NOW there will be a new Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, who will have the rotten task of taking to the podium with Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston to announce that yet another Digger has been killed in action.
Senator John Faulkner did it too many times.
It was clear from watching Faulkner that he truly hated these death calls. He appeared to feel almost too deeply the burden of being the minister in the government which has ordered its troops to fight.
And it is a good thing that he felt the weight. Any politician who did not feel such responsibility would be unfit to serve as minister.
At times, Faulkner’s anguish raised questions in my mind as to the true depth of commitment he carried in his soul for this Afghanistan war.
Faulkner, however, after the spate of recent deaths, stayed strong. He argued that the war was “absolutely vital” for preventing the growth of terrorism and helping the Afghan people build their own security force.
Faulkner cited his personal experience of talking to Australian troops on the ground in Afghanistan, who time and again insisted to him that the mission was crucial.
There is no doubt Faulkner was relaying the true feelings on the troops. Morale is important, but it has never been the responsibility of a Digger to decide when he goes to war, or whether he should stay in that war once he gets there. It is the responsibility of the cabinet.
Running parallel is a growing and somewhat irresistible argument that abandoning the war would be an act of dishonour to those who have fallen. It is of course understandable that the families of those who have died should feel this way.
The problem with this thinking is that it sets forth an emotional strategy of continuing the war based on respect for those who have died. It inadvertently proposes that we never stop losing our troops until there is a form of victory in Afghanistan.
The chances of that happening appear, at this point, very faint. The war is being conducted like a seasonal blood sport, with a playing season and an off-season. And our team captain, the US president, is not convincing when he talks of the value and strategy of the war.
By the time we pulled out of Vietnam in 1972, we had lost 500 too many troops. The people of Australia had made their displeasure known and the government responded. In this war, so like Vietnam in many ways, the public is mute but it is easy to sense the disquiet.
There is a disconnect between Afghanistan and the Australian public, brought about by distance, limited media coverage, and a fear among the military and the government that providing detailed information will offer advantage to the opponent.
Still, Faulkner is no doubt right. There is a will to fight among the Australians. Morale is high in Afghanistan, but it is suffering here.
This is not a new phenomenon. The great Australian author, George Johnston – of “My Brother Jack” fame – was in New Guinea for most of 1942, during which the horrors of Kokoda, Milne Bay, Rabaul and Buna were played out.
Upon return to Melbourne later in that year, he found the Australian public widely depressed about what was happening in New Guinea, with Japan on our doorstep. He wrote in his “New Guinea Diary” that mainland disillusionment was widespread.
“They don’t want me to tell them stories of the valour and morale of our fighting men,” he wrote. He said people would rather hear the “cruel, lying rumours” about Australians fleeing from the Japanese as they came through the Owen Stanley Ranges.
Johnston’s book detailed in extraordinary first-hand colour the remarkable Australian victory in the New Guinea jungles, despite some of the worst conditions – mud, rain, mountains, starvation, malaria - ever known to warfare.
Johnston outlined many incidents of bravery – they were indeed so frequent, he said, that heroism had become rather run-of-the-mill.
But he wanted to tell Australians of one incident which was typical of the many he had seen. He wanted to show that the ragged and gaunt Diggers in New Guinea were not as dispirited as the Australian public imagined.
Johnston was with a party of 21 South Australian infantrymen at Gona, crouched in the kunai grass. He said these men were “thin, haggard, undernourished, insect-bitten, grimy, and physically near the end of their tether”.
Across open ground ahead of them, 70 metres way, the Japanese were holed up in a weapon pits near the base of a huge jungle tree. Two of the Diggers had been already been killed and several wounded when they first tried to take the Japanese position.
“No use sitting round, I guess,” said a 23-year-old subaltern from Glen Osmond. “We might as well get stuck into it!”
A bloke named Shorty, from Renmark, tossed his hand grenade in the air and caught it nonchalantly. He was doing the numbers, calculating how many of them wouldn’t make it.
The lieutenant said: “According to Shorty here, this job’s going to mean 15 of us won’t get through.”
A lanky Digger said: “Wouldn’t count of it. He was always an optimist.” They all laughed. The lanky bloke winked at Johnston and said: “Give us a good write up.”
Then the Australians did it. They ran in a straight line at the Japanese, directly into machine gun fire. There was no use zig-zagging in the face of spraying bullets. Shorty died just short of the Japanese pit. Shorty was wrong. Nine of the Diggers got through.
“They wiped out the post, killing every one of the 19 Japs inside,” wrote Johnston. “That is the meaning of morale. I saw that happen. I saw many other incidents just as expressive of the fighting spirit that makes these young Australians the world’s best assault troops.”
He added: “There is nothing wrong with morale on the fighting front. It is a pity it isn’t as good on the home front.”
It is easy believe nothing has changed in the Digger mindset in 70 years. The character remains the same and we do not question their bravery. Angus Houston was surely right when he said the recent death of Lance Corporal Jared McKinney would only increase the resolve of our Diggers in Afghanistan.
But the menace of IEDs pits our soldiers against a cowardly but effective form of remote-control savagery. This a particularly frustrating form of soldier’s death, because there is no pitched battle, no seeing the whites of the enemies’ eyes, no exercise of skill in being blown up.
The level of sacrifice in such deaths seems particularly poignant because it is such a waste.
Australians lend their hearts to the dead soldiers and their families. But it does not follow that the Australian public gives its blessing to this war. Faulkner, before leaving the Defence post, urged Australians should have a full parliamentary and community debate about Afghanistan.
In a time when both major parties are unlikely to change their position on Afghanistan, it is up to the Australian community to reveal its real thoughts and take some ownership, or denunciation, of this war.
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