December 22, 2022
Dear Editor,
Look what’s happening in Afghanistan to women (and homosexual men) today! So don’t knock the British Commonwealth’s Royals!
As a war baby, I remember the old WWI Diggers with missing arms, legs and minds, languishing around (in their often-tattered old army great-coats) the slum-surrounded industrial-area inner-city Melbourne streets and lanes where I grew up and where so very many people were still recovering from the deprivation and suffering of Great Depression and terror, trepidation and great sacrifice, along with having lost love ones and brothers-in-arms during WWII.
Also remembering sitting on the knees of returned WWII Digger relatives, I well comprehend that the late Queen Elizabeth II, who served in uniform in WWII, and the late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, who distinguished himself in battle in the same conflict, honoured the four-letter word so very infrequently used – let alone understood – today in “duty” (to all others above self)!
Yours,
Howard Hutchins
Victoria, Australia