Category: Defence

On reflection I am glad I didn’t serve in the ADF.  I was in the AMF and a happy man in a man’s world with any number of men and  woman supporting us line-regiment blokes. Under the current ALP distraction the Army Chief seems to be playing a role supporting the feminist agenda of Julia Gillard. General Morrison has becomes a pinup of Destroy the Joint, a FB page for seemingly very angry women who clearly do not like men. He wins praise from a bunch of women when he commands an Army made up mostly of men. From The Australian

But Lieutenant-General David Morrison has also won praise from feminist groups for campaigning for the Australian Defence Force to treat women with respect.

The praise across social media for the father-of-three included observations that he should be deployed to train the nation’s politicians on leadership and gender issues before the federal election.

I actually think that last statement is a bad reference for a man commanding an infantry based Army. The Army don’t treat women with disrespect.   Sometimes individual soldiers do cross the line driven by alcohol and testosterone but,  I would suggest,  a whole lot less than in the rest of the community. The Army is about Infantry.  They couldn’t operate without all the other Arms and Services but these others are there to support us in what we do.

The role of Infantry is to seek out and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize and hold ground and to repel attack, by day or night, regardless of season, weather or terrain.

Nothing more, nothing less.  No manouvre room for feminists there. The role does not include the rider “whilst observing politically correct interpretations as seen by armchair warriors”.  There is no mention of celibacy nor behaving like a paragon of virtue when on leave.  Soldiers, warriors, by the nature of their testosterone driven employment are not, as a rule, the most gentle and introverted members of society.  I read often enough that the Army is supposed to be representative of  the culture of the country.  Not really.  We wouldn’t want a bunch of hippies, Greenies, human rights activists, artists, gentle souls, whistle blowers, ideological warriors or beaurocrats serving in the platoons of a battalion. Nothing would ever get done.  We need to weed out a good part of the society from whence we choose soldiers to make sure we end up with soldiers prepared to fight so that the rest of society can exist happily in their little worlds. The men we end up with are men writ large. Which is why, over my long career in the military, I didn’t demand my troops be angels. I did demand toughness – both physical and mental, a high level of skills and a comittment to the country expressed at it’s prime level – comittment to the unit. Where am I going with this?  Well I think the General is being a bit harsh on his troops.  Three guys out of about 50,000 have transgressed.  The were on leave drinking and having sex – so far so good.  They then filmed the deeds and transmitted them, apparently through defence means.  If the are guilty of the last two acts then charge them, front them to a court and if the court so decides then dismiss them.   If the women involved didn’t know about the transmission then the charges against the perps should reflect that.  I read no mention that the sex wasn’t consensual and as the accusations are months old I’m inclined to say charge them all with an offence or shut up. That’s it. The General has said told the Army that anyone not willing to work with women and accept them as equals, then “There is no place for you amongst this band of brothers and sisters. There is certainly no place for them among these brothers sisters umm….soldiers;

His frontal attack on discrimination also includes help for enlisted men who become enlisted women.

Soldiers who switch gender are being helped stay in the Army under Lieutenant General David Morrison’s campaign to rout all forms of discrimination in the military.

There currently are 10 Army members who have transferred gender while still in uniform, and have received the support of their most senior officer, General Morrison.

Two of them are women who now live as men, and eight are men who now identify as women.

Shudder.  So the Army is now a social experiment.  Dwarfs, hermaphrodites, Drag Queens….roll up, we’ll take you all! The case has morphed from soldiers on leave having consensual sex and filming it then distributing the film, which may or may not be consensual, to the Army being accused of not accepting women as equals.  There are only a few soldiers stood down and has the case has been around since at least April then the rest of the media’s so called ‘hundreds’ are most probably recipients of emails or have viewed the clips. I understand these types of transgressions are happening daily among all walks of  life but few if any get such media space.  I have no issues with soldiers, or officers (and I wish the media would learn the difference) drinking on leave, fornicating, or indeed filming the deed and I have no problems with putting the deed up on the internet if that is what floats your boat,  providing both parties are in agreement.  I wouldn’t film and transmit myself but I’ve long known forcing your own moral standards on others simply doesn’t work. If it ain’t illegal its legal. If it is illegal then charge them and get on with it  and don’t try and feminise the Army while you’re doing it. It is apparent to me that Defence Minister Smith has a bunch of these type of revelations and I expect him to drip feed them as a distraction from the ALP’s disasters over the next ninety days and I can’t help but think that Chief of Army is  helping him to do it. In my time I was taught  by my combat experienced superiors, to never, ever abuse soldiers in front of their peers nor NCOs in front of the soldiers.  Always take them aside. General Morrison has publicly abused everyone in the Army from Major General down with his ‘feminise or get out message’   The entire world bloody knows.  It is an in-house matter and the international dissemination of the General’s spray to the troops has brought the Australian Army into disrepute.  A situation occasioned by it’s commander, no less! Poor form in my opinion.

I note Defence Minister Smith is talking about asking for billions to try and fix the enormous stuff-up the ALP have made of the portfolio. I think you will find that Smith is asking for billions so the punters can see that the ALP are serious about defence. He’s unlikely to get it given the horizon-to-horizon black hole the ALP have organized, but at least it will be recorded that he tried. Some background reading on what the military think of Minister Smith  The first indications of ALP problems was Rudd’s white paper that promised, among other dreams, twelve submarines. Twelve!  We have troubles manning two out of six and this beaurocrat, this non-oracle of defence suggests we can handle twelve. Maybe he thought the ACTU could man them. Rudd’s White Paper didn’t survive the light of day. It simply provided a platform for Military historians and civilian academics with some skin in the game to get some opinions and papers recycled. Those of us who are ex-military and the current ADF members simply roll our eyes and sit waiting patiently for adults to resume command. It did nothing for Defence as evidenced by the ADF being stripped of monies right down to the petty cash for office supplies. The ALP have reduced Australian defence spending to 1.56 per cent of gross domestic product, the lowest it has been since 1938. The Commanding Officer of an Infantry battalion, just before deployment to Afghanistan last year, told me he wasn’t allowed to send his officers NCOs and soldiers on training courses that he thought relevant to their deployment to a war zone, due to ALP cutbacks. But, Smith is on record as asking for billions he knows he won’t get whilst a member of a government in serious decline that doesn’t even like the ADF.

The ADFA Skype scandal has been good for the ALP. Every time they feel they being treated shabbily by the media they release yet another report into us awful, politically incorrect military types in an attempt to divert attention away from their stuffups. The latest is basically a litany of offences against the Emily List ‘feminize the military’ ideals.

Former senior military investigator Andrew Johnston told The Australian that the Skype scandal, if proven to have taken place, would represent just “the tip of the iceberg”, and the practice went back to the 1990s, when recordings were made using video cameras hidden in shoeboxes

Andrew Johnston was a Warrant Officer Class 1 in the ADF Investigation Service and his comment is conjecture and quoted because it suits the authors intention of making it appear the ADF has a real problem. It also sits well with those who want to feminize a warrior society.

The commission found evidence of a small number of women, potentially in single figures, who had been filmed in this way, but that as many as one in four servicewomen had suffered other sexual abuse or harassment within the past five years.

Oh my God! As many as ten woman out of a strength of 80,000 have been filmed ‘in this way’in the ADF! But, and it’s a big BUT, as many as one in four have been sexually abused or harassed. I have no time for rape,’groping’ or verbal abuse but I sometimes think that some of these figures represent ‘unwelcomed’ approaches, as in asking for a date more than once and being slow to work out it aint going to happen; swearing in the presence of women; or having a nude pinup in your locker. Very few groups within the community have such a preponderance of young, fit people at their physical sexual peak as does the military and doing what comes natural is…natural. I would like to see the Human Rights Commission’s definitions of what constitutes abuse or harassment before I start worrying about the ADF’s sexual problems. I am, for example, more worried about the ALP’s cutting defence expenditure to such an extent that regiments can no longer train their officers and soldiers to be battle ready. And yes, the ALP statement that line regiments would not be impacted on is like all of the ALP’s defence attitudes – bullshit!