bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
Naw , call the troups what ever takes your fancy, we are pretty laid back about stuff like that.
Surprised that you actually had a Bushmaster that worked, most didn't.
The mob who made them is a major ( brown nosing ) contractor to the government and they were made using totally unskilled labour that had been unemployed for more than 18 months so they could claim all sorts of benefits.
My ex flattie was a vehicle building certified welder who got turned down for the job but his flattie at the time who had not even finished high school got selected for the job because they sent him to college to get his finishing certificate then to trade school to learn how to weld , all in his own time after working a full day doing general labouring duties at the plant and finally when he had qualifications, sacked him after 6 months when the subsidies ran out and employed more long term unemployed and in particular black women as they had the biggest subsidy.
Thus the quality of the vehicles was well below the standard that troops risking their life should be using and the cost per unit ended up being nearly double that of buying a similar vehicle from the USA, 2.5 times the price of one from the UK and 3.5 times the price of Israel.
The same mob was also responsible for supplying the webbing that melted around the metal fittings and the combat boots with soles that fell off when exposed to petrol.
Unlike the UK and to a lesser extent the USA , the Austalian government treats their enlisted people with total contempt.
Gun ho to send them to each & every theatre of war but no benefits when they return, almost no health care , a pension that is below the poverty line and actively searches for any tiny loophole to deny them all benefits.
Unless of course they were a CO in which case they get paraded in front to the population and given cosy jobs in the party room because the population likes to vote soldiers into government.
When Vietnam was over I was with the DSL ( Defence Standards Lab ).
There was not a cent available to support the diggers, most of which were conscripted and most of which ended up killing themselves.
However we had no trouble finding $ 12,000,000 on a renaming programe to become MRL ( Materials Research Lab ) .
Offically the policy is to stall for as long as possible and hope the troops will die off before you are forced to pay out.
Back in the 60's the Sydney ( aircraft carrier ) cut the Voyger ( distroyer ) in 1/2 because of the inepitude of the captain, known to the sailors as "Drunken Duncan " for good reasons and eventually it was established he was in fact drunk at the time.
The government of the day austricised any sailor who tried to use the disaster to leave the navy , publically called them all cowards and refused benefits because being sunk was part & parcel of being in the navy.
It took 30 years before the truth came out , liability was admitted and benefits paid, to the 5% of victums still alive.
I had 12 friends who got sent to Vietnam, 11 came home alive and all 11 were dead within around 10 years most drank themselves to death or died in a vehicle collision while drunk, stoned etc so their deaths were "not connected" with war service so they were even denied a military funeral.
Yet funny enough the government can find millions at the drop of a hat for Anzac Day commerations or foreign war memorials.
You may just notice this is a hot button topic for me.
But for an interesting incident in my youth which had me bumped up a year at school, I would more than likely have been one of those 11.
Even the conscription process was corrupted in favour of the wealth elite as all of the expensive private schools have cadets.
Cadets for the purpose of the conscription legislation were considered as part of the CMF ( Citizens Military Force ) so they were exempted from even enrolling for conscription because offically the CMF could at any time be called upon form a batallion of regular troups and go into conflict (never ever happened ).
So while my froends were being shot at, blown up or poisioned by Agent Orange the sons of the wealthy quietly slipped into top level management jobs and became even more wealthy.
And there is another one, Agent Orange, the US government had concieded that it caused health problems and was providing benefits & healthcare for their troops for better than 10 years before the Australian government would even allow the matter to be considered by parliament and it was 12 years latter that benefits were budgeted for.
Surprised that you actually had a Bushmaster that worked, most didn't.
The mob who made them is a major ( brown nosing ) contractor to the government and they were made using totally unskilled labour that had been unemployed for more than 18 months so they could claim all sorts of benefits.
My ex flattie was a vehicle building certified welder who got turned down for the job but his flattie at the time who had not even finished high school got selected for the job because they sent him to college to get his finishing certificate then to trade school to learn how to weld , all in his own time after working a full day doing general labouring duties at the plant and finally when he had qualifications, sacked him after 6 months when the subsidies ran out and employed more long term unemployed and in particular black women as they had the biggest subsidy.
Thus the quality of the vehicles was well below the standard that troops risking their life should be using and the cost per unit ended up being nearly double that of buying a similar vehicle from the USA, 2.5 times the price of one from the UK and 3.5 times the price of Israel.
The same mob was also responsible for supplying the webbing that melted around the metal fittings and the combat boots with soles that fell off when exposed to petrol.
Unlike the UK and to a lesser extent the USA , the Austalian government treats their enlisted people with total contempt.
Gun ho to send them to each & every theatre of war but no benefits when they return, almost no health care , a pension that is below the poverty line and actively searches for any tiny loophole to deny them all benefits.
Unless of course they were a CO in which case they get paraded in front to the population and given cosy jobs in the party room because the population likes to vote soldiers into government.
When Vietnam was over I was with the DSL ( Defence Standards Lab ).
There was not a cent available to support the diggers, most of which were conscripted and most of which ended up killing themselves.
However we had no trouble finding $ 12,000,000 on a renaming programe to become MRL ( Materials Research Lab ) .
Offically the policy is to stall for as long as possible and hope the troops will die off before you are forced to pay out.
Back in the 60's the Sydney ( aircraft carrier ) cut the Voyger ( distroyer ) in 1/2 because of the inepitude of the captain, known to the sailors as "Drunken Duncan " for good reasons and eventually it was established he was in fact drunk at the time.
The government of the day austricised any sailor who tried to use the disaster to leave the navy , publically called them all cowards and refused benefits because being sunk was part & parcel of being in the navy.
It took 30 years before the truth came out , liability was admitted and benefits paid, to the 5% of victums still alive.
I had 12 friends who got sent to Vietnam, 11 came home alive and all 11 were dead within around 10 years most drank themselves to death or died in a vehicle collision while drunk, stoned etc so their deaths were "not connected" with war service so they were even denied a military funeral.
Yet funny enough the government can find millions at the drop of a hat for Anzac Day commerations or foreign war memorials.
You may just notice this is a hot button topic for me.
But for an interesting incident in my youth which had me bumped up a year at school, I would more than likely have been one of those 11.
Even the conscription process was corrupted in favour of the wealth elite as all of the expensive private schools have cadets.
Cadets for the purpose of the conscription legislation were considered as part of the CMF ( Citizens Military Force ) so they were exempted from even enrolling for conscription because offically the CMF could at any time be called upon form a batallion of regular troups and go into conflict (never ever happened ).
So while my froends were being shot at, blown up or poisioned by Agent Orange the sons of the wealthy quietly slipped into top level management jobs and became even more wealthy.
And there is another one, Agent Orange, the US government had concieded that it caused health problems and was providing benefits & healthcare for their troops for better than 10 years before the Australian government would even allow the matter to be considered by parliament and it was 12 years latter that benefits were budgeted for.
