Can this really be true surely not?

[hazard]

I have got this a couple of times this year from various friends, Is this really the truth or have we completely lost the plot!


Political Bastardry!

Well you may think!!!!

On the 18th of August 1966 at Long Tan,Vietnam,

D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment,

mainly made up of Australian National Servicemen

and at that time located to support the American Army,

fought a battle against the Viet Cong.

In this action D Company lost 18 men killed and 24 injured.

The Viet Cong dead numbered in excess of 245.

The Australian lines were never crossed.

The Viet Cong withdrew.

American President Johnson and US Army Staff recognised the achievement

by awarding the Unit Citation of Gallantry on 30th May 1968.

The Award was formally accepted by Queen Elizabeth in 13th June 1968.

Prime Minister John Gorton made the formal presentation

of this American Citation to the Battalion

at Lavarack Barracks,Townsville on 18th August 1968.


On the 31st of March 2010,

D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment

were belatedly awarded the Australian version of

"Unit Citation for Gallantry" (UCG)

honouring their extraordinary deeds at Long Tan.

The Government however refused to approve travel payment

for the surviving Unit Members or their families,

including the families of deceased Unit Members,

in order that they be present at the

UCG Presentation Ceremony

presided over by the Governor General of Australia.

In February 2011 the same Government of Australia

footed the funeral bill to bury the illegal boat people,

who tragically perished on Christmas Island.

This included flying surviving family illegals and survivors

to and from Sydney and Christmas Island,

accommodating them, etc etc,

plus a coach tour of Sydney thrown in.

The Canberra politburo had waited 45 years

to finally publicly acknowledge the bravery and sacrifice

of these Sons of Australia

and then immediately Shat on their memory

by falling over themselves

to appease the feelings of boat illegals

forcing their entry into our country.

Now we witness, what can only be described as,

a blatant attempted political face saving,

by this same Government,

sponsoring a TV Documentary,

to celebrate our Armed Forces accomplishments

at Kapyong, Korea in 1951.

This will see our Prime Minister and her entire Prime Ministerial Entourage

fly an RAAF plane to Korea to mark this 60th Anniversary.

I doubt they give a fig for the soldiers,
just a face-saving stunt dictated by their faceless minders.
What bloody hypocrisy!!!

What a blatant affront to the feelings

of our Nation's serving Armed Forces, past and present.

Shame,Shame,Shame, you political parasites.

You do not deserve to represent our great Country.

[Steven J]

This is truly a shameful situation.

I think that in addition to pointing the finger at the decision makers concerned, the media should take its fare share of the blame. Politicians would feel less pressure to guard their backs from criticism if the media if a fair and reasonable account was given to a broad range of topics.

Steve

[SouthTexasPighunter]

I see disrespect from the government and those who hold office is everywhere. As a Marine and nephew, son, cousin, and so on of those who served with your brave men in Vietnam I salute all of those who have suffered for God, Family and Country. Peace be with you all. Especially to those who lost their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers.
STP

[Nephew]

I don't know, there is so much deliberate mis-information going around it's hard not to be cynical about it. Maybe we should do a little more research into this one. It sounds plausible, but then again can you imagine any P.M.s media manager or a Defence ministers advisor letting an opportunity like this slip by? To them it's all about how the public perceives events so I can't see them missing an opportunity to protect, maybe even enhance, the ministers image by paying expenses for attendees. I'm not saying they would do it because they care or think it's the right thing to do, just that those kind of people would see an opportunity to soften the ministers public image in a positive way, that's all.

Still stinks, though! Should have happened because the diggers EARNED IT WITH BLOOD AND COURAGE, not for some minister to exploit for his/her professional gain

[GrahameA]

I have got this a couple of times this year from various friends, Is this really the truth or have we completely lost the plot!

How credible is the originating Author? What are the political or otherwise affiliations of the originating Author. Is the originating Author even known?

My view is that every piece of unsolicited email i receive is treated as being highly suspect, a potential source of a Virus or Trojan or a Scam. It is essentially Spam.

[hazard]

Graham, yes you said!!! It is this really the truth or is it "Spam"?. I guess you would have to go well out of your way to confirm any of this, though the antics of all our poloticians make a sewage treatment plant look like a place of hygene.

How credible is the originating Author? What are the political or otherwise affiliations of the originating Author. Is the originating Author even known?

My view is that every piece of unsolicited email i receive is treated as being highly suspect, a potential source of a Virus or Trojan or a Scam. It is essentially Spam.

Moreton with all the hype about regulating everything, licencing and registering everything these days the only thing in need of regulating and truly holding responsible these days is the Media and the Government. I really wonder how much more it will take before these Ba$tards are put on a chain.

there is so much deliberate mis-information going around it's hard not to be cynical about it.

STP, You won't find me arguing with that!!Australian politicians have made a right bollocks of just about everything, I would really like to know when they are going to stand accountable for it!

I see disrespect from the government and those who hold office is everywhere. As a Marine and nephew, son, cousin, and so on of those who served with your brave men in Vietnam I salute all of those who have suffered for God, Family and Country. Peace be with you all. Especially to those who lost their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers.

Hazard

[GrahameA]

Graham, yes you said!!! It is this really the truth or is it "Spam"?. I guess you would have to go well out of your way to confirm any of this,..

This morning I received an email blabbering on about the US President and the death of the USA. Normally I would have just deleted it. However since you had asked the question I did a quick search on Snopes to see what they had to say. As usual what was being circulated as "Fact" was not so much fact rather fiction as are most such pieces.

Have a read of the commentary: http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp

As far as the original post on this forum goes if you do a search on some of the phrases in it and then follow the links you will better informed as to whom is driving the agenda.

[Nephew]

Here's the 6th R.A.R association websites page on the battle of Long Tan, at the end is a paragraph about the Citation http://www.6rarassociation.com/battlelongtan.htm ...nothing mentioning any such thing there. Elsewhere I found this- http://ofpvietnam.asn.au/index2.php?opt ... df=1&id=21 but this has no confirmation that it happened, just that some people had heard it had happened. I can't find anything else on it, from neither reputable nor non-reputable sources, which indicates to me it may have happened but is more likely to be Urban Myth.

TBH, Graydon, from what I can find out the Govt. should be congratulated for conducting a review and issuing a Unit Citation for Gallantry that should have been awarded long ago as far as I can see, and I would say the same if The Opposition were in Govt. and made the same decision.

[hazard]

A Government worth congratulating, now that would be really something! Unfortunately Moreton ( with absolutely no disrespect) I said it before and I am compelled to say it again, " a sewage treatment plant looks like a place hygiene compared to our current government!" And the grubby antics of the media are rancid to the core!

from what I can find out the Govt. should be congratulated for conducting a review and issuing a Unit Citation for Gallantry

[Nephew]

A Government worth congratulating, now that would be really something! Unfortunately Moreton ( with absolutely no disrespect) I said it before and I am compelled to say it again, " a sewage treatment plant looks like a place hygiene compared to our current government!" And the grubby antics of the media are rancid to the core!

from what I can find out the Govt. should be congratulated for conducting a review and issuing a Unit Citation for Gallantry

I know you mean no disrespect matey, and you're absolutely right on the media for sure.
I gotta admit, I was just being mischievous putting that in! I had a sly little grin on my face when I wrote it, I wanted to see if I could spark ya up a bit!

[hazard]

I got that idea but I just love bagging out these slimy parasites so much I just couldn't resist it

Hazard

[Nephew]

Rip into 'em, mate!

[looseplucker]

It was an email conflation. A bit like the one that was doing the rounds in the early 2000s about Australia on a 'love it or leave it thing' - and it had a whole heap of stuff more relevant to America than Aust - and had merely been copy pasted. An awful lot of that stuff is in circulation and most of it is really amateur hour political lobbying. The spelling and grammar usually gives it away.

[jindydiver]

I can smell horse droppings.
Just today the Canberra times has an article claiming that those 1966 D company guys will be receiving their Unit Citation for Gallantry this Thursday in Brisbane. It makes half of that story an out and out lie.

Any emails like this that end up in my in box move to my trash folder without being opened. It seems like the interweb has become a bigger source of disinformation and ******** than anybody could have imagined