Don't get me wrong as I think that our ADF people do a great job. What I won't agree to is this notion that the few hornets we sent to Iraq were anything other than a gesture of our support to the global war on terror, which seems to have become something far less defined these days.
I feel that the herc transport crews who are still in and out of that hole today deserve more credit than a couple of fighter pilots patrolling the skies against threats that were probably never really threats at all and coming home to parades and flashy unit badges saying that they have dropped bombs "in anger".
I don't care if some knob in Canberra named it "Operation Falconer's Sword Restore Freedom Desert Scorpion Darth Vader", the truth is they dropped ahandful of (borrowed) bombs on non retaliating targets in sanitised airspace well away from the dangerous bits.
All I'm seeing here is another knob in canberra coming up with a flashy unit patch for the valiant crews who are risking their lives in the hostile sky over the MCG.
Gimme a break.
And No, my online is not derived from an airway but a taxiway where I once had a happy moment.
cheers