2009 Plain English Speaking Award Finalists' Speeches
Duncan Wallace - Haileybury College, Keysborough
Semper Fidelis
‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. ’
This was JFK’s challenge to his people in 1961. Today, 48 years later, I want to ask – what can our country do for those who have already done for their country?
Let me put it another way – semper fidelis. In plain English, always faithful. It’s the motto of the United States Marine Corps. A constant reminder of the duty to one’s country. It’s quite powerful, isn’t it? But when I think about these two words, semper fidelis, I don’t just think about people being faithful to their country, I think also about a country’s duty to be faithful to its people. Always.
Surveys of our soldiers highlight that their favourite part of active service is returning home. It fills them with so much pride. Pride in the knowledge that now they are safe and sound again, that they’ve faithfully served their country. We have all seen the footage on our televisions of those heroic men and women returning home. But is this a too simple and too perfect picture? Are these heroes, our heroes, really safe and sound?
Ten per cent of all returned Australian soldiers suffer from mental illness – emotional numbness, post-traumatic stress, depression. To measure the devastation of war, usually we just count numbers. Casualties. The death toll. So far, ten Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. But the whole effect on Australia of this enduring war is so much more than ten lost lives. It extends to those who return. Soldiers who may now be safe but are far from sound.
On the surface, we would like to think that our government is doing all that it can to offset the terrible toll on our service personnel. We pride ourselves in an extensive RSL network and the Defence and Veterans’ Affairs department, which aim to ease the transition between service and everyday life. It seems like a step in the right direction, but at the moment that’s all it really is. A single step. In truth, the journey is so much longer. So much more needs to be done.
A federal government inquiry earlier this year found that the veterans’ department is failing our soldiers. Current estimates show that only one in three veterans who require treatment receive that treatment. RSLs are closing down to make way for new gambling machines. The veterans’ department is under-funded, under-staffed and under-performing. Homelessness and suicide rates, not just among returned soldiers but also among their families, have skyrocketed since the deployment of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they have always been high, just not visible to us. Over 110 children of Australian soldiers who fought in Vietnam have committed suicide since 1980. Not soldiers, their children.
What is so frustrating is that a solution is more attainable than one would think. Our government can make amends to this mess. Former Defence Force psychiatrist Len Lambeth said, ‘If the funding comes through, then I believe we will have an acceptable system or at least the very beginnings of one within 12 months’. We need better direction. Properly funding our defence is so much more than funding warfare technology; it also requires funding our service personnel. The very members of our society, who have put themselves on the front line to protect their country, have surely earned the right to be protected by their country.
This year I attended an ANZAC Day service. I was privileged to be in the company of former soldiers who had seen service in World War II and the Vietnam War. I felt humbled by their sacrifice for their country, for me, for you. Let me tell you the story of one of those old veterans. He told me that he served alongside his brother in WWII. They were both 18. And for some reason that is difficult for me to grasp as a similar aged youth living in the comfort of modern Australia, they both felt an uncompromising duty to protect their country. One of them did not return. And so this man will always live with the loss of his brother. He still lives with that war. And there are hundreds, thousands like him. Thousands who silently bear the burdens of the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, Borneo, Timor, the Solomon Islands, every conflict since and yet to come.
Together we listened to the ANZAC Requiem, a commemoration of our fallen soldiers. It begins with ‘on this day above all days we recall those who served in war and who did not return to receive the grateful thanks of the nation’. But nowhere does our requiem mention those who are still living. At no point during the service did we pay our explicit respects to those who remain burdened with the weight of their service.
Our commemoration is incomplete. Lest we forget those who have died, who will never grow old, but lest we forget also those who are still living and growing old with the burden of active service. Perhaps our recognition of returned soldiers is just taken for granted. Not only by our defence force but also by society as a whole. We share in their pride at their cost and at no cost to us. Is this being always faithful?
The mark of a civilised society is one that cares for its most vulnerable members. Are we civilised? If we are, then we must find a way to help, and not abandon, the citizens who asked what they could do for their country and delivered with their last full measure of devotion for our security. What we must do now is ask what their country can do for them and deliver. Semper fidelis. It’s powerful, isn’t it?