The Brat

One of my favourite bits of trivia gleaned from my father was the information that there are five sheep stations in Australia that are bigger in area than Texas.

I like that tidbit for a few reasons, the main one being its appeal to my sense of the whimsical. I think about that and I imagine the state of Texas being filled with sheep wearing cowboy hats - or alternatively there are a lot of gun-totin' sheep wandering around the Australian outback. I like that it puts a saying like "bigger than Texas" into perspective. I like that it reminds me that the Mercator projection of the world map is more than a teeny bit misleading. I like that it reminds me that Australia is a big country and I still haven't seen as much of it as I would like.

I grew up as an Air Force brat. Something about the advent of my birth obviously scared nine colours of shit out of my father and he enlisted. Perhaps it was the fact that I was born on a Sunday in Hobart when all the pubs were closed for trading. For someone as fond of a tipple as he was I imagine that was a foreboding of doom in and of itself.

The first six months of my life were lived in the very town when I am sitting and typing this and then, once my father finished his basic training, I was to have homes up and down the eastern seaboard of the country. Two homes in Queensland, one in Canberra (the nation's capital, memorable to me mainly from the regular visits to the National War Memorial Museum, getting lost twice - once at an air show and another time in the shopping centre, and my first attempt at running away from home), one in the outer suburbs of Sydney, another brief sojourn north to Queensland, sulking moodily through puberty in country Victoria and finally back north for two more homes in Queensland.

Every two years, we would sit down for a family discussion about which postings we would prefer Dad to apply for, and make a list one through five. Possessions would be packed away in boxes, waiting for the news that another move was in the offing. Sometimes, that move never eventuated, and we'd either huff about missing out or breath a sigh of relief, depending on where we were at the time. And then we'd put it out of our minds for another two years, when we'd once more hold our collective breath for another month of our lives on hold.

That two yearly holding of breath and expectation of another upheaval is one of the things I have carried right through my life. A habit I seem to have difficulty letting go of. It is just one of the legacies the Royal Australian Air Force bequeathed to me. They are quite the mixed bag of dichotomies, but every now and then I contemplate them and realise how much being a forces brat helped define who I am.

One of those would be a very diminished of sense of parochialism. When you grow up without a hometown - without childhood friends that you've known since kindergarten, grown up with, had adventures and shared in the rites of passage with - you tend to develop the recognition that every town has its uniqueness and its similarities. Its a sense that opens up the world and shrinks it at one and the same time.

Another legacy has been my reaction to all things military (which in itself grew to encapsulate all things forces and then all things authority as my experience of the world grew). There is something about the forces that I can recognise as being completely essential if you are training people to wander off to parts foreign in order to kill people and put their own lives in mortal peril. It is the fostering of the "us vs. them" mind-set. For anyone who hasn't been in or lived with the forces (and I include the police here), it is much more all encompassing than simply "our country vs. theirs". It is built up with layers and levels, in much the same way as the ranks are layered inside the forces.

The first division is military vs. civilian. We are a group apart, and above those who don't share our burden. We are your protectors, your guardians and we are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for you. This makes us special and your betters. Be thankful we are here. Next comes forces vs. forces. Army is better than Navy is better than Air Force who are better than both unless you're Navy and so on ad infinitum. We have to realise just how special we are in our own community and how pivotal we are to the defense of our nation. Then we have the unit/ship/squadron vs. everyone else division. Without us, everyone else would be totally incapacitated. We are the best so (to borrow from the now world famous Marine motto), sempre fi motherfucker! And then we have us vs. our allies. I mean, sure, they are our allies, but where were they when? and if we hadn't been there for... We know that if it wasn't for us, the whole damn alliance and world would fall apart, because, well, we're just the best! Right? Finally, we have us vs. "the bad guys" which in essence is anyone that isn't one of the aforementioned - usually of a different colour skin, speaks a different language and believes in a different god than us though. It helps keep things simple.

As I said, I understand the necessity of that, and yet...it concerns me that these people are living outside their own society, and are being forced to live outside the mores and laws and behaviours of their own societies. For one who grew up as a child looking in at, and grew to adulthood watching it day in, day out, it explains so very much why it is that the Forces have such an incredibly high level of alcoholism and divorce. By the very nature of their occupation, they are dislocated people.

Another effect the air force had on me was to see how blind figures in authority can be, and to see just how well power can corrupt, and how easy it is to abuse power. I got to see first hand the perfection of double-speak and its concomitant twisting of reality. In some sense, I have to be grateful to my father in seeing this, because from day one he was always somewhat of a rebellious, anti-social shite - evidenced by only getting as far as sergeant in 21 years of service (repeatedly telling officers to "Get Fucked. Sir." does tend to inhibit promotion opportunities) - and his recounting the day's doings with those in command were quite enlightening.

Being an Air Force brat gave me a love of flying and aircraft, and a very healthy respect and dislike for firearms. I still remember the force and sudden intense anger of my father when I made the mistake of pointing a water pistol at him. A gun is ALWAYS loaded. Oh yes, I learned that lesson very well indeed - unlike one of his co-workers and friends who died in a hunting accident in the highlands of Victoria.

I learned that the people in the military, although separated from society at large, are still human, wanting to live and love and kick back with a few beers by the bar-be-que on a Sunday afternoon. I can still remember meeting one of my father's S.A.S mates for the first time. A seemingly impossibly huge man, gruff yet friendly, and bearded in his "civvie" down-time clothes; with his three year old daughter laughing joyously down at me and the world from her perch atop her father's shoulders.

"He is one of the most dangerous men you will ever meet." my own father tells me as they walk away to the accompaniment of their mutual laughter. I couldn't get my head to make the two very different men meld in the same big body.

The constant moving taught me how to make every place I choose to live my home. It also taught me that books can be close companions, that making acquaintances can be easy but making friends is almost impossibly rare, that alcohol isn't fun for family in excess, that Australia could desperately do with a nationally consistent school curriculum, that people are people, no matter where you are, and that most of them are more mundane and at the same time more bizarre and surprising than you could ever imagine.

It taught me that in war and conflict, people die. Good people. Bad people. Corrupt people. Innocent people. By choice and by design and by accident, people of all sorts die in war.

It's that last one alone that for me, makes "The Last Post" the single most gut wrenchingly emotional pieces of music I have ever heard. Regardless the reason for those many people dying, that people were taken from those they loved. Both us. And them.

After all that, a child of the bigoted military and the war machine has grown to be an open minded, anti-military, anti-authority, pacifist.

The forces helped me become who I am and see the world as I do. It can't be all bad I guess.