Every week Native Affairs manages to raise the bar on NZ current affairs and this weeks astonishing episode is just another example of how very good Native Affairs is.
It was a special investigation into the death of Corporal Douglas Hughes in Afghanistan, a bizarre case made even more bewildering by the decisions taken on the day that seemed only to detrimentally exacerbate Hughes state of mind.
Being gay on the frontline can’t be easy, but the decisions made as to how to deal with his attraction to a fellow soldier just seem ill qualified.
Hughes tells a superior that he has an attraction to a fellow soldier, the superior astoundingly decides to bring the other soldier into a meeting immediately with Hughes to force Hughes to confess his attraction which provokes a very negative reaction from the soldier who wants nothing to do with Hughes ever again. This leads Hughes to leave the meeting upset, the superior orders the soldier to go find Hughes, Hughes shoots himself.
Why on earth the superior thought a group meeting where Hughes had to confess his attraction was a good idea in any way shape or form is the first point. How did the superior intend to handle things if the soldier responded in the manner he did? How was Hughes mental state going to be impacted by that type of humiliation?
The second point is sending the very soldier who had just negatively responded to Hughes attraction to go and find Hughes.
The whole thing seems poorly handled and the lengths the NZDF have gone to pushing the blame onto Hughes for his emotional instability caused by his homosexuality utterly avoids focusing on the decision by the superior to force a confrontation in the first place.
Native Affairs took the time to explain the story and the timeline. It was well edited and Semiramis Holland should be in the running for a TV Journalism award. The only criticism was too much U2 in the soundtrack.
A very bizarre case indeed. But unsurprising, given the calibre of some of the howling mad personnel in the NZDF.
I’ve heard stories from an acquaintance who served in the NZ Army some time ago of a Sergeant who thought a soldier didn’t iron his shirt, so had another soldier iron his shirt while he was still wearing it. As well as suspecting a soldier wasn’t wearing clean underpants, so had him remove them and then sniffed them to determine whether they were clean or not. After hearing such stories, one can’t help believe there are some very peculiar crackpots in service. That was some time ago, but it appears the quality of some personnel hasn’t improved.
1. Get our soldiers out of Afghanistan.
2. See 1.
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