NATIONAL SERVICEMEN AND THEIR MEMORIALS

(This article was first published in VoicePipe, the magazine of the Tingira Association)

Last month I attended the annual commemoration organised by Burwood Council at the National Servicemen’s Memorial in Burwood Park. Around 20 persons were present, mostly local politicians and functionaries from Burwood Council. Just three RSL sub-Branches were represented (Burwood, Cumberland and Ashfield), and there were no representatives from the Burwood National Servicemen’s Association at all. Five persons present were wearing medals and, as far as I could determine, only three of us were National Servicemen.
There were two post-World War II schemes of conscription in Australia. The scheme that ran from 1951 to 1959 required all 18-year-old males to undertake 176 days of military training followed by some years in Reserve forces. All three branches of the defence forces were involved. Around 6,800 conscripts served in the Navy, some being on ships visiting Korean waters during the Korean War and some being on ships in waters around the testing of atomic bombs off the West Australian coast in 1952.
The second National Service scheme ran from 1964 to 1972 and only involved the Army. Over the two post-World War Two National Service schemes around 290,000 men were conscripted but less than 10% of them were ever in any danger, mainly the 19,000 that served in Vietnam. Around 200 National Servicemen died while serving, again mostly in Vietnam.
I found myself asking, just what was the point of this ceremony? In his speech the Mayor of Burwood uttered the usual platitudes of fine service to the country, willingness to contribute to Australia’s defence, worthy sons of Anzac, mateship and sacrifice, never to be forgotten, we owe a debt of gratitude, and so on. Really? Doesn’t sound like the Nashos I served with and with whom I continue to associate. A few signed up and made a career out of the military but the vast majority of National Servicemen had no great love of military life and couldn’t wait till their time was up. They had lost two years in their careers, most had reduced pay, all so Australia could fight a futile, unwinnable war in Vietnam.
Most Nashos had nothing to do with things military during their lifetimes and only joined veterans’ organisations such as the RSL and the National Servicemen’s Association in their twilight years when nostalgia took over and they started looking at their youth with rose-tinted glasses.

The National Servicemen’s Memorial in Burwood Park was unveiled in 2007 with a major public ceremony shown in the photo at left.
National Service in Australia ended over 50 years ago, not just because the conscripts were reluctant warriors but more because governments found the scheme to be a massive drain on the defence budget and the Army itself resented having to divert manpower and resources to training short-term personnel. Most of the sergeants in my recruit training battalion were Vietnam veterans and the last place they wanted to be was in an RTB training ‘bloody Nashos’.
Throughout history conscripts, pressed men, those who ‘accepted the King’s shilling’ have been a despised lot in military tradition. There is the old saying ‘One volunteer is worth ten pressed men’ and the original Anzacs were proud that the AIF of the 1914-1918 war was an all-volunteer force. The conscription debates held in Australia during the First World War were the most bitter, divisive public issues ever debated in this country. In both referendums Australia narrowly voted NO.
Around the world, even in countries in which conscripts formed a sizable proportion of their armies, memorials specifically for conscripts are quite rare, except in Australia. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of National Servicemen’s memorials right across Australia, most placed adjacent to the local Great War Memorial or added to a whole suite of local war memorials.
In the 1990s National Servicemen started to emerge from the shadows, establishing chapters in many communities, forming a national association, issuing newsletters, devising uniform, lobbying governments for greater recognition, conducting remembrance rituals and unveiling national service memorials. This beatification of National Servicemen ramped up in 1995 with the ‘Australia Remembers’ project marking 50 years since the end of the Second World War. Government funding was generous for new war memorials and the refurbishment of the old so many communities across Australia added plaques or raised new memorials and unveiled them with great public ceremony. Among the new memorials were many commemorating National Servicemen. Over the next 20 years many similar memorials were unveiled in communities across Australia. Two examples are shown below.

Of course, Australia had already long established itself as the world champion of war commemoration. Even before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Australia had more First World War memorials per head of population than any nation on earth. And not only that, on these Great War Memorials they listed the names of everyone from the district who enlisted, not just those who died. War, in Australian tradition, is like the Olympic Games. We celebrate everyone who participates, not just those who win medals. In addition to local war memorials, Australia erected three massive shrines of remembrance to their fallen warriors of the Great War, one in Melbourne, one in Sydney and the third at Villers-Bretonneux in France.
Recent decades in in Australia have seen a massive increase in war commemoration for political purposes. The proliferation of National Servicemen’s Memorials has been part of this trend. Ceremonies honouring National Servicemen have also proliferated. The Burwood Park ceremony is a case in point – a ceremony for the sake of a ceremony, a photo opportunity for local politicians.

Ron Inglis
June 2024