If you are reading this, thank a Teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a Soldier
For a full comparison table download this small .pdf and anyone who thinks it’s time for a change will be able to clearly see what sort of change they are contemplating.
Speaks for itself. 
On 11 November 1918 at 11 am the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. This year marks the 89th anniversary of the armistice, when Australians remember those who fought and died for our country in war and armed conflicts.
Adele Horin says;
Australia is unique in its enthusiasm to fight war on distant shores. The explanation is simple. Successive governments have used troop deployment to curry favour with first Britain, then the United StatesIt’s strange how those who sit at home and slander hundreds of thousands of their countrymen have this warped view of history. My family have put in appearances in all conflicts since the Boer War. My Grandfather went there under age to be discovered after some time and returned to Australia. I still have photo of him wearing the Queens South African medal riband. His cousins, my great uncles, served in WW1 and two stayed over there while grandfather trained the troops at Blackboy Camp in West Australia. My father and all of his brother and cousins served in WW2 and a host of my cousins served in all the post-WW2 conflicts and yet I’ve never ever heard any of them question the reasons we fought. Us young bucks did our best to slow down communism; our fathers the Nazis and the Japs and our grandfathers, the Germans. It certainly would never have occurred to any of them in WW2 that the reason we were fighting in the Pacific was to curry favour with the Yanks. Some of the family were in Europe and any thought of currying favour with the Brits would’ve been overshadowed iin their desperate struggle to quell the fires of Hitler. The only rationalization I can make from Adele’s piece is that she is currying favour with her peers -those who would denigrate our service and weep tears for the enemy. Poor show Lest we forget I borrowed the graphic from the Australia War Memorial Visit the site and pay homage to the sacrifice of the servicemen who have played their part in the Nations history. I searched for “Horin” – didn’t get any hits. UPDATE: I got this email from fellow blogger Wallace Craig from Midland Texas.
All Veterans should be so blessed as to live in a place like Midland. For the past 7 years Rusk Elementary has had Remembering Veterans as their school project. I get letters of thanks from the kids at all major holidays every year. Today was their big Veterans Day Event. A 1.5 hour show put on by the kids. Probably 1000 people crammed our big CAF hangar, with probably 400+ veterans. At the end of the show all Vets stand and the kids bring a “present” of thanks to each……this year the plaque below. After each Vet has his gift, the kids, 100’s, line up on two sides in a long row and all the Vets pass through, the kids cheering the entire time and shaking hands. There was a Vietnam Marine in front of me and a guy who spent 2 years as a POW in Stalag-Luft 15 behind me…..there wasn’t a dry eye among us. Every Vet then gets a sack lunch made by the kids to eat with the kids. An incredible amount of time and work…
from cousin-in-law Kerry “The sharp increase in third quarter core inflation, plus the rapid increase in jobs, the associated fall in unemployment to a 33 year low, signs that housing construction may be coming out of a long slump, and continuing strength in retail sales and business investment, left the RBA board very little choice when it met Tuesday.”I can’t see many economic negatives there. The rate is now 6.75% and that’s certainly higher than when the Coalition come to power but it’s a whole lot less than the 18% mortgage I was paying in the 80’s – thanks Keating! Under the ALP I was once 24 hours from having myself and my family on the streets. I needed more than one job to pay the interest but there wasn’t any jobs either – no one was investing, they were just waiting to kick Keating out before they did anything. I recovered but just!
It would be carried on an ADF aircraft or an aircraft on permanent charter to the ADF, he said, and would be under constant escort by ADF personnel.Good idea, we don’t want a repeat of the Kovco drama. My thoughts go out to the next of kin – nothing will make them feel better…ever.
AE2 at Sea
HMAS AE2 was the first Allied submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles in 1915 as part of the Gallipoli Campaign, on the very morning the ANZAC soldiers landed at Anzac Cove. After five hectic days “running amok”, she finally fell to Turkish gunfire and was scuttled. Her crew was captured and spent the rest of the war as Turkish POWs. AE2 lay, unseen, until in 1998 she was discovered, intact, in 73m of water in the Sea of Marmara. The Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) aims to ensure the protection, preservation and promotion of AE2, to contribute to an informed debate on her future and ensure that AE2’s contribution to the Gallipoli campaign is duly recognised by telling the story of her brave crew. Following Government support, implementation of the Project AE2 strategy has been assigned to the AE2 Commemorative Foundation Ltd, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.The sub was ably commanded by Lt Comd Henry Stoker, DSO (don’t confuse his name with the Stoker mustering) and the story of his exploits in Dardenelles are well worth the read Terry, aka Commodore Terence Roach AM, JP,RAN (Rtd) has found himself Director of the AE2 Commemorative Foundation Ltd and is heading up the project. Conversations with both the Coalition and ALP parties have attracted interest and some funding and the Turks are more than happy with the concept. The submarine has been located and a preliminary dive has been conducted revealing the sub is in good shape and, because all the crew were rescued, its not a war grave. This fact allows for flexibility in planning and the outcome may well be that the sub is raised and displayed on the Gallipoli Peninsular. Only time and a lot of work will tell but it is a story that needs to be told. If there was a sub AE2 then there must have been at least an AE1 and sure enough there was. The AE1 was lost with all hands east of Rabaul in September 1914 From the Naval Association of Australia website;
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, both submarines (AE1 & 2) were still in refit. They were quickly prepared for sea (most of us know how that went, as well) and then proceeded north, where they eventually joined up with the rest of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEFand…
On 14 September, AE1, accompanied by HMAS Parramatta, left Blanche Bay, New Britain, to patrol off Cape Gazelle. She was last seen by Parramatta at 3.30 pm that day, when she turned to return to harbour. When she failed to arrive at the anchorage before sunset, a search was launched. The search lasted for two days however no trace was found of the AE1, or her company, ever since. It has been presumed that AE1 struck an uncharted reef and sank, however even that remains a best guess.My sub experience is minimal but I do recall a night in Bangkok during the Vietnam stoush (no, I wasn’t on R&R, I was working) when I bumped into submariners from, I think the Onslow, an Oberon class sub. This unfortunate/dangerous state of affairs led to an invite to the PO’s mess on board for drinks. All the drinks were 26oz (750ml) cans RAN style and in telling the story I often state that when another can was opened someone had to leave the PO’s Mess, it was that small. Siphoning off excess body fluids required gymnastics far outside my large frame ability. Bending backwards to the shape of the hull was too much for me and I ended up hanging off rails up-top while I polluted the Gulf of Siam. Cuts and bruises were obvious the next day as moving along gangways required lifting legs and ducking heads at the same time in a coordinated manner to get through all the watertight doors (yes, I know, doors are most probably called something different but I can’t remember right now).My ability to handle this simple hand-eye coordination activity diminished with the opening of every one of those 26 oz cans. Submarines are definitely not my bag thus I hold submariners in very high regard. I wish the AE2 project best speed and point out there will be a documentary screened on ABC next ANZAC Day telling the story of the sub and the project. I’ll remind you. The story of the recent trip to the Dardanelles by the recovery team is here and the Submarine Institute of Australia Submarine AE2 Project is here
PAUL Tibbets, the pilot of the US bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945, died yesterday at age 92, a newspaper reported.
“If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified,” Tibbets said later. “The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire.” The bomb instantly killed about 78,000 people.and saved the lives of countless Allied serviceman as the need to invade Japan melted with the bombs. There’s all you need to know about Tibbets and the Enola Gay here
THE slouch hats of the Australian Light Horse regiments returned to Beersheba yesterday, 90 years to the day after the 1917 battle, as 50 mounted re-enactors formed up for a repeat of the famous charge
Read about the original charge here “I apologise unreservedly for any hurt caused by my insensitive comments to Tom and Rosemary Arthurs,’’ he says. “I will be contacting Mr and Mrs Arthurs to offer my personal apology for any offence that I may have caused them during our discussion a fortnight ago. “In addition, I publicly express my support for all the men and women of the Coalition forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their families.”Pig’s arse you do. Howard et al have demanded Rudd sack him and Rudd is just waiting for the problem to go away and it most probably will until election day at least when the people of Hinkler have their say. This not the first time Gary has made the headlines for spurious reasons; From the Weekend Australian the weekend before last;
GARRY Parr is blunt. “I haven’t got time to talk to you all day,” the Labor candidate for the regional Queensland seat of Hinkler snaps at Inquirer in response to a request for an interview. “I’ve got work to do. I wouldn’t expect you to know what that means.” A tactless approach to the media is particularly strange coming from Kevin Rudd’s candidate for one of the Queensland seats that Labor hopes will propel Rudd into the Lodge. It gets stranger. On Wednesday, Parr, a Bundaberg real estate agent, turned down an offer from the ABC to talk about election issues for five minutes during prime time on local radio.From the ALP website . Many people in Bundaberg know Garry Parr as the person who helped them buy their first home Well he would, wouldn’t he. He is a Real Estate agent – hardly a reason to elect him. What a tosser! All this must give Rudd a warm inner glow.
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