PM sent

PM Sent

Another PM your way Andy.

Regardless of what everyone's personal opinions may be you've got to respect the amount of engineering and fabrication that has gone into this Datto. Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but whoever built it has logged some serious hours.

None of us on this forum toy with cars for the satisfaction of others.

Your use of name calling and thinly veiled jibes shows the true man you are D. I'll let you in on a secret, I to have lost family to war, and I have helped refugees, many of them young children, escape oppression. I'll give you one thing, the JSF project is a debacle. But please don't confuse the mistakes of bumbling bureaucrats in the APS with what we do.

Fake 'diggers', how about you stand up like a man in front of the families and friends of my comrades that have paid the ultimate price in this war? You never would, you are the atypical keyboard warrior. Tell me to get off my high horse, I'm riding a Shetland to your Black Caviar brother. All I have done is stand up for myself and my fellow troops past and present, and the families and friends of my colleagues you choose to insult. My beautiful wife started a post to show her respect and you hijacked it with sanctimonious crap.

I could sit here all night and pick apart the Marxist, anti-semitic rubbish you have written a novel on, but to be honest it isn't worth it. You are incapable of seeing others opinions through your own ignorance and blatant egotism. I'm happy to man up and admit I made a fundamental error in allowing your sheer insolance to upset me so much I retaliated. You are not worth the fight. Rather I'm going to happily go on proudly representing the vast majority of my countrymen who actually give a #OOPS# about what we do and respect us regardless of their views on the reasons behind this war.

Jump to conclusions much D? While I'm not going to share the atrocities I have seen or been involved in on an open forum I'm going to take I wild stab and suggest I'm probably better placed to comment on war and its injustices than you are.

As for ignorant and not accepting others opinions, what of mine or DatsAndy's opinions have you accepted? All you have done is spout vitriolic hyperbole with nary a shred of fact behind it. All I have done is respond to insults from yourself and others standing up for all military members past and present.

Ignorant bogan, big call. I may be from the Westrn Suburbs of Sydney, enjoy a beer and talk with an accent, but I'll assume from the construct of your diatribe that my education level has peaked higher than yours.

Do I blindly agree with war, no. Sun Tzu said that the greatest victory is to win a war without ever going to battle. He was alluding to the war of economics and policy. Iraq was a disaster in both, but we fight there no longer. I think it is the 'contractor puppet' war you keep referring to. Afghanistan is a different beast so please don't confuse the two.

Let me ask this, if there was a bombing at the MCG on AFL Grand Final day and 20000 people perished would you be upset? If a terrorist cell then admitted through global media that they conducted it and a Govt from a certain foreign nation openly condoned it and supported them would you not want justice? War is not great, not fun and mostly hard to justify, but give the world a better alternative before rubbishing what we do. Sitting on your hands and sprouting conspiracy theories without justification and any hard proof is not helping anyone.

In the words of Edmund Blackadder when asked why the allies were at war in WWI, 'in the end it was easier than not going to war'. Albeit a comedy no truer words were spoken over the comedic attempts of multiple Govts and industries to restore order. Nothing has changed.

Mik is datsun1200.com, nuff said

We do what we do out of respect for those that served before us and the mateship we share with those who stand by our sides.

Again, I wasn't trying to be high and mighty about Anzac Day and what I did. I was just completely offended by A14's comment on how most of us are just out to get hammered on this special day. I can tell you those ppl are in the vast minority.

Is this response aimed at me? To get it straight I'm not a contractor, I'm a serving member. I've served on multiple operations in hostile environments with military bodies from all over the world. While the conditions were indescribable for the early wars this #OOPS# we do is no cakewalk.

As for Govt spending on Defence Industries, pull your head out champ. Industry has been involved in war since day dot. Sun Tzu wrote that for every man sent to war the nation must contribute 10 gilds of silver per head, 100 gilds per head for every horse, etc. The fact is in our modern wars from WWI on private industry has always been involved and always benefited.

And as for what I did on ANZAC day; I donned my uniform, attended our dawn service where I laid poppies for, among others, five Kiwis that lost their lives in the middle east in the past 12mths, and went off to work continuing the fight. What did you do?

I have the same queries, contractors? Exactly which contractors are you talking about?

Not trying to float my own boat, but I don't appreciate people who haven't been here doing what we do pass judgement. Conspirators will always point to the influence of Defence Industry over major Govts as the reason we are here, but to me the real reason is much simpler. The ADF, and particular Army, are great at going to war. What they aren't good at is establishing an end game and how to absolve from fighting. Working alongside our allies I can tell you it is much the same from their side.