Masking the reason why fighting forces utilise skull motifs

While Lieutenant- General Angus Campbell has just taken over as Chief of Defence, the push back against the ban on wearing or carrying skull icons has been silenced. The so- called watering down of the “symbology” ( sic) edict did not eventuate. Under the Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 skull patches sold to soldiers are now being withdrawn from military equipment stores ( TB Jul 6).

It was never revealed if the decorated Townsville Afghanistan vet was disciplined for speaking out against the Leftist influence on military morale and exhibiting a prized mortar platoon skull flag.

Justin Huggett channelled Freud when he explained how the small unit death symbols help deal with danger. The Austrian psychotherapist believed that dark humour was a cognitive behavioural strategy. The ego insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world.

Soldiers are no longer allowed to employ skull masks or display iconography of the skull and crossbones or the grim reaper.

The death symbols of popular culture Angus Campbell considers violent, murderous and vigilante and at odds with Australian values. ( Perhaps this is why they are so popular as tattoos.) The Pentagon has no such prohibition. Not only is he denying the symbols embedded in the culture of the military, but in the cultures of Western society.

The memento mori manifests itself in many forms from Yorick’s skull in Shakespeare’s Hamlet to van Gogh’s painting of a skull with a lit cigarette; from the medieval Tarot card for rebirth to the Grim Reaper TV ad for AIDS; from the Jolly Roger pirate flag to the Skull and Bones video game.

The skull mask was epitomised by the James Bond costume in the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations, not to mention The Call of Duty video game.

While a psychological study claims putting on a mask affects moral behaviour, American Navy SEALs and Special Forces have been getting photographed in skull masks for over a decade.

The fighting forces of numerous nations over the centuries have employed the three skull motifs with infinite variations in their badges, patches and pins.