From: Dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Apr 07 2002 - 01:15:59 MST
Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> still, I don't recall there being any
> Italian, German, British, Latvian, Greek, Belgian or even French soldiers
> fighting alongside the Yanks. That was left to the poor bloody duped
> Aussies (which, you'll recall, is a fact that you'd never heard until I
> chanced to mention it to you, which makes even more bitterly ironic the
> supposed rationale for Australian involvement: that we were *helping our
> friends across the Pacific*, who would *never forget our brotherly
> sacrifice*. Sigh.)
Well, the US public in it's usual fashion may have forgotten, but do not
think for a minute that the US military has forgotten that Australia is
the only nation to have aided the americans in every military conflict
they were involved in over the last 100 years.
The only nation.
When we needed help for the East Timor jaunt, apparently the US govt was
not overly interested, and they were *told* by the military that the
Australian *will* be helped, and they will be given whatever they need.
The Australian liaison went over to washington (?) with a fairly modest
list of requirements and were apparently shocked that they found
themselves at the catching end of the world's biggest military conveyor
belt.
I was *very* impressed by this, I had assumed that the military was as
short-memoried as the public, but of course the military are undoubtedly
the most traditionalist and long-memoried bunch in a society outside of
the aristocracy, if not more so.
So, don't be disappointed if the US public have not been told about
this, that seems pretty standard. The people who *really* count
certainly remember it.
Dwayne
-- mailto:ddraig@pobox.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:17 MST