Alas poor D’Hage. I knew him well

Adrian d’Hage, decorated ex army officer, theologian and darling of the left has been quoted at Margo’s and because of that, at Tim Blair’s. I once knew him well and his name popping up after all these years pushed me to do some googling for the unusual surname. I found him here, an interview with Taliban Tony at Lateline here, a speach given to the Rural Australians for Refugees here, and just to confirm a good officer’s fall into the dark side he is quoted at Sievxnews I’m not actually sure that Adrian’s fall was all that far. We were both officers at Head Quarters, 1st Division in the 80s and the shine on his Military Cross was getting somewhat tarnished then. Not to say it wasn’t earnt in the first place but a gong will only take you so far. He subsequently commanded a battalion and then later popped up as Defence Spokesman and appeared regularly on TV. John Howards rise and Adrians fall coincided and no one I knew was surprised. According to his bio he found and then lost God during his Theology studies but never lost the state of being ‘out of step’ with his military peers. The AWM have a pic of a very young D’Hage here and looking at it I can only ponder going from being awarded a good gong in the field to being quoted, and indeed writing to Webdiary is a long fall. Comments over at Tim Blairs wonder at d’Hage’s grog intake and well they should. I’ll leave the final comment to Barney in a 2001 entry in a nondescipt anti-everything forum.

Look, it took the army two decades to rid themselves of the embarrassment that was Adrian D’Hage. I wonder why a decorated Vietnam veteran only made Brigadier? Refer to him as a publicity hungry would be political commentator but not an ex army officer. He peaked at Lieutenant.