Australia’s proud military history comprises our troops leaving Australia to do battle in someone else’s country, in someone else’s war. Troop departures are characterised by the raising of the national flag, the swelling of the national chest and the dampening of the national eye. The few voices that urge caution and restraint can barely be heard above the drums and the bugles. There is nothing different this time other than it is happening in the middle of an otherwise lacklustre and singularly depressing election campaign.
When a government sends members of the armed forces into conflict, all Australians share the responsibility. Through our government we have a responsibility to ensure that our forces are well trained and well-equipped. We must ensure that they can be rested and replaced after an appropriate time And, when the national mood swings against the conflict, as it almost always does, we have a serious responsibility to look after these people and their families when they return.
When our troops start coming home and, God forbid, the flag-draped coffins roll out the back of the Hercules, the debt will be called in. Those with physical wounds must be treated, cared for and compensated as must those who have been damaged psychologically. If history is a guide, this psychological damage will extend to the veterans’ families. The children of Vietnam veterans, for instance, commit suicide at three times the rate of their equivalents in the general population.
In the case of Second World War veterans their political representatives were, very often, veterans themselves and the legislative and administrative environments they put in place reflected this. However, when WW2 veterans washed out of the nation’s parliament, other politicians came along with less empathy and therefore a less generous and more frugal approach to veteran’s entitlements.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the refusal of successive Australian governments to concede that Agent Orange and other toxic agents may have harmed veterans is a shameful case in point. It took fifteen years of political action by groups of dedicated Vietnam veterans to have Agent Orange accepted as the cause of a very long list of cancers.
In 1996 the US Government acknowledged the link between Agent Orange and the incidence of Spina Bifida in the children of Vietnam veterans. These US children were recognised as second-generation war casualties and were granted generous pensions and other benefits. Our government did nothing. Four years later, an Australian Government health study showed a much higher incidence of Spina Bifida in the children of Vietnam veterans. The Australian Government’s miserable response was to offer to cover the gap between Medicare refunds and actual medical costs. Oh, and it threw in the possibility of some new wheel chairs.
The Invalidity Service Pension is paid to war veterans who are prevented from working by an illness which cannot be proven to be war-caused. Matching the civilian equivalent and the old age pension, it is less liable to review and is a recognition of the pensioner’s war service. In late 1999, the Government decided to save some money by making it much harder for war veterans to be eligible for this modest pension. The ALP voted the measures through the Senate with the Government late one night when they hoped no-one was watching. A few of us were watching– and we remember.
War veterans rely on the demonstrably independent Administrative Appeals Tribunal when their claims for compensation are rejected unfairly. Last year, the Government tried to bring the Repatriation section of this Tribunal under the control of the Minister for Veterans Affairs and to have the decisions predicated on Departmental policy rather than law. Once again, hardly a front page news item but indicative, nonetheless.
In the middle of a khaki election, it’s easy for our politicians to make tear-jerking pledges. It’s what they’re good at. The fact remains that troops fighting a war put their lives and futures on the line. It is the very highest form of public service. The nation, through the government of the day, must respond generously and unreservedly to those who claim to be damaged by fighting these wars. Mean-spirited cost-cutting on the part of governments has no place in this bargain and all Australians have a serious obligation to be eternally vigilant, across generations if need be. No stinting. No excuses. Not ever.
As one my Vietnam Veteran mates said to me when his claim was knocked back: “It isn’t the money so much – it’s the bloody insult.”
As leader of the Australian band Redgum, John Schumann wrote and performed the Vietnam veterans’ anthem “I was only 19”. SchumannJL@yahoo.com.au