War’s Lingering Shadow
Fifty years after the conflict in Vietnam, the Australian soldiers who fought still bear the scars – as do their children and grandchildren.
By Alasdair McGregor – 22 April 2025
As the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment began its year-long deployment to South Vietnam in 1965, young Norman John Rowe thought he had the world at his feet. Blessed with a strong tenor voice, ‘Normie’, as the 18-year-old from Melbourne was known, had quit his trainee telephone technician’s job with the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG) and set out to conquer the entertainment world as a rock-and-roll musician. Stardom came quickly; he enjoyed his first number-one hit in April that year. Normie Rowe had arrived on the music scene, but the lottery of life would soon disrupt the trajectory of his promising career.
CLICK LINK to read this full story
The birthdate marble. Initially held in secret until there was an uproar to televise the draw.
Been told this type of lottery of death will never ever occur again to bolster ADF numbers.
Reading a lot about reintroducing conscription. Easy to say but have never seen anyone set out the mechanics of how this would occur in 2025.
As I understand it, conscription was never ‘banned’ it was ‘suspended’ and can be raised up again anytime with both major political parties agreeing to it.