Official site of the Association – Launched June 2015
Association Newsletter 2021 – Vol 2
ARMI NIUS
NEWSLETTER OF THE PIB NGIB HQ PIR ASSOC. May 2021
PATRON: Major General B. W. (Hori) Howard AO MC ESM (Ret’d.)
ANZAC DAY 2021
Anzac Day March in some areas
After the Corona Virus cancelled last year’s public ANZAC Day marches, parades and services were able to be held this year in many, but not all, places. The Perth March was cancelled because of COVID-19 although regional WA Marches took place. The Melbourne March was affected by heavy restrictions. Our Association members again participated strongly wherever possible. We are grateful for the images received from members in Sydney and Brisbane.
THE SYDNEY MARCH & JOCK WILKINSON
Again this year, WO Jock Wilkinson (PIB & 2 NGIB) led the Sydney marchers for our Association, accompanied by family members. Jock’s participation received headline treatment and applause from spectators. Afterwards, his 100 year birthday was recognised with ceremony during the Lunch. Our Association is honoured by Jock’s continued leadership of our Sydney members.
A portrait of WO Jock Wilkinson on Anzac Day
Before the Sydney March (L to R): Greg Ivey, John Morris, Sam Wilkinson, Peter Wilkinson, Katie Steyn, Wayne BensleyJock strongly leads the Sydney group with daughter Suzie RoweRon Inglis, Katie & Bob Strachan were among those invited to the Anzac Day Eve Service held at the headquarters of the NSW Department of Education on 23 AprilDr Steve Beveridge and Garry Screen at the NSW Education Dept Service with the Roll of Education Dept Staff who served in TPNG prior to IndependenceAfter the Sydney March, at Hyde Park Memorial (L to R): Ray Bassett, Bob Strachan, Peter Porteous, unknown Sergeant escort, Sam Wilkinson, WO Jock Wilkinson, Peter Wilkinson, Greg Ivey, John Morris, Wayne Bensley, Suzie Rowe, Katie Steyn, John Hain, Russ Wade
BRISBANE ANZAC DAY EVENTS
Association President, Donald Graham lays a wreath at the highly-honoured PNG statue in Anzac Square, Brisbane Before the March, Wreath-Laying Ceremony participants (L to R): Greg Dillon, Trevor Pryor, Phil Ainsworth, Terry Edwinsmith, Don Graham, Kevin Smith, Kev Horton, Graham Carnes, Trevor Shelley, Lisa Adams, Lindy HortonForming up before the Brisbane March (L to R): Kev Horton, Ian Ogston, Don Graham, Kevin Smith, Frank Cordingley with Banner bearers, Ian Wust and Noel Wust behindPresident Donald Graham leads the Brisbane group with 39th Bn followingAfter the March (L to R): Kev Horton, David Lamberton, Ian Wust, Terry Edwinsmith, Kevin Smith, Frank Cordingley, President Don Graham, Graham Carnes, Ian Ogston, Noel Wust [Note that our banner was carried as usual by two sons of our former President, the late Sgt Frank Wust (PIB & 1 NGIB)]Members and partners enjoy Lunch at the Geebung – Zillmere RSL Club (above and below)
“You don’t get the same person back from a war.”
Peter Yule, The Long Shadow: Australia’s Vietnam veterans since the war, New South & AWM, Sydney, 2020, 672 pages, colour/B & W photos, bibliography, notes, index.
The Long Shadow aims to set the record straight about the health of Vietnam veterans and this large book reveals a detailed and complex picture of those veterans. It was commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, but written independently, following sustained criticism of the AWM official Vietnam History, and one AWM plaque, dealing with Agent Orange. This book has a foreword, and is strongly endorsed, by General Sir Peter Cosgrove, a former Governor-General. The author also provides introductory chapters on veteran health after the First World War and after the Second World War (plus other conflicts prior to Vietnam). Some of his conclusions about Second World War veterans are relevant to our Association, for example:
After the Second World War there was far less discussion of war-caused psychiatric disabilities than there had been after the First World War. There was no equivalent to the debates over the long-term impact of shell-shock or the ‘burnt-out digger’ syndrome, and only a small number of Second World War veterans made claims to the Repatriation Commission for psychiatric conditions. The general impression was that most veterans adjusted well to civilian life. Those who did not were left to fight their demons in private. Post-War Australia was a highly conformist society with negative stereotypes about mental illness, and veterans felt great pressure to hide their trauma, anxiety, and depression. The most common response to mental health issues was repression and denial. There was no incentive to seek professional help. Most doctors held to the theory that war neuroses only occurred in those who were predisposed to them, and therefore tended to blame veterans for their mental health problems. For those who did seek help, proof of causation was difficult, and, even if a claim was successful, psychiatric treatments in the 1950s were often of little benefit. Consequently, self-medication with alcohol was common and families generally bore the brunt of a veteran’s repressed pain and trauma.1
The author concludes a chapter on medical issues of the Vietnam War as follows:
In recent years psychiatrists, psychologists and others interested in the long-term impact of war on the human psyche have developed the concept of ‘moral injury’…the nature of the war in Vietnam left few who participated without some degree of moral injury. A large proportion of Australians returned from Vietnam with feelings of guilt, unresolved grief and a strong sense of betrayal. For many, these feelings were exacerbated by the lack of a clear purpose in the war, its dubious moral basis and a belief that their pain and sacrifice was for nothing. The consequences form one of the most serious medical legacies of the Vietnam War.
The author discusses the culture prevailing in the 1970s in the USA and Australia:
In 1973, radical activist Ralph Nader sponsored a major research project on Vietnam veterans (which said): The Vietnam veteran confronts a people who never really went to war, a society that has…never mobilized in support of the war effort. The conflict has been waged without any privation at home, and the result has been an enormous disproportion of sacrifice. A few have been asked to die; virtually nothing has been asked of everyone else.
The author outlines the strategies used by Veterans Associations to gain acceptance of medical conditions by DVA, including fighting against the Repatriation Commission:
In February 2001, for example, Robyn Cornish successfully appealed against the rejection of her claim that the death of her husband, Robert Cornish (Royal Australian Army Educational Corps, 1969-70), from carcinoma of the colon was due to exposure to a ‘cocktail of herbicides’ in Vietnam ‘augmented by dapsone-induced immunosuppression’. Professor Stewart for the Repatriation Commission argued that there was ‘a complete lack of objective evidence to support the critical pillars of the hypothesis relied upon’, with the ‘connections’ proposed by Dr McCullagh (for the Veteran) being no more than speculations. However, the tribunal accepted as reasonable Dr McCullagh’s hypothesis that dioxin could cause colon cancer in those, like Cornish, with a family predisposition to the disease, with dapsone possibly acting as an immune-suppressant.
(Dapsone was taken by Australian Servicemen in Vietnam to prevent malaria.) The author argues convincingly that the AWM official history of the Agent Orange issue by Professor Barry Smith is flawed. The author concludes in part:
The greatest weakness of Smith’s work was his failure to comprehend the passionate feelings of anger and injustice that drove the Agent Orange debate in the 1980s. The two veterans he interviewed were employed by the government, and neither interview is cited in the text. Beyond them, he spoke to no veterans, although this did not prevent him making defamatory assumptions about their motives for pursuing the Agent Orange issue. In an interview following the publication of Medicine at War, Smith said he was ‘not concerned by the complaint that he did not take into account the Vietnam veterans’ side of the story’.
This article is obviously not a review of the Yule book but aims simply to give readers some extracts to allow you to judge if you would like to read this detailed book about Veterans. by Gregory J. Ivey
References:
1 Muir, Kristy, ‘The Predisposition Theory, Human Rights and Australian Psychiatric Casualties of War’ Australian Journal of Human Rights, vol.13, no. 1, 2007, pp. 195-218
2 MacCallum, Alexandra Susan, ‘Strangers and Heroes: The impact of the Second World War on children of Australian servicemen,’ unpublished PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2011]
THANK YOU
A special thanks to all who offered photos of ANZAC Day for this edition of Armi Nius. Regrettably, we have only been able to publish a selection of your excellent photos. The following photo contributors are acknowledged and thanked – John & Kathryn Morris, Bob Strachan, Terry & Jenna Edwinsmith, Greg Ivey, Kev Horton, Peter Porteous, Wayne Bensley, John Hain, Garry Screen.
