Blogger: What a Mess - Publish Status

Link

I left the RAAF in the 1980's and I admit that when I was in their was a attitude against women in particular Female Defence force personnel. As ashamed as I am now for this attitude I was not someone that regarded women as second class citizens, but I knew of a number who did, and they were regarded as good blokes and real characters.
For anyone who never went through the services you may struggle to understand how this is able to fester, and that answer is simple, Senior Officers! They are so intent on not having the image of the forces dragged through the mud, they try to squash any incidents rather than see it hit the media, this includes assault, rape, and drunken behaviour.

I recall a medical orderly who was homosexual, at a time when this was not allowed in the service. This orderly was well known on the base as being gay, but no one worried about it. Unfortunately one day a picture of his kissing his partner appeared in a Adelaide paper, and due to this the RAAF immediately took action and drummed him out of the service before it could become a media spectacle.

This had occurred for many years for anyone that may cause a media storm, they always took the smoke and mirrors approach with personnel. I had heard of a number of sexual assault cases while I was in the service, but I only recall 1 of these that became public knowledge.

The 1 I recall was in fact a civilian female that attended the base disco, ended up going to her boyfriends room and was discovered in the early hours of the morning in bushes, she had been raped and murdered, this could not be made to go away and the mood from Senior Officers were angry this had occurred, but instead of taking a number of steps to assist and to admonish people that failed in their duties, they were angry because this reflected badly on the base, and on them.

This was the culture, of course because of this investigation the place was cleaned up and they made an effort to change the way reports were handled. Well we have heard enough over the years to know nothing has changed, and now these last few stories shows the culture has not altered in all these years, 37 years that I am aware of, and much longer when listening to others stories.

Now The Minister for Defence is rightly angry with the ADF for these last outbursts and abuse of a female, and the Defence Chiefs are attacking the Minister, when they should be agreeing with him.

The latest allegations of breach of privacy, I would have thought sexual abuse, and hopefully the AFP will find other charges. What was worrying is that the AFP, were considering if there were charges they could place against the guy involved. The Defence Force should have made a strong statement and kicked this guy out and then looked at the involvement of the others in this.

It is time to make a stand and see the Defence Forces culture brought into line with this decade, and if the fossils. Even when I made a short post on this I was surprised at the women blaming this girl? The only thing she did wrong was be strongly attracted to a guy who was a woman abuser. This isn't even a case of pics taken and promised to keep private, this was purposely webcast to his mates in another room without her knowledge. He must be dealt with and she should be protected, however, in this Defence Force you are more likely to see this the other way round.