Posted on 03/14/2013 1:09:28 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
...
The report, written last year, was distributed by the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison, to serve as a wake-up call to the troops.
It said there were "examples throughout Australia's commitment in Afghanistan of soldiers sunbathing in tactical positions sitting in chairs and facing inwards in enemy areas, listening to music in tactical positions," according to Fairfax Media.
There were cases of "kicking footballs in tactical positions, doing physical training in enemy areas, standing around bonfires in proximity to the green zone by night, and greeting helicopters at landing zones in thongs and T-shirts". Other soldiers were described "hitting golf balls from overwatch positions into the green zone [irrigated fields in which Taliban militants roam]".
Colonel Smith also said in the report that younger soldiers were spoilt, needy and had a "distorted and fanciful perception of wartime soldiering" based on "stereotypical images of special forces soldiers, and characters from films and computer games".
"The hyperbole surrounding the contribution of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan makes the soldiers feel entitled to be treated almost as Roman gladiators," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Well that's not very flattering.
thongs?..............
Flip flops. Though there is no mention of them actually wearing pants.
Oh, must be an Aussie-ism........
One good firefight will change everything.
“Thongs?”
TTIUWP.
I think this goes to show that building international coalitions isn’t all that useful. This was our fight. Australia wasn’t attacked on 9.11. Not that this is our fight anymore. We should just get the heck out of there imo.
I do hope those were the women soldiers! :-)
When soldiers are scared out of their minds they’re usually bored out of their minds. The cycle of combat posts is basically short bursts of trying not to be killed mixed with long stretches of waiting for the next time somebody tries to kill you. People will tend to relax during the long stretches, it’s human nature that the more stressful your up times are the more “recreational” you’ll make down times.
(( ping ))
No, that’s actually what we used to call flip-flops here in the U.S., before the word “thong” was ruined by skimpy underwear manufacturers.
They should have seen us in Vietnam, we had our moment’s!
You don’t wanna know.........Roman Gladiators in thongs?......
Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on any of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.
.....
For the purpose of Article IV, an armed attack on any of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of any of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.
- Extracts from the 'Security Treaty Between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America'.
Under the provisions of that treaty, each nation agreed to treat an attack on the mainland of any of the other countries involved as an attack upon itself. On September 11, 2001, Australia's then Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington DC on a trip commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of that treaty - he and President George W. Bush had spent time the previous day at the Washington Naval Yard involved in ceremonies to commemorate it.
I'm reluctant to credit the left wing with any good ideas - ever - but there's one saying used by Trade Unions in Australia (and possibly elsewhere) that comes to mind here.
Touch One, Touch All.
Australia did regard the September 11 attacks as an attack upon ourselves, because it was an attack upon a mate, and in Australia, that matters more than just about anything else.
One of Australia's greatest ballads is called True Blue (which in Australian slang means something like totally honest, totally genuine, totally dedicated) and it describes what that means. Part of what it says is this:
Is it standing by your mate
When he's in a fight.
For Australia, coming to America's assistance in the way that we could was a matter of honour, and a matter of mateship. And there was also gratitude for the sacrifices thousands of Americans made between 1941 and 1945 that helped keep this nation free when it was facing attack.
Ten Australians died on September 11 - which actually, at the time, made it the worst terrorist attack Australia had ever faced. But that was only the start of it - though certainly much smaller than the 9/11, the 2002 Bali Bombings were primarily aimed at Australians and killed 88 Australian citizens. We lost more in the 2005 Bali bombing, and our Embassy in Indonesia was bombed in 2004 - no Australians died in that one, through sheer luck, but nine innocent Indonesians including some who worked for us lost their lives. The Islamist terrorists don't just hate and don't just target Americans. We know it. And that's why we fight them - and, why, incidentally, we had troops doing it in East Timor from 1999 onwards (America actually some support to that operation), starting nearly two years before the September 11 attacks.
Really, this article is a bit of a joke - soldiers in stressful situations have fun when they can - so do sailors (I can say that one from personal experience). Yes, it can be taken too far at times, so senior officers need to keep an eye on it and talk about it on the occasions when it becomes a problem. But if you play hard and you fight hard, it really shouldn't matter much if you play hard.
And one little point in trivia - although far, far less important than the human lives lost, the retail areas of the World Trade Center were ‘owned’ (actually it was a 99 year lease signed in May 2001 for $127 million) by an Australian company. That was taken quite seriously as well.
Nice to know information. Thanks. It’s good to know that such hardy blokes have our back. (If bloke is some kind of insult, forgive me. Most of what I know about Australians is from Finding Nemo.)
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