Too Woke to be a Veteran?

Here’s something you might be able to help me with. What is a veteran?

I looked in the dictionary and this is what it said.

Noun: a person who has had long service or experience in an occupation, office, or the like:a veteran of the police force; a veteran of many sports competitions.

a person who has served in a military force, especially one who has fought in a war: a Vietnam veteran.

Now I agree with those definitions. A long serving person or a person who has served in a military force, especially one who has fought in a war.

That’s where I need your help. You see, every day I read or hear of military ‘veterans’ who have no long standing experience or service, nor have they fought in a war.

In some cases, these ‘Vets’ have enlisted in our defence forces and put on the khaki greens (or the navy and airforce equivalent)…sometimes for as little as 24 hours.

Yes, that’s all it takes to be declared a Veteran today and that doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it doesn’t sit right with you either.

It could be I’m out of step with our modern military, now that it’s gone all woke and PC.

We’ve seen them push our elite soldiers to breaking point and then convict them without trial while whitewashing the failures of senior officers.

We’ve seen their rations go halal certified while employing a ‘moderate’ muslim imam as a religious adviser who openly called for Sharia law in Australia. If that’s not bad enough, the spiritual adviser also signed a public petition in support of nutty extremist group Hizb-ut Tahrir.

Of course the rules for not participating in political events while in uniform remain…if you are a conservative politician …  but I guess in the modern army being on parade can mean marching in uniform in almost any parade.

Now I don’t care if our soldiers are out and proud but a political parade of gay pride is no place for our uniformed service personnel. They can’t wear their uniforms off duty so why are exceptions made for some and not for others.

Thanks to former Army chief David Morrison, they even got a nice ‘rainbow pin’ which desecrated the ‘rising sun badge’ against all army guidelines which state:

The rising sun badge "cannot be redrawn, recoloured, renamed, modified, cropped, rotated, manipulated or altered in any way...or used as part of a new logo".

It was a different story when former Army major Bernard Gaynor wanted to “march for the babies” in his uniform. Permission was denied because showing support for the lives of unborn children was ‘political in nature’.

I wish it ended there but unfortunately it doesn’t. We taxpayers are picking up the tab for gender reassignment surgery for those defence personnel who feel the need to become their real selves.

One notable exception to that is my friend and colleague, former army  Lieutenant Colonel Catherine McGregor. She self funded her transition.

How has our proud ADF got themselves into such a state? Military leadership has to accept some blame but so to do our federal politicians. Our Defence Ministers in recent times have simply not been up to the task.

Consider the last three.

First up was PC warrior Marise Payne. Then the mincing poodle Christopher Pyne. Now the struggling Linda Reynolds.

Reynolds is a Brigadier in the Army Reserve and if length of service is anything she truly is a veteran.  

But anyone who professes to be completely in favour of a ‘merit-based selection’ process to place females in front-line combat roles, while keeping lower fitness entry standards for women, while simultaneously advocating for complete desegregation of gender is a bit confused to begin with.

Little wonder our defence forces are in such a state.

That’s not to say the soldiers, sailors and flyers are to blame. They are being dealt a bad hand in a deck filled with jokers.

Our army, navy and airforce are meant to be a force, not an incubation unit for redesigning society. To make that happen we need men and women in leadership positions who know what it takes to protect and defend our Country.

They can start by rethinking that going all woke and PC will scare the enemy into submission.

And while we are at it, why don’t they rethink who they allow to use the term veteran.