Become a 2nd class citizen - Join Australia's military forces
Seeing as we are about to experience another bout of jingoism for Australia Day, and Governments can't help but turn it into a recruiting opportunity for the military, it is timely to discuss exactly what our kids are signing up for.
Forget the snappy graphics, the flag waving and the humanitarian focus in the advertising, what you are really signing up for is killing people and supporting other countries with even less consideration for other nations. And to really top it off, you are treated as a 2 nd class citizen to boot.
Let's deal with the second point first. Just last week we discovered the Navy are still exposing their employees to asbestos and they are not breaking the law in doing so. After the rest of the country has been subjected to harsh penalties and urgent clean up orders, the Navy has an exemption which still has time to run. The length of that exemption? A full 10 years.
That's not quite giving the same message of the glossy adverts that try to tell us how important a job they are doing and how much we value them.
The folk in Afghanistan seem to be less valued these days too. The quality of their equipment has been a sore point for at least a year. Seems like not only US parents have to dip into their savings to protect their kids.
Thirdly, under the control of the "caring" military, a service person can expect to be charged twice if the fall foul of the law in civvy street. That hardly seems fair. Does the military think civilians get it too easy or do they think their members deserve more punishment than the rest of the community?
Now back to the first point. Once upon a time we used to be very reluctant to get involved in other peoples wars. We got badly burned in the Viet Nam defeat and generally we learned that things aren't so black and white in the real world. Suddenly grey became a colour and there is a heck of a lot of it. Not long after that loss we ended up (rightly) backing Viet Nam when it sorted out Pol Pot in Cambodia.
These days however, we have fallen in to supporting countries that think a "hearts and minds" campaign starts at the bomb bay doors. We decline to use these shocking weapons ourselves but happily fly air cover while someone else does. That does not absolve us from responsibility. Iraq is a classic example of a counter productive war. It has set the War on Terror back scores of years. Americans will be carting home a lot more body bags before the Bush influence dissipates.
So before our kids sign up for the glossy campaign of love and peace being offered by the ad men, I hope they realise they will be part of a machine that deals out death, destruction, pain and terror indescriminately and their reward for putting their lives on the line are unsafe working conditions and being ignored by their government until they hopfully reach the ripe old age of 95.
I signed up for the adventure thinking my country would only use my service honorably and thus it was but these days the moral standard has slipped and you get no guarantee of honor.
Just a big arse flag and a brass band while you are fit enough to salute.
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Ah, the good old days.