Honouring Veterans: Virgin Australia ‘Faux American bollocks’

Remembrance Day – November 11

Possibly because of the many WWII anniversaries associated with 2018, and the holding of the Invictus Games in Sydney, the health and welfare of Australian armed forces veterans has been newsworthy this year in Australia.

Coupled with that is the political situation (our conservative ‘liberal’ party is now in minority government due to the loss of a recent by-election). In addiont, our government has announced a controversial half a billion dollars to be spent on the Australian War Memorial – rather than more money being spent on veterans ongoing mental and physical health support.

That all means that politicians and newspaper proprietors are looking for a patriotic, nationalist distraction, and they have found it at the fringes of benefits to veterans. Who can complain about supporting veterans?

Virgin Australia Veteran  tokenism

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has launched the #ThanksForServing campaign and Virgin Australia have signed up by offering:

• acknowledgement of defence force veterans by a pre-take-off announcement
• provide priority boarding for veterans

The best response to this, that tend to echo my own thoughts come from Catherine McGregor, (see tweet below) a transgender veteran and intellectual powerhouse and commentator. Catherine is a little too conservative Christian for my taste most of the time, but I respect her ability to argue her case and to admit when she is wrong and change her view.

I would not dream of walking on to an aircraft ahead of the other passengers as a veteran. Can’t imagine too many people I served with doing this either. Spend more on suicide prevention and health support. Faux American bollocks ??

— Catherine McGregor (@CateMc3273) November 4, 2018

I won’t rave on about this, but if you are going to thank veterans, what about first responders, or firefighters, or teachers, or doctors and nurses etc. OK, sorry I have raved on about this.

Where is Qantas on this?

The Guardian is reporting that Qantas will not be offering something similar:

A spokesman for Qantas said the airline had the “utmost respect for current and former defence force personnel” and special announcements were made on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.

“[But] we’re conscious that we carry a lot of exceptional people every day, including veterans, police, paramedics, nurses, firefighters and others, and so we find it difficult to single out a particular group as part of the boarding process [with the exception of passengers with special needs].”

On this – I’m with Qantas. Virgin – if you really want to show support – dig into your pocket, and offer actual discounts.