And now...

Things, obviously, are heating up. From out there in the world, well, Canberra and Melbourne, an invitation has been made, inviting we victims of abuse in the military to submit our allegations to a review committee. That, as they say, is better than fuck all; an improvement on living with the sense of abuse, degradation, profound humiliation and the fear which has never entirely left us, in silence. Will perpetrators be identified? If so, what will they have to say in defence of their actions? I’m not into predicting the future. I have read extracts from the Rapke Inquiry, 1971, into events at HMAS Leeuwin, JRTE and on HMAS Sydney and that is a pathetic document to say the least; page after page of testimony(?) on jumping the scran line (meal queue) and biting cigarettes from juniors. Don’t go looking for names because they’ve all been expunged along with any other identifying material, leaving some pages of the transcription with only a line or two left readable. Oh, and there’s a good deal of whinging about conditions on the, at the time troop carrier, Sydney, but we won’t go into that.

That above is a sample page, containing a handwritten statement in which the only name not expunged is that of the original subject of this inquiry, JR (Junior Recruit) Connolly, remains. (Connolly’s mother had expressed concern to naval authorities through a Melbourne radio station over her son’s treatment at Leeuwin.) At the top of the page, an unknown writer states that Shane had ‘…acquired a name around the depot as a mouth…’ Whom ever wrote the report could safely, anonymously, criticise Connolly.

In the typewritten page below, again, the only name not expunged is that of JR Shane Connolly.

In both documents and in other material from the Inquiry, there’s a build toward Shane Connolly as the troublemaker since he had started a fight on the platform at Spencer Street Station on the day the group was leaving by train for WA, with some other JR who had directed a remark at one or more of Connolly’s sisters. In any event, he was ganged up on and bashed by four or five senior boys quite soon after arriving at Leeuwin.

It’s a bit of a sad tale and one we’ll very likely never know the whole truth of, but in just these two examples, we can see how selective questioning, transcription, and even copying can create a particular image for history.

Already, we’ve had a statement from a senior member of the RSL, stating that bastardisation is necessary to toughen people up for battle. What a load of shit! They’re going to have to do better than that, but, don’t lose sight of the fact that it may well be suggested that you put yourself in the way of the treatment you received…

In the Gun Plot website, some of you may have seen, or even taken part in, the Discussion Forums. One particular contributor stated categorically that that we who had spoken up about abuse at some stage of our time in the RAN were clearly people who had spent all of our superannuation and were desperately trying to build cases for compensation. Personally, I don’t have, nor did I ever have, any superannuation. My working life after the RAN, was a hotchpotch of casual work, brief periods of permanent employment and long periods of unemployment and destitution. Pretty well emotionally fucked by my experience at Leeuwin as a junior recruit which I’ve described elsewhere in this blog, I had problems, significant problems, in trusting people. However, I’m not about to fall into making excuses for myself. Let the perpetrators do that. They’re the ones who committed a variety of crimes on my person. They were able to pursue long careers in the services.

I don’t know, nor would I care to predict, what lies ahead for those of us who’re taking part in the government’s survey and what might stem from that. It’s very likely that some of us will be traumatised all over again. I hope we can draw strength through knowing that, this time, we’re not alone and that’s no small thing. Believe me, when I was stuck on a train on my own back to the East, to Sydney where I had no home beyond the single room my father rented – he had no room for me anyway – I was to experience loneliness that would go on for months, years.