Army chief defends role of troops

Proud legacy: Lt-Gen Ken Gillespie, Chief of the Army, meets war widow Linda Irwin, of Casino, during his Legacy Week visit to Casino yesterday.

Doug Eaton

A MORE dangerous Afghanistan might be causing wobbles in the Australian political landscape, but Chief of the Army Lt-Gen Ken Gillespie says it is also making the diggers serving in Oruzgan Province more determined to see the job through.

In Casino for a Legacy Day ceremony, Lt-Gen Gillespie said the rising death and injury toll was only hardening the resolve of the Australian troops in Afghanistan.

“Australian morale is very high,” Lt-Gen Gillespie said. “Most people would think that because of the stress of the loss of life and injury it would be down, but that’s not true.

“If anything, the deaths had intensified the resolve of Australian troops ‘to see the job through to make it mean something’.”

Lt-Gen Gillespie will today attend the funeral in Brisbane of Private Grant Kirby, 35, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.

His comments came after Labor agreed to a full parliamentary debate on Australia’s role in Afghanistan as part of its deal to win the support of The Greens, and after former defence analyst-turned-Tasmanian Independent Member for Denison Andrew Wilkie argued Australian troops should be pulled out of the country ‘as soon as possible’.

Lt-Gen Gillespie said Parliament moving to debate, or politicians questioning Australia’s role in the war, would not bother the diggers, because they knew they had the support and respect of the Australian people – regardless of whether they supported the use to which the troops were being put.

“Australia learned the lessons from Vietnam, where people involved in a political debate allowed their animosity to the operations to overflow to the troops,” he said.

“It took a long time to recover from that, but clearly we can see Australia has learned the lesson from that campaign.”

Lt-Gen Gillespie’s visit included a civic reception and wreath-laying ceremony at Richmond Valley Council Chambers, and a tour of the Casino meatworks, which donates heavily to Legacy through a matched dollar-for-dollar payroll donation program for employees.

The visit was understood to be unusual and Lt -Gen Gillespie said it was secured largely through the Casino Legacy group getting in their invitation, which was made more than a year ago, ahead of anyone else.