I SERVED in the Army for twenty years, and one of the worst things you could be accused of was being a Jack Man.
A Jack Man was too focused on his own needs and wasn’t there for his mates.
It was encapsulated in the phrase “B*gger you, Jack. I’m all right”, where a person left his comrades facing a difficult situation and ran away or didn’t do anything to help.
It is axiomatic to me as a soldier that I have a duty to both my comrades and to the people of Australia, whom I swore an oath to defend, yet many Australians seem to think their duty to their fellow citizens ends with people who look and think like them.
This is the behaviour of ‘Jack Men.”
Kevin Walsh RFD, Cape Paterson
