just visiting...

An Israeli arrives at London's Heathrow airport. As he fills out a form, the customs officer asks him: " Occupation? "

The Israeli promptly replies: "No, just visiting!"

for no reason at all...

Memories of a military life mispent...

First this:

Fuck 'em all!
Fuck 'em all!
Fuck 'em all!
The long and the short and the tall;
Fuck all the Sergeants and W.O.l.'s,
Fuck all the corporals and their bastard sons;
For we're saying goodbye to them all,
As up the C.O.'s arse they crawl;
You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up my lads, fuck 'em all!

And then this:

Oh we're a pack of bastards,
Bastards are we.
We'd rather fuck
than fight for li-ber-ty.

So there you go... Make of at what you will... You will anyway...

Orstrayans all let us rejoice...

The Prime Monster of Orstraya has made much noise lately, most of it curiously resembling the sound of uncontrolled flatulence, about something called "Orstrayan values".

John Hunt (of "John Hunt is a coward" fame) keeps wabbitting on, and on, and on, and on, about Orstrayan values. Orstrayan values are centremost to his heart it seems.

But what ARE Orstrayan values?

Surely, for them to be truly Orstrayan values, they must be endemic to Orstraya. Right?

OK then, what ARE these Orstrayan values?

Mick Heffernan, rest in peace....

I never knew Mick Heffernan.

I'd never even heard of him until tonight, when I was watching the ABC 7.30 Report.

But Mick Heffernan and I shared some history. We both served in Vietnam. We were both psychologically scarred by the experience. We both applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) for recognition of our psychological damage. We both found this to be a bureaucratic battle par excellence.

In 1997, I won my battle with DVA. But I nearly didn't. There were several times during that insane battle with the bureaucratic blockers employed by that department when I seriously considered suicide. But due to a lot of support from other veterans who had been through "the mill", I hung in there and eventually the bastards ran out of bullshit and conceded.

Tragically, in July this year, Mick Heffernan, unable to cope any longer with the insane situation of a government department (whose stated purpose it is to support veterans) doing its utmost to deny him recognition for his war-caused psychological trauma, entered one of their offices, and there he took his own life.

My heart goes out to his family and friends. It must have ripped them to pieces.

Now, it would be nice if the story ended there. But it hasn't.

Except for the 7.30 Report's story several weeks after the event, (transcript in the link provided above), the media has ignored this story. Google: zilch. Yahoo: zilch. Ergo, I conclude, print media: zilch.

It would require a serious media blackout to achieve this kind of media "non-event". It seems that a dog getting run over by a drunk gets more media attention than a veteran who commits suicide on the premises of the Department of Veterans Affairs to highlight his plight. So, readers, you tell me, are we looking at yet another example of the Howard Government's expertise at "Total Information Management" ???

Correction: there has been adequate media coverage of Mick's demise. It was my crappy search which was the problem. If you use the string Michael Heffernan veteran melbourne in Google, you get plenty of results.

And whilst we're about it, let's not forget a few details about Mr Billson, the Minister for Veterans Affairs.