Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Just thinking,
I grew up with Granddads story of being in the firing squad for a member of his section for rape in Italy. No wooden bullets and no-one missed.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is that he talked about it. So when will the real stories come out? Not while the 'measure of a man' myth festers on, even unto the succeeding generations.
Those who were able to prove their heroism knew the price, and generally didn't talk about it. Those who never got the chance were blighted by the sense of personal inadequacy instilled by the military's methods of ensuring unquestioning obedience. All bore something of the burden of survivor guilt.
I was told a truly horrible story not many years ago by a WWII veteran, now deceased. While it started out like a wartime yarn, it was a kind of confession of a confession, an unburdening of a story of shared guilt told to him by someone else, but too awful to contain. Because I'd known one of the people involved, by then a long-dead ANZAC with major measure-of-a-man issues, I at least had some understanding of why he was driven to behave as he did. It certainly didn't make him any more likable, but it left me less inclined to pass judgement.
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Southerly: Bricks and Mortar, in reply to Ross Mason,
it will need hawsering to a Bollard once berthed.
Darfield Charlie could manage that single-handed.
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Capture: A Foray into Portraiture, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
the late great Sonny Day.
Classic pic Sofie.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It's interesting that as such real threats to the nation receded and the government embarked on small wars of (re-)colonisation, the idea of 'remembrance' has been pushed much harder in the UK.
The sentimental promotion of terms like "squaddie" by the likes of the Sun. Personally I find it pretty risible coming from armchair warriors. In Australia Packer's papers used the term "digger" throughout Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war. Murdoch, who at the time was against the war, pointedly didn't.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Lilith __,
I liked what Jackson said
Seems important to me that we remember all sides of the big messy equation that war is, so we can better avoid it in the future.
Amen to that. Good to see the RSA finally being inclusive of all experiences.
As for complaining about coverage of the Maori Battalion, it's only Maori TV than can be bothered broadcasting the ANZAC commemorations.
Ross Mason:
this practically untold story on the furlough "mutiny"
I don't know the extent of my father's involvement with that episode, as it was long after he'd died that I found the warning letters - not telegrams - from the army authorities, along with related newspaper clippings that he'd folded away in a tobacco tin and left with his sister before reporting back to Burnham camp.
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Hard News: Reputation and remuneration, in reply to Steve Barnes,
This is a point I have been trying to make for months and I just get told that Labour are being ineffective as an opposition.
So I've noticed, but has it occurred to you that might just be the reality that a lot are experiencing? For example, every day I see Lianne Dalziel, Christchurch's lone effective opposition voice, copping it from a vigorous and vindictive National clobbering machine, with effectively zero public support from her colleagues or party central. She's been singled out because she makes a difference, so where are the others, FFS? Where's the silent Megan Woods, or Clayton Cosgrove, who was an effective voice before he was reduced to a list MP, but hasn't been given the once-rumoured role of spokesthingy on EQ issues?
Finally this week Labour's put a little legal muscle into challenging the crony-enabled pirate antics of insurance companies in the red zones, and while it's more than welcome it's been a dismally inadequate response. Seriously Steve, why is Lianne the only one who doesn't automatically assume the position in the face of Brownlee's pathetic bullying?
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Lilith __,
National Service was abandoned in NZ in 1972 because of lobbying and civil disobedience.
Although I wasn't in NZ then, I believe that more than anything it reflected an overwhelming popular will. While it could be a major practical disruption to be called up in those last years of national service, more than anything it was an invasive nuisance. Unlike Australia and the US you weren't at risk of being sent into combat, or of winding up in a military prison for non-compliance. With a large baby boom population to draw on the range of birthdates drawn in the selection ballots became progressively smaller, decreasing your chances of being selected. Also by the late 60s the increasingly professionalised military was widely rumoured to regard conscripts as an anachronistic nuisance.
The main lobby group behind reinstating and maintaining national service was the RSA. Despite its supposedly representing the interests of returned servicemen, through much of its history it was a very militaristic organisation. It was the RSA that vehemently opposed sculptor William Trethewey's involvement in Christchurch's Citizens' War Memorial on the grounds that he wasn't a returned soldier. As it eventuated, the sentiment of the sculpture group is overwhelmingly pacifist .
These days the RSA's website features the experience of pacifist Archibald Baxter as a bona fide part of NZ's war record.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to BenWilson,
I think it's twisting the term "pacifism" to include designing nuclear weapons that end up getting used to kill vast numbers of civilians, and threaten rival superpowers.
In principle certainly. Still there are plenty of accounts of the rejoicing among the enlisted that greeted the news of the nuclear attacks on Japan. Suddenly the prospect of an endless struggle to take the 'home islands' evaporated. Even after the fall of Germany there were supposed to have been widespread rumours of Japan being prepared for a century of war. In civilian NZ, VJ day seemed to feature as an even bigger celebration than the earlier VE (Victory Empire) event.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I found out a couple of years ago that there was a US policy of sending adult men with intellectual impairment to Vietnam. This is hinted at in the movie Forest Gump.
From the accounts I heard from the numerous US r&r guys in Sydney in the early 70s, most of those unfortunates probably wound up in the officer class.
As for Forrest Gump: Intellectual disability porn.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to John Madden,
The constant wheeling out of the conscientious objector and the faint hint that this was real heroism begins to grate these days . . . Maybe it is just too cosy liberal round here.
Care to point to an example of anyone specifically presenting that argument 'around here' John?