Australian Army Journal

OPINION
On the Culture of the Australian Army
38 In his 2012 book Exit Wounds, Major General John Cantwell described ‘the draconian control
of information by the Defence Public Affairs Office and the Defence Minister’s Office.’ See John
Cantwell, Exit Wounds, Melbourne University Press, 2012, p. 326. Readers may also remember
the complete lack of public support by senior officers for Commodore Bruce Kafer, RAN,
Commandant of the Australian Defence Force Academy, in 2011 after the Minister’s public
attack on him. I would like to think the Commodore’s fellow flag and star officers were ordered
to refrain rather than believe they deserted a comrade.
39 At least not since the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the final punitive campaigns against
Northern Territory Aboriginals were mounted.
40 As former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain put it.
41 I don’t mean the forbidden love in the lines of the School of Signals or the Duntroon cadet blocks.
42 If you haven’t seen this movie, I’m not sure why you’re reading this journal!
43 Alistair Maclean, HMS Ulysses, Fontana Books, UK, 1955. This is one of the most harrowing
war stories I have ever read. It is the tale of an Arctic Ocean convoy in the summer of 1943,
with considerable attention given to the psychological and emotional factors that hold a
cruiser’s crew together in hellish circumstances.
44 This is where corporals and sergeants earn their money. Close supervision by intelligent,
seasoned and compassionate non-commissioned officers makes all the difference between an
issue handled appropriately and another digger-led mess.
45 A marvellous tale of comradeship and courage written by a veteran. J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the
Rings, part 3, The Return of the King, George Allen & Unwin, UK, 1954.
46 I experienced this in 2008 with Afghans and Americans thrown together by the fortunes of war.
47 See the many section/troop/team/platoon etc t-shirts listing the members’ names, worn long
after that group broke up. How many of those soldiers remain in contact?
48 How many of you just pronounced that aloud as ‘vikky verka’?
49 John Berger in A Fortunate Man, Vintage International, New York, 1997.
50 Mark Twain is reputed to have prescribed reading the Bible as a cure for Christianity. His point
stands — reason is no friend of faith, one’s own thought is unlikely to lead to obedience to
another’s will.
51 Einstein himself considered that a soldier’s possession of a large brain was a mistake: a spinal
cord and hindbrain would be quite sufficient.
52 Which seems inevitable to me, given the two-thirds Shia majority of the population and the
post-Ba’athist political trends in the country.
53 Note the preponderance of democratically elected Islamist governments in the North African
nations following the Arab Spring.
54 The figure usually thrown about is 20 per cent of the world’s people using 80 per cent
of the world’s resources. Recent OECD research suggests it’s really much worse than
that. Would you accept poverty as your lot because of your birth, or would you try to
take some wealth and hope for yourself and your family? http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/
dividedwestandwhyinequalitykeepsrising.htm
55 General George S Patton Jr, probably.
56 Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari (Concerning Military Matters) Vegetius describes
legions of the early Empire with many points of resemblance to any of today’s better armies.
57 And of course much in the reform plan to date is positive: removal of pointless gender barriers is
a step forward and opens a much greater recruiting pool to the Army. The recent investigations
into abuse of soldiers are also welcome: there is no place for those who would behave so foully.
Let us not, however, sacrifice the essential ferocity of the soldier to achieve other ends.
Australian Army Journal
Culture edition 2013, Volume X, Number 3 Page 243