Reservist

About 20 years ago my life had reached a crossroads and I was looking for some extra interests. One weekend I wandered into the Army Reserves barracks at Randwick and made casual inquires to their survey and mapping branch...

With my previous experience the staff all but kissed me in their joy at a potential recruit. Unfortunately though, the commitment clashed with a major priority back then, spending weekends with my young son.

So it was a pleasant surprise last night to meet an Army Reservist, a fella around 40 years old returning from Queensland after a week of training. During a long trip from the Airport to his home on the outskirts of Sydney, he gave an interesting account of his background and life in the Reserves.

It would be a mistake to perceive Army Reserves as little more than ‘weekend’ warriors. Today they are a superbly trained professional force and an integral part of the ADF, numbering over 20,000 personnel,

Highly trained reserve men and women are currently on active duty in Malaysia, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor and the Solomon Islands and more than a 1000 reservists are serving with full-time military units around Australia and overseas. 

My passenger was a serving Lieutenant in a construction regiment, due to his employment in commercial construction, planning and logistics. Whilst he'd yet to be deployed overseas he had been involved in Army projects on aboriginal settlements. There they mentored and employed local aborigines in the building and maintenance of community infrastructure. A barely reported area of indigenous support.

As we chatted I sensed he had an American or an Irish accent, so I asked him. "Yes, it’s a real mess isn’t it," he chuckled. "Actually I’m a Palestinian Christian from Kuwait and I learnt English there from an American." I laughed, "A Mediterranean salad !"

He had escaped from Kuwait shortly after Saddam invaded in 1991, coincidental to an immigration application lodged prior to the Iraqi invasion. The Gulf War accelerated the process and he arrived in Australia on a skills migration visa. Now he’s an Australian citizen, married with a young family. A more pleasant, intelligent and erudite man you could not hope to meet.

What really intrigued me though was his voluntary participation in the Army. Before parting I asked him, "So what motivated you to join the Reserves...was it gratitude for being accepted into Australia ?" "No, not that, but personal duty. I’ve seen war, and I’ve lived in war zones...so I know how fragile peace and security is. I felt an obligation to assist my country be prepared in case one day Australia needs me." Fair enough.

He went on to explain a major benefit is the example for his children, in seeing him serving the country. Not only did this fill his family with pride but they actively supported him, even encouraging him when taking precious holiday leave for Reserves duty. It sounded like he considered this the most rewarding component of his service.

Finally, he informed me that I’m still ‘young’ enough to join the Reserves, so long as I pass a fitness trial by walking 5 kilometres in 45 minutes. Stand by, Lieutenant!

Comments

[gandhi]

Yegads!!! I am actually driving people INTO the Army! The George Soros Foundation will not be happy with me! Although you may be in for a bonus from the Pyjamas Media Group Inc., Adrian.

Seriously, though, if you can write propaganda like this you are probably wasting your time in the Reserves. I mean this sort of "I just had an amazingly coincidental meeting" stuff might have been flogged to death by the Fadhil brothers (see updated 10), but you pull it off quite well.

Did you know ASIO is looking for writers? Or do you already work for them?

We live in strange times, folks.

[gandhi]

Checking back through your archives, I see you know exactly who the Fadhils are, and Arthur Chrenkoff, and Jeff Jarvis, and all your other PJ Media wingnut wanker mates.

You are a fraud, Adrian, and a deluded fool. Or, in your own words, an heroic moron.

If you want to point your readers towards the post where you beg forgiveness for helping to cheer-lead the wilfull destruction of Iraq, and the deaths of over 650,000 people, please do so.

[Greg]

I've known a lot of reservists and National Guard back in the States, and they usually enjoyed their time and status very much, until called upon to deploy, naturally enough. Well, you get what you sign up for. Part of which, both here and in the States, is military leave. It's not docked against your annual leave, sick leave, or long service. It's even paid. If he's skipping family holidays on the excuse that all his time off is used up on reserve duty, there's something he's not telling them.

[adrian]

"I just had an amazingly coincidental meeting"

Ghandi, I write daily stories on my nightly encounters. This was the standout of the shift, if not the week, so naturally I'd report on it. Unsurprisingly though, I expected you to suggest it was fake.

Greg, I wondered about that too. Reserves are required to train one night per week; one weekend per month; and two weeks per year. Employers receive incentives to accomodate Reservists' obligations. On checking the link page outlining the employer arrangements I find,

Employers are also prohibited from making an employee use annual leave or long service leave, refusing to employ, disadvantaging or dismissing because the employee is a Reservist, and hindering employees from serving in the Reserve.

So I must be mistaken and assumed his mention of 'taking leave' referred to holiday leave. Makes sense now and squares with his expressed family dedication. Thanks.

[AG Canberra]

Volunteering - everyone should do it. From giving blood, to driving for Meals on Wheels, to the RFS or the Army Reserves, most people find they get more out of the experience than they expected.

Next time you are sitting on the couch watching TV - think of all the good you could be doing for your community.

[gandhi]

I expected you to suggest it was fake.

Gosh, psychic too.

[maxie]

Ghandi, come off it, mate ! Those figures you're using have been contested ever since The Lancet published them. How many did Saddam kill ? Those doing the killing now are not interested in a peaceful democratic outcome for the country where all its citizens can live in peace. They're the ones blowing up the power stations and water supply because they are only interested in a country in which they can control how people live and which god they worship. Call me naive but I don't think that is the agenda of the coalition forces.

[Dan]

Adrian, I wonder how well those government guarantees of job security for Reservists would hold up in the light of WorkChoices? They sound contradictory, like an awful lot of government policy. It seems today's worker is expected to launch and fund a court challenge should they need to see these guarantees enforced, which effectively renders them useless. As a Reservist with a casual job, I relied on the $60 earned for each 24 hours on exercise to partially cover what I was losing at work. Even with paid military leave, I'd hate to be announcing my enlistment to the boss of an organisation with <100 employees!

[gandhi]

Those figures you're using have been contested ever since The Lancet published them. How many did Saddam kill ?

Those figures have actually been confirmed by a second study and endorsed by the UK Ministry of Defense’s top scientist.

When we invaded Iraq, the wingnuts were loudly claiming that Saddam had killed 300,000 (that figure was bandied about everywhere). So we have more than doubled that in just four years.

Stick your head in the sand if you like, live in your little fantasy worlds, but the truth is still the truth.

BTW I have compiled my thoughts about this blog here, if anyone is interested.

[adrian]

Ghandi, I certainly won’t be visiting your blog to service your conceited link-whoring. However I imagine you’ve posted a despicable treatise on myself and Cablog, given your insinuation that I faked this post.

What evidence do you have to suggest this..?

[Harry Buttle]

Actually Ghandi, those figures are so utterly discredited as to be worthless. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;

Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;

Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;

Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;

The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;

bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;

the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;

an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

Anyone foolish enough to quote the Lancet figures is so obviously desperate to support their losing argument as to have already rendered their own position untenable. try again.

[gandhi]

If I post my thoughts here I am "hijacking the thread", but if I post them at my own blog I am "link-whoring".

Interesting.

[adrian]

What evidence do you have to suggest I faked this post ?

I'm off to bed, you've got all day to answer...

[gandhi]

Take a chill pill, dude.

You yourself said that you "expected" me to be suspicious, so you have already admitted that this meeting was a rather amazingly coincidental follow-up to our Anzac Day discussion.

Anyone like yourself who reads the Fadhil brothers blog knows that they also tend to have amazingly coincidental chats with anonymous strangers who just happen to reinforce their minority views on the latest events.

Par for the course, is what I am saying.

Credibility it a bitch.

[skepticlawyer]

Cripes, Adrian, you've become a target for the lefty version of Graeme Bird.

[adrian]

...tend to have amazingly coincidental chats with anonymous strangers...

Coincidental...obviously. But bogus...definitely not.

The fact an event is coincidental does not automatically render it false, just because you find that event inconvenient. To deny this, without proof, is intellectual dishonesty.

Ghandi, when you publicly level an accusation such as fabrication, overt or implicit, it’s incumbent on you to substantiate the charge. Otherwise, I expect an unreserved apology, in this thread.

What little credibility you have left depends upon this...

[pat]

Wow, I thought ghandi was an allright bloke but now I find that he's a pacifist leftard freak I feel sickened.

I highly recommend ghandi's blogs for anyone considering taking up smoking. The head spins you'll get are exactly the same as the ones you get from your first cigarette.

[gandhi]

Just to quote el muy estimado Senyor Adriano again:

What evidence do you have to suggest I faked this post ?

Well, there you go. You yourself used the word "suggest".

One may "suggest" all manner of things without actually making an "accusation". It is called debate. I was simply calling reader's attention to a possibility which, IMHO and in my experiences, is all too credible.

I was also poking you with a verbal stick, just for fun, because you deserved it. So there.

Our governments admit to spending millions of my hard-earned taxpayer dollars on PsyOps and propaganda, where do YOU think it goes?

To give you credit, A-man, you haven't banned me yet, or deleted my posts. Most of your Pyjamas Media friends would have done so by now. Maybe there is hope for you yet? ASIO obviously have not trained you very well.

Heh.

[adrian]

G_____, you opened this thread by insinuating my post was fabricated. In subsequent exchanges you offered nothing to substantiate that allegation. And after your pathetic Veterans comments anyone could have forecast you'd make that suggestion.

Accordingly, I retained copies of the passenger's Cabcharge E-ticket and EFTPOS receipt, detailing - date (29/04/07); time (19:28); pick-up (Airport); dest. (____); issuer (Dept of Defence - regiment name and #); account #; total AUD ($114.40); signature; etc.

Given the onus of proof was on you, not me, I won’t be presenting these receipts. Though knowing your 'debating' form they wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference anyway.

In the meantime G____, that gurgling sound you hear is the last of your credibility disappearing down the drain. Consider yourself beclowned.

Good bye and good luck.

Note : I've now closed this comment thread figuring it a good opportunity to put a 'full-stop' to our sorry exchange. Others may lodge further comments at Dear Reader,