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Out in the shed with Ted.

Ted McEvoy.

A tribute.

To all the nurses who served in Vietnam.

© Mike Subritzky NZ Vietnam Veteran

Winter Grip.

Waaaaaaay back in 1967, Operation "Winter Grip" was conducted between April and June. I was personally involved with this operation before my subsequent posting to Viet Nam.

This operation was tasked with transporting Army personnel to Darwin (by civilian aircraft) then transporting then to Vung Tau by C130A aircraft of 36Sqn. After arrival in Vung Tau, the Herc returned to Darwin with a load of Army personnel coming home.

I am endeavouring to find some information regarding this operation but am having bugger-all success. I have done a "Google" and can only find a small reference on the 102 Field Workshop RAEME website - see http://www.102fdwksp.net/about.php

There is no reference on the Aust War Memorial website.

If anybody has some further info or suggestion, please email me here .....

Google.

Ask anyone on the street what they use google.com for and most would probably say, "I use it for searching the web". However, someone with a beard, a pony tail, coke bottle glasses and an anorak might answer, "...for finding out how many light seconds away my bridge club is". Beardy McAnorak isn't having you on; you can use Google's innocent little search bar to do more than just search the web.

Let's take a look at the calculator functions of Google. Open up a browser window and head to www.google.com.au. Let's say that Beardy's house is 27 kilometres from his bridge club. Type '27km in light seconds' into the search box before hitting the 'search' button. You'll quickly learn that 27km equates to 9.00623057 x 10^-5 light seconds. This might seem like a meaningless piece of information, and, well... it is. However, there are actual real world uses for the Google calculator. If, like me, you're not great with maths, you can use the Google calculator to find out all sorts of things. For instance, if Mr McAnorak wanted to find out how long it'd take to walk to his bridge club, he could type '27km/4km/h' into the search box, and hey presto – he'd come up with a somewhat epic walking time of 6.75 hours. Check out Google's own guide for more info on how all of this works.

You can use this same format to do all sorts of things: like, to convert currency ('100 AUD in USD'); to check the forecast ('weather in Perth'); to make sure you don't wake up your mother when you call her ('time in Stockholm, Sweden'); and a myriad of other “useful” things. If you're still bored, try Google's free online library. Keep an eye on the time when you do though.

To see a list of all the wonderful things that available on Google, click HERE ..

Election Promises revisited.

Before the last Federal election, the Labor party made a bunch of promises which related specifically to the Vietnam community. Many of these promises were the result of representations made to each party by the Vietnam Veterans Federation. These promises were to be honoured during the new government’s first three year term in office.

At the half way point, how are they going?

In brief, nearly all the promises have been honoured or are clearly in the process of being honoured.

A few remain unaddressed, including ‘free pharmaceuticals for the treatment of war caused disabilities’. You can see the full list HERE

Coffee Machine.

This is what you get when some computer programming nerd has much too much time on his/her hands.

1.      CLICK ON “LINK” BELOW

2. SELECT YOUR LANGUAGE

3.  PUT THE COIN IN THE VENDING MACHINE

4. CHOOSE YOUR DRINK

5. CLICK ON THE CUP WHEN IT IS READY 

6. CLICK ON OPEN!  (Don't forget to click on OPEN!!!) 

LINK

Animal protection.

Dear Friends, as you probably know, last year I foolishly joined an animal rescue group and have been assigned to protect the African antelope. Well, last month I took a month off and went to Africa and was assigned a stretch of land and given instructions on how to look after this endangered species. This type of work is rather tiring for a man of my age but it is most rewarding, but even so, one rescue a day is about all I can handle right now. Fortunately, my efforts were captured on video and you can see it HERE, I hope you enjoy it.

E-Mail Tracking.

Here is something everyone should read and take notice of, because, if you don't, you are hurting yourself and your email friends.

By now, most people are familiar with www.snopes.com or www.truthorfiction.com for determining whether information received via email is true or false. Whenever you get an email stating some ‘unbelievable’ fact, run it past Snopes or Truthorfiction before you send it on – 99 times out of a hundred you’ll find that the fact is in fact - fiction.

Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to 10 or so of your friends, or asks you to sign this petition or if you don’t do this or do that or you'll get bad luck, or good luck, or you'll see something funny on your screen after you send it, or your old granny will grow whiskers, or you could get $10M from Microsoft or a free computer from Dell, or whatever, that email almost always has an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those people to whom you forwarded it. The originator of this ‘hoax’ gets a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to put together a accurate list of 'active' E-Mail addresses for use in SPAM E-Mails, or they are able to sell the list to other spammers.

Also, emails that talk about a missing child or a child with an incurable disease -"how would you feel if that was your child" ....it’s E- mail Tracking!!!   Ignore them and don't participate!  These people don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them.

Almost all E-Mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of E-Mail is, is a way to get names and 'cookie' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers - to validate active E-Mail accounts for their own profitable purposes. You can do your friends and family members a GREAT favour by NOT sending this information to them!

If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much SPAM! Do yourself a favour and STOP adding name(s) to those types of listings regardless of how inviting they might sound! ... or make you feel guilty if you don't! ... it's all about getting email addresses - nothing more! You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT! Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later and very possibly a virus attached! All you are doing is helping the spammers get rich!

Let's not make it easy for them!

Normandy.

The landing at Normandy on D Day, back in June 1944, was truly an historical event, one that eventually changed the world. It would have also changed the lives of thousands and thousands of young blokes who were involved in it, regardless of which side they were on. Recently, some excellent photos of the landing have emerged and they are definitely worth a look.

You can see them HERE.

Lucky Shooter.

This is a very, very lucky sportsman. The bloke is shooting a 50 CAL rifle. You can see the dust when he fires. The target, a steel plate, was 1,000 yards away.  You can hear the ping of the hit and then the bullet comes back and hits the earmuffs on his head. The footage is amazing. You can actually hear the bullet as it tumbles through the air on its course back toward the shooter.

He is okay, and obviously very lucky. The bullet grazed his temple. What a difference a half an inch makes!   See it HERE

*****

If you’ve got a little time to waste – try this.  Click HERE

Shooting stars.

Remember when you were in your teens and you were walking, late at night, hand in hand with your best ever special friend, and you both saw and watched a shooting star flash across the heavens and you gave that lovely person beside you a special cuddle and you both made a secret wish. Wasn’t that a wonderful moment. Well, this sort of takes all the magic out of watching those beautiful shooting starts.

Don’t show the kids……click HERE

Credit  explained.

It is the month of June, on the beautiful Gold Coast hinterland. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a $100 note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the $100 note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the $100 note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower. The pig grower takes the $100 note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the $100 note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her services on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the $100 note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the $100 note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his $100 note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

TPI Payments.

The Clarke Review of 2003 didn't paint a true picture of how government compensates those injured through Military service or for the premature aging and loss of earning power which resulted from the intangible effects of war or war like service.

For well over a decade, TPI's and others, have been financially sacrificed on the DVA budgetary altar. Back in 1996 the TPI payment was 47% of the Average Weekly Ordinary Times Earnings (AWOTE). Today (March 2009) the TPI payment is 43% of the average ordinary wage. That is to say the TPI payment today is still $70 a fortnight down since the 1996 standard. The TPI payment was left in auto pilot and no one did anything about it. It increased a staggering $0.90 cents a fortnight between the years 1996, 1997 and 1998 due to negative Consumer Price Index (CPI) values. It was the negative CPI values in those three years that pushed the government of the day to change pension indexations from CPI to Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) indexation, for all but the TPI payment.

In 1998 government also changed the way CPI information was gathered, thus making sure CPI would never fall into a negative value, again to the demise of one group of people, TPI’s. In March 2008, the TPI payment was fully indexed against MTAWE, but TPI recipients will forever be behind community prosperity increases in daily living costs such as rents and rising mortgage repayments because the payment has no benchmark.

The real problem for TPI recipients is their compensation payment today represents no known legislated portion of the average ordinary wage and has only ever been increased by government whim and welfare index increases. Neither Government whim nor welfare index increases is giving TPI’s in need any real chance of living comfortably within community norms and enjoying community prosperity. Justice Clarke erred by using MTAWE instead of CPI in his assessment of TPI erosion and gave government a great inside running into creating a community perspective that TPI’s are well off ~ today even some within the veteran community think that the TPI payment has been fixed.

The Clarke Review certainly fudged the TPI payment by including the Service pension when they presented to government in 2003 that single TPI's where in receipt of 90 per cent of MTAWE and married TPI’s where in receipt of 115 per cent of MTAWE.

The Clarke Review calculated that TPI’s suffered no loss in their TPI pension by including the Service pension as their total ‘compensation package’. By reason, the Clarke Review, in showing no losses of the TPI payment, was very mean and very deceptive in its presentation and was clearly beyond the bounds of decency. This calculation was grossly unfair and has left needy TPI’s on an endless poverty cycle. Justice Clarke’s action of taking a snapshot of one particular year (2002) and then determining that no loss was incurred is an inaccurate relationship with wage indexes such as MTAWE. It is obvious Justice Clarke had the time to take a snapshot of the preceding six years, if he had done so, his story would most certainly have been different.

Between 1992 and 2005, Centrelink pensions rose 38% (MTAWE) while the TPI compensation payment increased 23%.

From 1991 through to 1996 TPI compensation was paid at 47 per cent of the average full-time wage. In 2009 TPI compensation payment is 43%, making it a 4% decrease of the payment over the past 12 years. How can a supposed generous and caring government hand injured Military personnel a 4 per cent decrease in compensation payments over a twelve year period? The 4% decrease shows the widening gap of community prosperity against government held standards towards injured war veterans.

Click HERE to see how the TPI rate has decreased over the years.

Military Superannuation.                                            Richard Orr

We may have lost the last skirmish with Government on the need to index our DFRB/DFRDB pensions.  However, the war is not over. Lindsay Tanner, in his media release 52/2009, confirmed that the Rudd Government would do absolutely nothing to rectify the inadequate method of indexation of pensions for retired military (and Public Service) personnel.  As a consequence our standard of living in retirement will inexorably continue to decline with time.

More than 300,000 retired Australian Government superannuants will be less than impressed with the government’s support for the Matthews report on his Review of Pension Indexation Arrangements in Australian Government Civilian and Military Superannuation Schemes.  The cavalier manner in which this government treats its former employees is to be abhorred.

Action is needed NOW to have our elected government accept its responsibility to correct the many deficiencies in the Military Superannuation Acts.  They have been well documented.

Please take the time to write to the PM, his Ministers, your local MP, and others, expressing your frustration at the complete lack of action by this government to rectifying the many deficiencies in the Military Superannuation Schemes.  See HERE.

*****

Don’t care what you say, I reckon Sex with Bea is as funny as – I got a good laugh out of THIS ONE

Holsworthy.

To quell panic and dismay raised over recent alleged terrorism attacks on military establishments and the following Federal Police raids in Melbourne, the Government has taken the following steps to secure all RAAF bases:

1.         All Base Security Levels have been raised from "She'll Be Right" to "Yeah... Righto";

2.        Chubb / ESS / Serco Security personnel have been provided with bigger flashlights and a thermos of Minestrone for each shift;

3.        Local Neighbourhood Watch Groups have been mobilised to provide internal base security patrols; and

4.         Germany's most experienced counter-terrorism expert (Inspector Rex) is being rushed to Australia to aid the ongoing investigation. He'll be immediately put into action once he's released from Customs, and has been wormed.

Remember be vigilant. "Cocked eyebrows save lives."

Possibly one of the most published photos of Prince Charlie…….and one that a young attractive UK Army Captain will get a laugh from for many many years.

Age/Service Pension and real estate assets.

As the amount of Age and or Service Pension you receive depends on the value of your real estate assets, a good question to ask is: What is considered a real estate asset?

Centrelink considers a real estate asset to be any real estate you own, excluding your principal home and adjacent land on one title up to two hectares, when assessing your eligibility for an Age or Service Pension, regardless of whether you rent it. Any portion of your principal home in excess of the allowable area (unless you satisfy certain conditions including having lived here 20 years) or that is used solely for business purposes will be included as an asset.

Centrelink uses the net market value to calculate the value of your real estate assets. That is, how much you would get if you sold the property on the open market, less the value of any amount secured against the property.

If you are receiving an Aged or Service person you need to tell Centrelink of any changes to your real estate assets including:

1.                  any previously undeclared real estate assets,

2.                  if you have recently sod any real estate assets,

3.                  the amount of any mortgage on the property,

4.                  the percentage of the property that you own,

5.                  the market value of the property.

Centrelink uses a regular review cycle to revalue real estate assets owned by customers. It also exchanges information with land titles offices to find properties that they have not been told about. If a review finds that you have not declared your real estate assets, Centrelink will contact you to confirm the ownership. This might result in your payment being cancelled or reduced.

It is very important to contact Centrelink if you have any changes with your real estate assets.

For more information on real estate assets, visit the website www.centrelink.gov.au or you can call them on 13 2300

Believe it or not!!

Tobacco Smoke Enema (1750s-1810’s)

The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient’s rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims.

A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase “blow smoke up one’s ass.”

KEY TARGETS MET IN VETERANS’ FAMILY STUDY.

In the week of Vietnam Veterans’ Day, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Alan Griffin announced that key target participant numbers have been achieved to commence a study into the long term effects of war service on Vietnam veterans’ families.

.

“More than 13,000 randomly selected Vietnam veterans, Vietnam-era Army personnel who did not deploy to Vietnam, and their respective children have registered to participate in an intergenerational study to examine the long term effects of the Vietnam War and examine what health differences can be attributed to war service,” Mr Griffin said.

“These are the key groups that were required to take part in sufficient numbers to make the study scientifically robust.

“Additional partners, siblings, nieces, nephews and other family members of Vietnam veterans and Vietnam-era Army personnel have also registered to provide information to the study. “The impact of service in Vietnam, beyond veterans to the impact on their loved ones, has been a concern for many years.

“This study will help us to better understand what those impacts are and what action should be taken to assist those who need help.  It will also help us to understand any issues resulting from more recent deployments and the implications for the families of the veterans of today and tomorrow.

“There are a number of components to the study.  Work has already commenced on some projects and we can now be confident the overall study can be successfully conducted.”

An independent scientific advisory committee, chaired by Professor Bryan Rodgers (right), will ensure the research component of the study is undertaken in a sound scientific manner. Additionally, an independent consultative forum consisting of representatives from ex-service organisations will ensure the veteran community perspective is provided. Registrations are still open if you wish to participate in the study. 

For more information visit www.dva.gov.au/vvfs or freecall 1800 502 302.

Betrayed.

If you’re one of those people who voted Labor in the last Federal Election thinking Rudd and his mob were going to fix the Public Service, DFRB, DFRDB Superannuation problem – then think again. Those fibbing pollies have let us down again.

Click HERE to read an article taken from the Canberra times on the 22^nd August.

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