Chriss,

That reminds me of two young Constables who came into Sol Rohu's basement range to try out their just issued pistols, this would have been just before Christmas 1958 or 1959.

One had been issued with a .32 Mauser and the other had a .32 Webley (both semi-auto) the Mauser fired faultlessly but the Webley wouldn't fire the first shot. The resident gunsmith checked it out and found that the bronze firing pin was jammed by verdigris, a quick clean and it fired OK but the incident left one Constable a bit less confident in his superiors.

On PTSD.
There is a piece in the latest Reveille entitled "Afghanistan and its aftermath" by Tyson Murray.
It's a first person account of his continuing battle with PTSD.

Noted there PHILLIPS, Noted !

Hi there CHRISGAFF1000...

Gee mate you've sure been around. You ever thought about going into your own private practice, post your PP, Petty Sessions days ? You were all fully qualified with an LLB ? I'm afraid I never amounted to very much, other than putting in a few years (32+ to be precise). And your attachment to the US would've been a lark too I should imagine. As I've said, you've sure seen a lot, absolutely.

What you say about PTSD is very true, and the remarks from IS MISE is just another reoccurring tale I believe, of which we're hearing more and more frequently. I had an occasion to speak with this bloke who was in Rwanda, with the Aussie, UN Peacekeepers. After which I thought we'd had it fairly tough, but nothing compared to what these poor blokes had experienced.

Standing by in platoon strength, fully armed and kitted out, and while not more than 70-80 metres away, a group of savages (feral 'soldiers') were systematically hacking to death, unarmed men, women, and children. Apparently these predators fired not a single shot, they merely employed these machetes, by swinging them about with gay abandon, pausing every so often to catch their collective breathes, with blood simply awash over the entire area !

Yet these proud, well trained Aussie Soldiers, had to muster-up from the depths of their souls, this supreme discipline and inordinate levels of self control, and N O T shoot down these.....these...... these.....'people' ?

That CHRIS, personified every single ingredient necessary for legitimate PTSD ! Unless you've actually witnessed such a horror, it doesn't matter one iota, if you're the most qualified Psychiatrist or Clinical Psychologist, you'd never be able to have an accurate appreciation of how bad, such a situation and it's effect could be on soldiers. In SV we could at least shoot back !

O sung wu, I spent some time with 31St. Battalion in Townsville. One of my friends always gave me a hard time about being in Vietnam. Then he crossed over to the Regs as a Driver. He was at the Massacre. To get there they had to actually drive, on the bodies, on the road, for over 11 Mile. They could not leave the road because of the mines on the edges. Apparently what we saw on TV was only about 100th. of the area of the bodies. He sought me out to apologize for his past behaviour towards me. He was & still is a mess. We were Sergeants in 31.

Unfortunately, these young Islamic people have a different mind set to us. We are judging them on our Western Values & how WE would cope with what they will see. I don't believe it will be exactly the same for them. I believe that the way these young Middle eastern people will deal with the problem is to become even more violent, more payback of their opposite Sects & more steeled in their Religious fervour. Australians will bare the brunt of that when & if they are allowed back into Australia.

'evening there JAYB...

They really haven't a clue. Ours (Vietnam) could never be described as a picnic, nevertheless we had substantial support in many ways, both from our subordinates, our peers and superiors.

Whereas these so called Syrian warriors, other than their zealousness and radicalism, have little or no formal structure in which to engage themselves to. Taking part in a fight which there's no clear delineation between right and wrong. Seemingly, nor do they have any meaningful support upon their return from Syria ?

And as you quite rightly suggest, they'll return here, as irate, angry and highly indignant young man. Moreover with this aggressiveness they'll harbour a belief system which is absolutely incompatible with anything we have here, in Oz. Where problems are best solved with violence. And personal qualities like tolerance and passivity are viewed as weakness or worse cowardice ?

o sung wu,
I have enough on my plate mate,
I spend a lot of time in the courts and tribunals arguing the case for pensions for ex defense force members and even now I cannot understand why the VA wants to deny their pensions in the first place.
These days we get the boys to report any and every physical, emotional or psychological incident both in a personal diary and with the unit GMO. That way the task in court is made a lot easier.
Rwanda was a place that no man should have been sent to. I have listened to a few stories and I almost cried too.
Those machetes came here to Australia with the so called refugees but they soon threw them away in favor of the cane knife because it has that extra hook on the back edge that terrifies even more.
I pick up a living these days as a PI mainly in insurance and fire investigation so I'm pretty busy.
Modern technology take a lot of the legwork out of the job today.
I think they rolled the 31st into the 51st and we now quarter them here just south of Cairns,