[Julian Knight continues…]
[Senior Cadets’ clandestine…] Consumption & Storage of Alcohol:
At 0600hrs on Saturday 25 April 1987, ANZAC Day, all the cadets at RMC formed up outside their respective barracks to march down to assembled buses, which transported them to the nearby Australian War Memorial for the ANZAC Day dawn memorial service.
As Kokoda Company began to march down in formation to the buses a 2nd Class cadet, Staff Cadet Brett FITZPATRICK (CSC No 5170), staggered into the rear of the formation. FITZPATRICK was extremely drunk and fellow 2nd Class cadets made a place for him in the rear of the middle rank in an attempt to conceal him.
As they marched down the road FITZPATRICK staggered and stumbled to such an extent that he had to be assisted by the cadets on either side of him. He often giggled and loudly stated that he had only stopped drinking 15 minutes beforehand, and had only just made it back to the college in time. I thought that it was a disgrace to turn up drunk to an ANZAC Day memorial service. No action was taken against Staff Cadet FITZPATRICK.
The ANZAC Day incident was not the only incidence of intoxicated senior cadets at the college whilst I was there.
On one weekend afternoon in May 1987, I was washing my car in the 1st Class cadet’s car park at the front of the barracks. I had no option but to wash my car there, as it was the only place where a hose was available. The car park for Kokoda Company’s 2nd and 3rd Class cadets was on top of a hill behind the barracks overlooking ADFA. As I was washing my car I was confronted by the Kokoda Company cadet CSM (Company Sergeant Major) , Under Officer ‘Mongo’ Philip REED (CSC No 4592). I was cleaning a rag near the tap when CSM REED, pulled up next to me in his car.
He leant out of the window and said to me:
“What’s your shit heap doing here?”
He was obviously intoxicated as his face was flushed, his eyes were glazed and his speech slurred. He was also holding an opened can of Fosters beer in his right hand. I told him that I was washing my car and I would remove it as soon as I had finished. He then parked his car, got out and slowly staggered into the barracks drinking his can of Fosters. He was dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and sneakers.
Not only was the consumption or storage of alcohol in or around the barracks an offence against RMC Standing Orders (Order No 1403), but cadets were also told by the college authorities that driving under the influence of alcohol was punishable by immediate discharge from the college. [Yet] Alcohol was frequently consumed and stored by senior cadets in the Kokoda Company barracks. Beer and wine were regularly consumed by the 1st Class cadets in the recreation room, and senior cadets frequently stored bottles of spirits, usually whiskey or rum, in their rooms and the platoon storerooms.
[Coping Mechanism: Duntroon Staff Cadets’ Weekly Alcohol Intoxication Culture]
On one occasion, myself and a few other junior cadets were watching a video in the recreation room when a 1st Class cadet, Lance-Corporal Craig THORP (CSC No 5133), walked into the room, sat down in a chair in front of me and consumed a take-away meal and a number of cans of beer. On another occasion in mid-May 1987, myself and two 1st Class cadets in Kokoda Company, 15 Platoon’s platoon sergeant, Sergeant Gary STONE (CSC No 5129) and my section leader, Corporal Peter CRANE (CSC No 5037), consumed a cask of white wine in the recreation room over a period of about three hours late one night. STONE and CRANE had already been drinking for about an hour before I walked into the room and STONE, over the quiet objections of CRANE, invited me to join him for a drink.
Most 1st Class cadets considered consuming alcohol in the barracks as a prerogative of senior cadets only. During the drinking session in the recreation room, I followed STONE and CRANE’s example of using the room’s balcony to urinate off. They did this simply because they were too lazy to use the nearby toilets. This was the only occasion when I was invited to socialise with any senior cadet.
I should state that during my time in Kokoda Company I cannot recall a single instance of being “bastardized” by Sergeant STONE, and I was not treated overly
harshly by Corporal CRANE. In fact, I found Sergeant STONE to be one of the most conscientious and approachable 1st Class cadets at the college.
I also recall an incident when a 2nd Class cadet, Staff Cadet Scott BECKWITH (CSC No 4771), consumed alcohol during a field exercise.
During FEX “Tobruk” in early May 1987, I was present with another 3rd Class cadet, Staff Cadet Trevor DARBY (CSC No 5242), on several occasions when BECKWITH “spiked” his coffee with whiskey from a small bottle he kept in his pack. BECKWITH claimed that it woke him up in the morning and kept him warm. What concerned me was that there was one night during the exercise when all the cadets used live ammunition to repel a mock attack, and BECKWITH was firing from the trench adjacent to mine.
BECKWITH later commented adversely on me for Darren Moore’s book, “Duntroon: The Royal Military College ofAustralia 1911-2001” (see Attachment 12).
Senior cadets at RMC were not, however, totally free from disciplinary action. While I was at the college a number of senior cadets were charged with various military offences. One 1st Class cadet, Under Officer Paul ANGELATOS (CSC No 5012), was court martialled.
ANGELATOS was the cadet CSM of Gallipoli Company when he discovered the Directing Staff (DS) written solution to a forthcoming examination in a storeroom. Before he handed it into the authorities, ANGELATOS copied the solution without their knowledge. His cheating was later discovered and he was charged under the DFDA.
ANGELATOS had contravened one of the guiding characteristics of the Charter of the Royal Military College, which contained an outline of The Military Ethic. The Military Ethic stated, in part, that:
‘There is an absolute requirement for integrity in a military officer and an officer cadet. Integrity demands the absolute exclusion of lying, cheating, dishonesty and evasion. It also demands that such behaviour not be tolerated in others’. (CSC Standing Orders, Order No 104).
Under Officer ANGELATOS was eventually tried and convicted of plagiarism by a ‘Court Martial’ [a Duntroon-style one] held at the college in mid-1987. He was reprimanded, stripped of his cadet rank and transferred to Kapyong Company as a Staff Cadet. Even with his conviction, ANGELATOS graduated as a lieutenant with the rest of his class on 16 June 1987.’ [So ANGELATOS had been just a very naughty boy].
[SOURCE: The above is an extract in a series of Julian KNIGHT’s records as part of his 97-page ‘Personal Account’ of his 6-month relentless persecution at RMC Duntroon submitted to the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce dated 26 November 2013, pp. 36-38].