Issue # 145 – Sticky situation

Sticky situation

By Derek Roylance

Reading Tom Brown’s piece on intros in Ranters last week reminded me of one of the best I have seen… and it was on a media release!

To set the scene. I and my good mate the late Bob Cornish were operating as captains in the Australian army’s Public Relations Service with the 1st Australian Task Force in South Vietnam in 1969.

The task force commander had visited the South Vietnamese general who commanded a division just to the north of our location.  He gave him a gift of a boomerang.

A few days later, following a message from the general the Australian commander sent an Aboriginal soldier up to help the general out.

In writing the story, Bob Cornish began: ‘A Vietnamese General has a very Australian Problem… His boomerang won’t come back.’

Proof that it was a cracker came from the two resident journalists with the Task Force.  They always changed any intro we put on a media release. On this occasion, with much gnashing of teeth, they admitted to being beaten.

Needless to say, after the visits by the Aboriginal Digger, the general’s problem went away.

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