released. Other nations have made representations to the US, and their citizens have indeed been released. It is only the Australian government that cares so little about its own citizen that it will let him rot in a foreign prison even though he has not been charged with any offence. Furthermore, it is unlikely that he ever will be charged with any offence, since the Americans have held him for five years, and have not produced a single piece of evidence to suggest that he has broken any law.

The response of the Australian Prime Minister to this issue has been probably the most bizarre piece of logic I have ever heard from any Australian politician. It goes something like this: David Hicks should not be returned to Australia, because there is no offence that Australia can charge him with. Let me run that by you again. The Australian Prime Minister is saying that an Australian citizen should not be returned to Australia, because he has broken no Australian law!

Wow! When I think of all the times I have travelled overseas and broken no Australian laws, I breathe a sigh of relief at how lucky I have been to have been able to sneak back in every time.

Political Irony in Fiji

You have to laugh at what is happening in Fiji. Apparently the military commander does not understand the meaning of irony. He says that unless the Prime Minister accedes to his demands, there will be a military coup.

Sir, please try to understand this. If you succeed in making the elected Prime Minister obey your orders, then there has already been a coup. You, and not the elected government, will be running the country.

All we need now is for Alexander (Wheat for Weapons) Downer to start lecturing Fiji about political propriety and we'll have the comedy smash hit of the year.