I RECENTLY attended the fifty-year reunion of my high school year. I met several classmates who had served in the Army.
I was the beneficiary of a thorough Catholic secondary education. As a result, I brought a Catholic informed ethical perspective to my twenty-year military career.
I welcomed moves in the mid nineteen eighties to incorporate International Humanitarian Law into the Australian Army’s war fighting doctrine regarding it as essential to our potential war fighting success.
This belief was confirmed in my view by the success of our East Timor operation.
War is not separable from ethics.
Without strong ethical underpinnings, military service is little more than gangsterism.
On matters related to war crimes my position is firmly with the Pope.
Kevin Walsh RFD, Major RAINF (Ret’d), Cape Paterson
