[The] Army understands that cultural change is a long term process that requires commitment, diligence and continual evaluation. We recognise that in… - David Morrison

I was no longer comforted by the cliché that a ‘few bad apples’ were undermining the great work of the vast majority. Nor was I willing to argue that a widely publicised incident at our Defence Academy - where a sexual encounter between a young female cadet and a colleague was telecast via Skype - was no worse than conduct among young people on civilian campuses.

One day early last year she called me and suggested that I needed to hear from some of the women whose experiences she had been collating. I agreed, not reluctantly but certainly with some trepidation. Not long after I was sitting very uncomfortably, and with mounting disbelief, through lengthy face-to-face meetings with three women who had endured appalling physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their fellow soldiers; so much for our pride in looking after our mates. These women had been let down by their leaders and their comrades. They had been robbed of that irreplaceable component of their individual human personal identity – their dignity and self respect. This was not the Army that I had loved and thought I knew.

As an aside, my father commanded a battalion during the Vietnam war and I can happily report that whatever our fellow Australians think about any of the operations upon which we have deployed, they do not vent their objections against our soldiers as they did in my dad’s day. This is a welcome development. Indeed, at no time in my thirty four years of service have we been so highly regarded by our fellow citizens. But this is a call to live to our true ideals not to rest on our laurels.