And you might be thinking 'conspiracy theory' right about now? Well, consider this..... In 2014 I appealed the refusal of the Australian War Memorial to release the documents pertaining to the 2nd D&E Platoon to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, NSW. That hearing was held in Sydney in late 2014 and the decision was made early this year. The AAT affirmed the decision of the AWM not to release the documents because it would be an 'unfair diversion of AWM resources' in the 'ANZAC year'. Talk about irony. Forget the integrity of military history. Forget the integrity of men's war service histories. As long as bureaucrats got to go on trips to battlefields and wine and dine on the deeds of real men, that was all that was important. But, more irony...... In 2010, the Chief Executive Lawyer of the Australian Government Solicitors Office championed the rights of the individual to gain access to documents and information from bureaucracies. (Source: ABC radio interview, Canberra) But guess who was called upon to defend the Australian War Memorial at the AAT hearing (at great cost to the Australian taxpayer) ? Yes, you guessed it- the very same Mr Justin Davidson. Just ponder that for a second...taxpayers monies used by a statute authority to deny men access to the very documents relating to their war service. All this, sanctioned by Dr Brendan Nelson, the Director of the AWM. Wheels with 'establishment wheels! But there's more...... Would you believe that it took 28 years for the Australian Army to acknowledge that I had fought with (and been wounded with) the 9th Battalion in 1969? It's been another battle. My colour movie footage won the day for me- I had recorded much of my service with a little Super 8mm camera I'd taken with me to the war. Experts at the AWM called those movies the equal of Damian Parer's work in WW2. Excerpts are posted on Youtube at 'Don Tate,Vietnam', just to reinforce the lack of nobility in the Australian Defence Force.