“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
“Ragheads’‘, “dune coons’‘, “sand niggaz’’ and “smelly locals’‘. Last night we were exposed to ADF soldiers with experience in Afghanistan acting in prejudicial, discriminatory, racist ways. That is what we call it in the civilian world.
A group of soldiers, some who have served overseas in contemporary conflicts, and apparently some who are serving, have allegedly posted their discontent on the social networking site Facebook. They have expressed their disdain, their hatred of the Afghanis, their racist and pejorative perspective of those they are charged to ‘liberate’ and their insubordination to their boss, Lieutenant General Gillespie.
Major General Symon said “thousands would be disgusted by the revelations”. “What is happening here will cause deep offence to a lot of people,’’ he said.
Maybe this kind of behaviour is unacceptable in the ADF - or is it?
As an infantry soldier in the Operational Defence Force in the 1990s I was profoundly changed by military culture. We were a battalion of men - largely young men - who worked hard and played hard. We lived in a metaphorical bunker, a social cocoon displaced and separated from mainstream society.
In isolation, groups of young men get up to mischief.
Prejudice marked the territory between us - a tight knit group of military mates - and them: those with brown skin (nugget or ace of spades), the refugees (navy test target) the gay man or lesbian woman (pillow biter or carpet licker), the misfit (squeezer) or women (frontbums, bikes or life support system for a vagina). Internally, anyone that wasn’t of an arms corps, or was a threat to the solidarity of the group were named and abused: pogos, the putsch, weeds, meatheads, blanket folders or malingerers.
Sexual adventure, binge drinking, and other bizarre rituals of bonding shaped our daily grind.
Scaffold that with the state-sanctioned capacity for violence. One becomes ten foot tall and bullet proof. All at about 19 or 20 years old.
In later years, as a military police Corporal I saw the way this infantile behaviour panned out across the Army. Now I research it as an academic.
There is a long and consistent account of soldier’s behaving badly. Since 1970 we have been exposed to bullying, radical initiation ceremonies, sex, drug and alcohol scandals, and racism.
The Commonwealth spends significant amount of taxpayers’ dollars to investigate and run inquiries into military indiscretions. Every decade since has been marked by bullying, racism, the sexual degradation of women, and a culture of alcoholism. Social networking, digital photography and ICT in the contemporary era has made it harder and harder to hide.
Major General Paul Symon explains:
I struggle to understand, with all the training that we do and with the quality of soldiers that we have, that that sort of language has been posted.
If he is perplexed, the community is dumbfounded, and betrayed. As a nation we so want to celebrate the hard work and sacrifice of our boys.
And that is where the part of the answer lies.
These rough men are boys, with a great burden, and an unhealthy sense of license, exacerbated in combat perhaps, but part of the rituals of bonding of 18-24-year-old manhood in an exclusive trade.
The community isn’t saying the ADF isn’t an honourable institution; we are saying be exemplary. This behaviour, for the majority of Australians, is embarrassing.
It is unprofessional, it contradicts the values it seeks to uphold.
Are we really safe in our beds at night?
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