Useful Futures

This is a picture of my son Sam on a school excursion to Vietnam. Sounds like they had a fantastic time. He reckons lots of kids grow up there knowing how to use guns. My entire generation was affected by the Vietnam War. I got out of being drafted by being at university. Then Gough Whitlam came in and cancelled conscription. I had never wanted to go. Done some stories on Vietnam vets, over time, some disastrous, terminally drunk resolutions; nerves shattered for the rest of life. The only school excursion I remember is going to Long Reef at Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches. There was infinite life in each of the ponds; the sun glinting beauty as the waves pounded; and even back then, the absolute horror.

Frothing white had always been his vision of absolute terror; never making sense till the story was told of his own father holding him out in the surf to get him used to it as he screamed and screamed and screamed. Thus the myth of the desert arab in his background, why he had never liked the water. Back from the excursion they had to give a speach at school about it. Was it worth it? was the question. Yes, came the mono-syllabic answer, as the school looked on. Silence that wasn't meant to be there. After all that had happened, the train trips, the medieval towns, the night on Howloon Bay. Yes.

Sydney's cold and wet now. There are no other solutions.

The world's biggest story rolls on:

By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD, June 3 (Reuters) - A military probe that cleared U.S. troops of killing civilians in the Iraqi town of Ishaqi could not have come at a worse time for the new prime minister, who has promised justice for those killed at Haditha.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is battling a widespread public perception that U.S. troops can shoot and kill with impunity and Iraqi leaders are too weak to do anything about it.
Allegations that U.S. Marines massacred some 24 civilians in the town of Haditha and the finding that troops did no wrong in Ishaqi do not help Maliki allay Iraqi suspicions.