If you put your head in the lion's mouth, you shouldn't be surprised if it stays there when you decide to leave; and future Ministers for Defence might well remember that if they ever decide to repeat the utter folly of the present Minister and treat PDFORRA with the respect it doesn't deserve, they can expect to leave without their heads. Mr Smith might not be my favourite politician: he was the one, after all, who - with the assistance of the massed ninnies of Dail Eireann - introduced the infamous drink-driving law which was so bad that it had to be amended within weeks of its passage.
But that is irrelevant now; what is relevant is the conduct of members of the armed forces towards a Minister for Defence who addressed their conference and was abused and ostracised for his troubles. For soldiers are not civilians. They forfeit rights when they become soldiers and they accept duties towards the State which most of us would never dream of undertaking. That is why soldiering is very much a minority taste; and that is why societies have a certain reverence for their armies. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, few men want to be a soldier, but every man wants to have been a soldier. Most of us would like to possess the qualities of duty, selflessness, steadfastness, loyalty and discipline that go into being a good soldier. And most recognise, sadly, that we have not.
Better qualities
That is why an army is seen as representative of a society's better qualities and why we feel a powerful, almost irrational pride at seeing Irish soldiers in uniform, even in unsoldierly activities. Who would not prefer to see a uniformed member of the Army equestrian school win at Hickstead or wherever, rather than an Irish civilian? Who does not feel a certain instant respect for someone who is a soldier?
There is a price to be paid for having such a cherished place in society. In this culture, it means soldiers forfeit the right to make political statements; it means they do not strike; it means they do not engage in trade union activities; it means they outwardly respect those put in charge of them, no matter what their personal opinions of those leaders are; it means, on occasion, they risk life and limb. These, like our parliamentarianism and our law, are traditions which have been inherited from the British, and they are good traditions; and under the guiding hand of PDFORRA, they are vanishing before our eyes.
Military traditions
There is this simple and single truth. No good army has trade unions. No doubt PDFORRA can point out that the Danish army or the Dutch army (yes indeed, the boys of Srebenice fame) or the present German army are up to their chinstraps in trade unions. But armies which really get things done - the US, the French, the British - have not. Once you admit trade unions, with talks of strikes and shop stewards and even, God help us, overtime, you are no longer dealing with the military traditions of rank and command and obedience and service, but instead, sooner or later, with groups of individuals with opinions who expect to be consulted. In other words, a collective with guns, with the military capacity of a Listowel workshop for black, left-handed, lesbian writers.
Our own Army is not yet so reduced, but it soon will be if PDFORRA has its way and yet more members of the Defence Forces feel free to make personal and political statements about the Minister responsible for the armed forces. Such remarks, or the walk-out by other soldiers as the Minister spoke, should constitute grounds for a court-martial. Will Private Pat Grogan be disciplined for making abusive and disrespectful remarks about a Minister to whom this democracy has given the administration of the Army?
Soldiers enter a profession of arms. They have a particular place in the life of the nation, and that place is highly regarded. Few words combine admiration and respect as does the word "soldierly". And soldierly is a fair word to describe the duties done by a generation of young men on the Border. Soldierly describes the onerous and at times bloody work of our Army in the UN, from Niemba to Sarajevo. Soldierly is the word which has traditionally and properly described the men of Oglaigh na hEireann.
Public disrespect
But an industrial picket masquerading as a press conferences is not soldierly. Talk of overtime is not soldierly. Public disrespect towards a government Minister is not soldierly. The issuing of political statements by serving military is not soldierly. Threatening industrial action is not soldierly. Litigation for every possible injury, real or imagined, is not soldierly.
But let me at this point quote Private Grogan approvingly. "We must fight in every possible way to preserve the dignity and integrity of the Force, because if we don't, future generations of Irish soldiers will look back and say: `At the turn of the century the Defence Forces were destroyed and no one had the courage to shout halt.' " And he is right: if the Government does not shout halt to public attacks by soldiers on the dignity and the integrity of their Minister, and unless it takes urgent, perhaps stern action to restore the twin concepts of discipline and duty, the Defence Forces really are doomed.