GIVE THE DESCENDANTS OF THE ‘FUZZY WUZZIES’ A HAND

Something to THINK ABOUT …

The villagers from Manari, about halfway along the Kokoda Track, are seeking our help to create a monument to their late Chief and former ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel, Faole Bokai.

Manari was the scene of the famous speech by Colonel Ralph Honner congratulating the survivors of his 39th Battalion for their magnificent defence of Isurava against odds of ten to one.

Faole was one of the young local carriers who risked their lives to help the Diggers during the intense fighting on the Track.  Under the command of Captain Bert Kienzle, Faole and his comrades lugged ammunition and supplies up the Track and then evacuated wounded Diggers by carrying them on makeshift stretchers back over the treacherous terrain to Moresby.

While the Diggers, to a man, sang the praises of their beloved ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’, Australia as a nation has done little to acknowledge their service and sacrifice. It wasn’t until the Fuzzy Wuzzies were down to a handful of survivors that Australia finally presented them with a medal honouring their wartime service.

The great Ralph Honner described their work in bringing out the wounded as being like ‘the care of a nurse and the love of a mother’.

Faole was one the last surviving ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies’ when he died in 2016. His wife died last year. Now his villagers, led by his son, Saii, are trying to create a memorial plaque to be set outside his house and a headstone over the graves of Faole and his wife so that the villagers and visiting trekkers can pay their respects..

If you’ve walked the Track, you will have passed through Manari, one of the most picturesque villages on the journey. If you made your trek before 2016, you would likely have met Faole there. 

Please give Saii and the Manari villagers a hand by donating to the GoFundMe page here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/faole-bokoi-manari-fuzzy-wuzzy-angel

WHERE IS THE RSL WHEN OUR VETS NEED IT MOST?

Something to THINK ABOUT …

We are still in the shadow of Anzac Day and yet the Victorian Coroners Court was told this week that as many as five of our veterans may have taken their lives since this year’s commemorations.

One Afghanistan vet, Bradley Carr, tragically took his life on Anzac Day on the Gold Coast.

Surely, it’s time to listen to these terrible cries for help. The one thing we have learned down the years from the experiences of our returned veterans from all our conflicts is that everybody exposed to war is affected in some way.

Some are able to recover, some are damaged but manage to adjust and, sadly, many pay with their lives, either during the conflict or in the melancholy years following it.

It has always been thus. Experts now believe that the 62,000 Diggers who died during WWI were joined by at least that number again in the ten years immediately after the war (those who succumbed to their injuries or illnesses or who took their own lives).

Despite improvements in the care available to them, our most recent returned veterans seem to be suffering at least as much as their predecessors - perhaps even more than them.

In addition to the suicides, our recent veterans are beset by an array of physical and mental health issues and are greatly over-represented among our cities’ homeless.

The organisation best placed to care for these vets is the RSL. But it’s been sadly silent during this crisis, possibly because it’s been riven by its recent internal turmoil. But that’s no excuse. A sacred duty is calling our once revered RSL.

It must answer the calls: it must focus fiercely on the issue, seek the facts and the causes and urgently embark on a national campaign aimed at preventing even more tragic losses.