Radschool Association Magazine - Vol 42

Page 10

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Agent Orange.

Mick Morrissey, who served at Ubon twice, has sent us the following, he says:

“Attached is the warning re Agent Orange which should be of interest to all who served at Ubon. It is my belief (served there twice) that our camp area was on the perimeter! I think the RAAF camp area was made after shifting the fence, we had the original fence line along the roadway in front of the camp, then another fence line that went at an angle of about 60 degrees from the roadway back and intersected the fuel farm fence, or near enough. This fence along the airfield boundary, near the runway, kept the aircraft out! Anyway if there was Agent Orange on the ground you can bet we were walking in it. I remember the camp as mainly red dirt in 1963 and 1965 when I was there as a RadTechG.”

“I have written to the Minister for Veterans Affairs, the Honourable Warren Snowdon MP, and advised him of the USVA warning. The Minister wants me to advise the Repatriation Medical Authority of this USVA warning. I find this request to be a bit bizarre, however I will do so. I have also advised the Department of Veterans Affairs by phone and email re this matter.”

“Chaps who feel they may have medical problems related to exposure to Agent Orange should advise DVA and any treating physicians, plus any RSL or other Pension Officer or advocate of the USVA warning.”

“I have had something to do with two blokes who served at Ubon and are suffering from prostate cancer. One bloke was in his words 'well treated. The other bloke was subjected to questioning over the veracity of his claim, that he was subjected to exposure to agent orange at Ubon. That is when I decided to have a look around on the Internet and turned up the USVA warning.”

The following was taken from the US Department of Veterans Affairs site.

"Vietnam-era Veterans whose service involved duty on or near the perimeters of military bases in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975 may have been exposed to herbicides and may qualify for VA benefits.

The following Veterans may have been exposed to herbicides:

U.S. Air Force Veterans who served on Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) bases at U-Tapao, Ubon, Nakhon Phanom, Udorn, Takhli, Korat, and Don Muang, near the air base perimeter anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975.

U.S. Army Veterans who provided perimeter security on RTAF bases in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975.

U.S. Army Veterans who were stationed on some small Army installations in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961 and May 7, 1975. However, the Army Veteran must have been a member of a military police (MP) unit or was assigned an MP military occupational specialty whose duty placed him/her at or near the base perimeter.

To receive benefits for diseases associated with herbicide exposure, these Veterans must show on a factual basis that they were exposed to herbicides during their service as shown by evidence of daily work duties, performance evaluation reports, or other credible evidence".

Report on defence tactics in Thailand.

A recently declassified Department of Defence (DoD) Report written in 1973, "Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report: Base Defence in Thailand 1968-1972," (8.3 MB, PDF) contains evidence that there was a significant use of herbicides on the fenced-in perimeters of military bases in Thailand to remove foliage that provided cover for enemy forces.

VA determined that herbicides used on the Thailand base perimeters may have been tactical and procured from Vietnam, or a strong, commercial type resembling tactical herbicides.

Open Source Software.

How to Geek (HTG) explains: What Is Open-Source Software and Why You Should Care

The Definition of Open Source.

If a program is open-source, its source code is freely available to its users. Its users – and anyone else – have the ability to take this source code, modify it, and distribute their own versions of the program. The users also have the ability to distribute as many copies of the original program as they want. Anyone can use the program for any purpose; there are no licensing fees or other restrictions on the software. Geeks often describe programs as being “open source” or “free software.” If you’re wondering exactly what these terms mean and why they matter, read on. (No, “free software” doesn’t just mean that you can download it for free.)

Whether a program is open-source or not doesn’t just matter to developers, it ultimately matters for users, too. Open-source software licenses give users freedoms they would not otherwise have.

For example, Ubuntu Linux is an open-source operating system. You can download Ubuntu, create as many copies as you want, and give them to your friends. You can install Ubuntu on an unlimited number of your computers. You can create remixes of the Ubuntu installation disc and distribute them. If you were particularly motivated, you could download the source code for a program in Ubuntu and modify it, creating your own customized version of that program – or of Ubuntu itself. Open-source licenses all allow you to do this, while closed-source licenses place restrictions on you.

The opposite of open-source software is closed-source software, which has a license that restricts users and keeps the source code from them.

Firefox, Chrome, OpenOffice, Linux, and Android are some popular examples of open-source software, while Microsoft Windows is probably the most popular piece of closed-source software.

Open Source vs. Free Software.

Open source applications are generally freely available – although there’s nothing stopping the developer from charging for copies of the software if they allow redistribution of the application and its source code afterwards. However, that’s not what “free software” refers to. The “free” in free software means “free as in freedom,” not “free as in beer.” The free software camp focuses on the ethics and morals of using software that can be controlled and modified by the user. In other words, the free software camp focuses on user freedoms.

The open-source software movement was created to focus on more pragmatic reasons for choosing this type of software. Open-source advocates wanted to focus on the practical benefits of using open-source software that would appeal more to businesses, rather than ethics and morals. Ultimately, both open-source and free software advocates are developing the same type of software, but they disagree on the messaging.

Types of Licenses.

There are many different licenses used by open-source projects, depending on which the developers prefer for their program. The General Public License (GPL) is widely used by many open-source projects, such as Linux. In addition to all the above definitions of open-source, the terms of the GPL specify that, if anyone modifies an open-source program and distributes a derivative work, they must also distribute the source code for their derivative work. In other words, no one can take open-source code and create a closed-source program from it – they must release their changes back to the community.

Microsoft referred to the GPL as being “viral” for this reason, as it forces programs that incorporate GPL code to release their own source code. Of course, a program’s developers can opt not to use GPL code if this is a problem.

Some other licenses, such as the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, place less restrictions on developers. If a program is licensed under the BSD license, anyone can incorporate the program’s source code into another program. They don’t have to release their changes back to the community. Some people see this is being even more “free” than the GPL license, as it gives developers the freedom to incorporate the code into their own closed-source programs, while some people see it as being less “free” because it takes rights away from the end users of the derived program.

Benefits for Users

This isn’t all dry, unimportant stuff that only matters to developers. The most obvious benefit of open-source software is that it can be had for free. The example of Ubuntu Linux above makes that clear – unlike Windows, you can install or distribute as many copies of Ubuntu as you want, with no restrictions. This can be particularly useful for servers – if you’re setting up a server, you can just install Linux on it. if you’re setting up a virtualized cluster of servers, you can easily duplicate a single Ubuntu server. You don’t have to worry about licensing and how many instances of Linux you’re allowed to run.

An open-source program is also more flexible. For example, Windows 8’s new interface disappointed many long-time desktop Windows users. Because Windows is closed-source, no Windows user can take the Windows 7 interface, modify it, and make it work properly on Windows 8. (Some Windows users are trying, but this is a painstaking process of reverse engineering and modifying binary files.)

When a Linux desktop like Ubuntu introduces a new desktop interface that some users aren’t fans of, users have more options. For example, when GNOME 3 was released, many Linux desktop users were equally turned off. Some took the code to the old version, GNOME 2, and modified it to make it run on the latest Linux distributions – this is MATE. Some took the code to GNOME 3 and modified it to make it work in a way they preferred – this is Cinnamon. Some users just switched to existing alternative desktops. If Windows was open-source, Windows 8 users would have more choice and flexibility. Just take a look at CyanogenMod, a popular, community-driven distribution of Android that adds features and support for new devices.

Open-source software also allows developers to “stand on the shoulders of giants” and create their own software. Witness Android and Chrome OS, which are operating systems built on Linux and other open-source software. The core of Apple’s OS X – and therefor iOS – was built on open-source code, too. Valve is furiously working on porting their Steam gaming platform to Linux, as this would allow them to create their own hardware and control their own destiny in a way that isn’t possible on Microsoft’s Windows.

Normandy.

Someone has put together a collection of photos taken during the D Day invasion and made them available in a PowerPoint Presentation. The presentation was obviously done in France and most of the language is French but you can understand it.

It is only when you see photos like this that you realise the scale of the D Day invasion and the amount of organisation and planning that went into it. It was an absolutely amazing feat.

How they organised food, accommodation, medical requirements, ammunition, spares and fuel etc for all these people and had them available where and when required is just unimaginable. Well, we now know how they arranged fuel for the huge invasion army - see HERE

You can see the PP Presentation HERE

Normally you’ll need Microsoft PowerPoint to open and read this file but if you don’t have PowerPoint, you can download the Reader which will allow you to at least read it. You can download it for free HERE.

The Collingwood Shipyards, Canada.

Collingwood Ontario (Canada) was once known for its shipbuilding. The Collingwood Shipyards built huge Lakers and they were all launched sideways, usually at about 12 o'clock noon. School children would get out of school early, walk with their teachers, down the main street of Collingwood to watch the latest ship being launched. An amazing sight. As you can imagine the set-up and launch was finely tuned and a dangerous thing to do. Many workers were injured or killed during this event. The shipyard closed many years ago and Collingwood's major place of employment disappeared forever.

You can see video of it HERE.

And you thought everything had been invented – see HERE.

ANZAC Day – Brisbane.

The ANZAC Day march in Brisbane was another triumph – the crowds just keep getting bigger and bigger. All ages were represented, we saw older people (older than us) with their fold up chairs, mid age mums and dads, teen ages and youngens – all content to sit or stand in the sun for two to three hours as a mark of respect to those that have made the supreme sacrifice, to those that have served and are still on God’s earth and to those that are serving now. There is nothing like marching through the streets of a city with thousands of people clapping, cheering and/or holding up “thank you” posters for you – it fills you with  an immense feeling of pride – this old Australia, she ain’t a bad place to live I can tell you.

35 Squadron was very well represented once again and that can be attributed to the huge amount of work put in by the association’s secretary - John Sambrooks.

ANZAC Day is a time for old mates and matettes to meet up again, most come from all corners and each year after the march, they get together over a cold ale and swap tall stories and wonder at just how much the other bloke/blokette has aged in the past 12 months.

After the march and the debrief at the Port Office hotel, it was time to take a breather and recoup. Two old mates headed off to Caloundra to do a bit of fishing, have a drink or two, play the pokies, eat well, watch the girls go by, and generally do nothing strenuous.

We’ll have a full coverage of Brisbane’s ANZAC Day 2013 in our next issue. If you've got photos you would like to contribute, please send them to us.

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