Clear thinking in fog of war
The army has some pity on Willie Apiata and his VC, and so do I. It can’t be much fun with your head above the parapet in a world keen to hurl missiles at you, just because you’re visible. We’re not used to VCs being awarded, not since World War II, a more popular event than our current involvement in Afghanistan, where corporal Apiata famously earned the top bravery medal in 2004 for carrying a wounded man an impressive distance under fire to safety.
Like anyone else, I wonder what the hell we’re doing in Afghanistan, and doubt very much that it’ll be any lasting good. The locals have good reason to resent us, yet another bunch of foreigners meddling with their particular brand of havoc, as we would if the roles were reversed.
Just the same, Apiata did something remarkable, which has made him a target for the people we call the enemy, as well as us. The investigation into the 2004 SAS raid where he earned the reward effectively taints him because he was there, and undermines his achievement. It must rankle.
People of my generation, whose parents and grandparents fought in the big wars, became pacifists out of disgust at the deaths of millions of people, and the brutality war unleashed, including the Holocaust and the atomic bombs dropped in Japan.
I don’t think war has made sense to any of us ever since. But you need armies, a problem that probably irks Nicky Hager as he accuses our Defence Force of misbehaving at home and overseas.
Some people regard Hager as a hero for his dogged campaigning. Whether they admire war heroes like Apiata is probably debatable. Violence doesn’t get the admiration it once did, when we thought we knew good from bad without greys in between.
Accusations that the SAS provoked the firefight Apiata took part in, mistreated dead bodies, kicked in doors and tied up innocent civilians are serious. But there was a time when that was the stuff of war comics where recent enemies the Germans and Japanese got what they deserved, because we were heroes, and after all, we won in the end.
You don’t get a VC for nothing, and not many people rise to the life-and-death situations of war. It’s worth looking into the record of Jack Hinton VC and Charles Upham VC and Bar for a sense of what the experience is like.
Had either of them been as adept at killing people in peacetime they’d have been locked up.
Hinton won his VC at the Battle of Greece. He ran away from home at the age of 12, joined a Norwegian whaling ship, had a go at being a shepherd, preferred being a swagman, took up boxing, played rugby, helped build bridges and roads, god knows what else, and volunteered at the start of World War II.
Ever the rebel, he disobeyed orders to retreat from the Germans, collected his own band of 12 soldiers, wiped out machine-gun nests with grenades, and bayoneted yet more Germans in an slaughterfest that makes you gasp, as much in horror as admiration. Upham’s actions were much the same. Twice.
Examining such events in the luxury of peace at home, and across the distance of time, is fraught. We don’t live in the world where they happened, and in the context of Afghanistan, where evil things happen daily, why would we balk at what are minor incidents by comparison?
Because we have to have collective self-respect, I guess, and trust that the soldiers we turn out behave decently in the midst of carnage. If that’s not too much to hope for. If it’s even possible.