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Allegations
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Today Tracey Cooper is
a Waikato Times reporter. But in 1980 he got on a bus to Waiouru for a place
at the New Zealand Army cadet school. This week, as allegations of abuse at
the school surfaced, Tracey has been reflecting on his time there. These are
his recollections. -------------------- My 57-year-old uncle
was a Regular Force Cadet in Gentry Class, 1962. "Bloody
bullshit," he would have said of accusations of bullying and abuse at the
Waiouru school. He would have repeated
the line on Wednesday with the Government's decision to neither apologise or
compensate Vietnam veterans exposed to agent orange. But Tom Cooper never
got a chance to utter those words. The last time I saw him
he was an empty shell of the robust and boisterous man he once was. "Go and have a
beer for us," were his last words to me on Friday, September 24. Riddled with a cancer
he had no doubt originated in Vietnam, Warrant Officer Class I Thomas Henry
Cooper, Uncle Tom, died the next day. He was one of those
guys young kids loved. Funny, interesting,
always smiling, it was an exciting time when Uncle Tom came to visit. One of my earliest
memories is of going to Whenuapai Airport to see him off on his tour of duty
in the late 1960s. In later years he'd
tell us stories about his time in the army -- but hardly ever Vietnam -- and
seemed to have a great life. Tom only ever had good
things to say about his 20-plus years in the army. He loved it. Growing up with him and
his stories doubtless played a part in my decision to follow in his
footsteps. So two months after
sitting School Certificate, just turned 16, fresh-faced and ready for
anything, I boarded a bus in New Plymouth headed for Waiouru. The next two years at
cadet schools are now a blur of 24-year-old memories but the last week has
seen some of them come into sharp focus again. Yes, we scraped floors
with cutlery we would later use to eat with. Yes, we were forced to
stand at attention for hours on end, hoping we weren't the first one to
faint. Yes, we got physically
punished when we screwed up. Woken at all hours,
forced to buy food for senior cadets, endless press ups for some perceived
misdemeanour, we did it all. People were chucked
into the shower and scrubbed when they were perceived to have less than
perfect hygiene, we called them "gungy", and we even took to
assaulting each other in the vain hope it would spare us further punishment. "You kick his
arse, if it's not hard enough, he gets to kick yours." It was never hard
enough, we always got kicked. And we were constantly
told by senior cadets: "you c.... have got it easy compared to what we
had to do". Which, with one simple
line, ensured the same things happened the following year when we became
seniors. Of course, we did have
it easy compared to those who went through cadet school in earlier years. Unlike us 17-year-olds,
many earlier cadets had the very real prospect of going straight to war. In 1985, Paul Hardcastle
sang: "In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26. In
Vietnam he was 19." How young that now
seems. But for all that, it
still wasn't easy being a regular force cadet in the 1980s. And neither was it
meant to be. We were allegedly the
"elite" and were being trained -- at the most basic level -- for
war. Mistakes in war cost
lives and if it took a swift kick up the backside or a good clip around the
ears for someone to learn how to assemble an M16 in 30 seconds, well, so be
it. Call me old-fashioned,
but that always seemed preferable to being shot. Let's not pretend that
violence has no place in the Army. Like many others, I was
brought up on stories of chivalry and how well respected New Zealand's
soldiers were. But I was also brought
up on stories from relatives who positively revelled in their past military
violence and lawlessness. One uncle proudly spent
time in military prison after beating up lieutenant colonel Arapeta Awatere
-- father of former Act MP Donna Awatere-Huata -- while serving in the Maori
Battalion. "The bastard
wasn't going to break me," he always said. He was also adamant New
Zealand soldiers in general and the Maori Battalion in particular were
"the best bloody thieves in the war". "We'd go out at
night and come back with pigs, wine, all sorts of food that we'd nick,"
he'd say. Today they'd be done
for theft. But cadet schools
wasn't an overly violent place, even though Cadet Grant Bain was shot and
killed by Cadet Andrew Read in 1981. At military funerals, a
firing party fires three volleys as the casket is being lowered into the
ground. Seconds after a
non-commissioned officer shouted "fire" on a windy day in Te
Awamutu more than 20 years ago, the gathered Bain family could hold their
composure no longer and broke down into a sobbing heap of bodies. The ear splitting crack
of the rifles and the wafting smell of gunpowder was an unbearable reminder
of the single shot that had killed their loved one. I hardly knew him, but
for whatever reason, I was one of the other 17-year-olds who delivered the
final volley for Cadet Bain and I will never forget that first shot. His death had nothing
to do with abuse or bullying. It was, though, a very
good example of what can happen when you subject hundreds of bullish young
men to intensely competitive and stressful conditions and give them access to
guns. It would be impossible
to argue that over the 50-odd year history of cadet schools no one was ever
physically or sexually abused there though. We're talking thousands
of people over many years and I would challenge any similar organisation to
come up with a cleaner record. But there was no
culture of violence and certainly nothing to be compensated for. If they did, they would
have to compensate everyone who ever served in this man's army. I can still iron a mean
shirt and if push came to shove, I could probably still disassemble and
reassemble a 5.56mm M16 blindfolded. And some of my best
mates are blokes I met on a bus to Waiouru more than 20 years ago. -------------------- CAPTION: FAMILY HERITAGE: Tom
Cooper, left, and his nephew Tracey Cooper in their army uniform in 1980. MEMORIES: Journalist
Tracey Cooper today with the type of truck he learned to drive as army cadet.
Tom Cooper would have
loved this week. |
