ht SandRat
Posted on 10/10/2006 9:03:12 PM PDT by naturalman1975
THE teenager who stole an Australian flag and burnt it, before giving it to a mob which urinated and spat on it, will carry the national symbol at the Anzac Day march.
In a move that has divided ex-Diggers, the NSW RSL has offered the 17-year-old - who stole the flag from Brighton-le-Sands RSL - a flag-bearer's position in next year's march through Sydney.
Anzac Day is usually reserved for war heroes, men and women who risked their lives for their country, but the Hurstville boy has been given a spot in the march, starting from the Martin Place cenotaph.
NSW RSL president Don Rowe yesterday said the boy, a Lebanese-Australian who stole the flag during reprisal attacks after last December's Cronulla race riot, had accepted his offer "enthusiastically''.
"Our nation's greatest day, I believe, is Anzac Day and the flag means everything to us, so here is an opportunity where he can come along and really get a feel for what the flag and the Diggers mean to therest of us.''
Mr Rowe said. "It's something for him to learn because obviously he didn't know what the letters RSL stood for and he probably wouldn't know what Anzac Day stands for if we thought to ask that question.''
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
What do you think about this?
ht SandRat
I'm torn. As a returned serviceman, the idea revolts me.
But I'm also a secondary school teacher and I deal with kids this age. And I have to give them a second chance when they do wrong, otherwise they don't have the chance to learn.
I want to give this kid a good hiding. But I'd let him march.
You can't write kids off because they do stupid things sometimes. They're children. That's part of what children to.
You punish them. You forgive them. And you give them a chance to redeem themselves.
G'Day
If it works, it would be a good example that people can change, that Australians who looked down on their country could be won over to supporting it.
Here in the States with his parents permission he's man enough to enlist in. If the same sort of thing is part of your law it might give him a real lesson and the appropriate discipline (courtesy of the Regimental Sergeant Major of course) to finish growing up and take out some of the dents in personality he's acquired.
He's old enough to enlist here as well, but the ADF rarely takes anyone that age anymore and frankly having spent some of my career dealing with junior recruits, I'm glad they don't (although I wasn't quite 16 when I joined the RAN, so I'm being a bit of a hypocrite). If he wants to serve when he's older, that'd be great - but I doubt he's ready yet.
You agree then that the Regimental Sergeant Major would, ... give him a real bucking up and make a real man of him.
This kid and his friends will probably just get a good laugh out of this and not learn jack. They will be laughing at the RSL and the rest of the PC BS that permeates our society.
Well, let's just say I can remember one or two POs and CPOs who took exception to my attitude, and put me straight - and I hadn't done anything like this kid.
That's a great story. Those RSL men have more heart than I do to let this kid bear their standard. I wish them well. Thanks for posting this.
Yeah, maybe. That's why I'd like to give him a hiding first. He'd certainly remember that lesson, whether the other one took or not.
But unless we give him a chance, we'll never know. Maybe it will make a difference. If it doesn't, I don't think we're any worse off.
Thanks, I apprciate you sharing your opinion.
"Well, let's just say I can remember one or two POs and CPOs who took exception to my attitude, and put me straight - and I hadn't done anything like this kid."
I bet there's a heck of a story behind that sentence...
It's a story that is important to me - but probably not that interesting, really.
I wasn't quite sixteen when I joined the RAN as a Cadet Midshipman - that's the age they took us then - they still wanted boys to train as officers. I'd already finished school by this stage - I'd been allowed to go through school two years ahead of my age, but the understanding was that because they had to treat us all the same, I would have to redo all the 'high school' level classes that we all had to do. I agreed to this, but really didn't take it at all seriously. I started getting lazy and I started getting sloppy - and it spread to the other areas where I didn't already know what we were doing, but I was acting like I did.
Anyway, my PT teacher at my old school - PT - Physical Training, what's now called Physical Education (we called it Physical Torture) was an ex-navy Chief and he'd encouraged me into the navy. He ran into one of my CPO instructors - he'd actually been his instructor, and mentioned that he knew me and asked how I was going, and he wasn't happy with what he was told. He told the CPO that I hadn't been like that at school, I wasn't really like that, and - well, basically, from what he told me later, told him that I was worth trying to get back on track.
The CPO wasn't that hard on me - I was still only 16 at this stage - but he sat me down to talk to me. A few others (mostly officers) had tried talking to me about my attitude, but had taken a fairly laid back approach. Might have worked for some, didn't work for me. The Chief basically scared the living daylights out of me. He stressed the fact he was an adult and I was still a child and I was acting like one, and that gave him all sorts of options to deal with me. You have to understand that moderate - very moderate - corporal punishment was still used in our training, and that was enough that I took what he was threatening to do to me very seriously. I don't have a clue if he'd have followed through on his threats, but he certainly convinced me at the time that he would. He also passed the word to my other instructors to make a real impression on me, and a couple of days later, one PO gave me a solid clip across the ear, when I made an inappropriate joke that revealed I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying.
It all lasted about two weeks. Then they stopped and I suppose gave me another chance. And I took it.
The other time was actually after I was commissioned - I was a Sub Lieutenant and really full of myself because I was an officer, and rather foolishly tried to reprimand a WRANS PO - a woman who was probably in her mid 30s and I was about 20. She told me "Go away, little boy." And I went and reported her to our line Commander.
He called her in and gave her a very mild reprimand - and I mean very mild - about the importance of showing proper courtesy to a commissioned officer, and then he turned to me and in an absolutely scathing tone, said "And you, Lieutenant. Go away, little boy."
I should say I did grow up, and I think I did a decent job over the next twenty years or so.
They're Muslims of course they "won't learn jack."
Another small victory for the Jihadis.
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