𝐍𝐨 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐕𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬

𝐎𝐫, 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐕𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞

“No one hates veterans like veterans hate veterans.”

It's something anyone who has logged on to Facebook and scrolled into a discussion about military service learns very quickly. Veteran comedian Jarryd Goundrey calls it “vetricide”, and the term is painfully accurate. ‘My service is better than your service’ is said in different ways but is almost always there.

During our service, we have no greater friend than the person standing beside us. We rely on one another, support one another and, when necessary, trust them explicitly with our lives.

Far too often though, once we leave the military, we seem to have no worse enemy than another veteran sitting at the end of a keyboard.

I want to understand why.

Why can the veteran community be so toxic? Why are veterans so willing to tear down other veterans? What makes some of us so insecure, bitter or vindictive towards people whose service does not exactly match our own?

Military service is an extraordinary thing. It brings together people from every corner of society and unites them around shared values, culture, traditions and goals.

People who might otherwise have little in common live together, work together, and endure hardship together. We often say that nothing bonds people like trauma, and military service can be a target rich environment for tough times. Whether you know a person or not, you trust them because of the uniform they wear.

Those experiences create powerful bonds. Yet something seems to happen when the uniform comes off. The solidarity that defined our service can be replaced by ego, competition, and resentment.

Veteran toxicity is not new.

The generation that fought during the First World War endured extraordinary hardship and formed powerful lifelong connections. There were certainly disputes, egos and internal divisions, but they were largely confined to arguments in newspapers, heated meetings or emotional outbursts at RSL state conferences.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, those divisions became more visible.

Stories are common of Second World War veterans refusing Vietnam veterans membership of RSL sub-branches, questioning the legitimacy of their service or telling them they had not fought in a “real war”. Almost every Vietnam veteran seems to know someone who experienced that treatment.

Whether every anecdote is entirely accurate is almost beside the point. The stories have endured because they reflect a deeper truth: veterans have long created hierarchies of service and used them to decide who is worthy of recognition.

Combat veterans against non-combat veterans. Regular soldiers against reservists. Officers against soldiers. One corps against another. One war against another. Those who served for decades against those who served for only a few years.

The arrival of social media has turned the dial up to 1000.

Veterans can now attack one another from the comfort of the supercomputer in their pocket. Arguments that once ended when the bar closed can continue for days through Facebook comments, Instagram posts, emails, text messages and phone calls.

The most minor disagreement can become deeply personal. A difference of opinion becomes an accusation of cowardice, stolen valour or disloyalty. People compete over whose service was harder, whose deployment was more dangerous and who qualifies as a “real veteran”.

It needs to stop.

Historically, the veteran community often rallied around strong, recognisable leaders.

Bruce Ruxton was a prime example. He had an opinion on almost everything and was undoubtedly divisive, but there was never any doubt that he was prepared to fight for veterans. Anecdotes abound of Bruce making telephone calls at all hours to cajole people, tear strips off them, or placate other RSL leaders and members.

RSL members did not always agree with him, but many supported him to the hilt because they believed he was fighting for them and for the organisation they loved. He was a leader who could be followed and if you stepped out of line publicly, Bruce would smash you.

It has now been 25 years since Bruce Ruxton resigned as RSL Victoria State President in 2001. In the years since across Australia, strong and visible leadership has too often been MIA when the veteran community needed it most.

That is not to say that good people have not served in leadership positions or worked tirelessly behind the scenes. Many have. But too often our major institutions have appeared cautious, fragmented or disconnected from the veterans they exist to represent.

At critical moments, the veteran community needed leaders who could clearly articulate what veterans stood for, bring competing groups together, and command the attention of governments and the public. Instead, leadership was often left to a collection of individual organisations, advocates and social-media personalities, each speaking for their own constituency and sometimes against one another.

That massive vacuum helped create the divided community we see today.

Without strong and unifying leadership, veterans have increasingly fallen back into smaller groups built around particular conflicts, corps, services, generations or personal experiences. Social media has then rewarded the loudest, angriest, and most divisive voices. People have rallied to them not because they are right but because they are there.

The lesson is not that we need another Bruce Ruxton, or that leadership should be loud, domineering or beyond criticism. Nor should we claim every decision made in the past was right simply because it was made forcefully.

The lesson is that strong communities require leaders who are prepared to lead and members who are prepared to support them.

Today, the RSL is undergoing significant reform and transformation. Its current leaders have inherited an organisation facing serious challenges, including declining trust, generational division, and uncertainty about its future purpose.

They should be held accountable, challenged constructively and expected to communicate openly. But they must also be given the opportunity to lead.

Veterans cannot demand bold leadership and then attack every leader who makes a difficult decision. We cannot call for reform while resisting every change. We cannot complain that the RSL has lost its voice while undermining those attempting to help it find that voice again.

Enough is enough.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand". A veteran community consumed by infighting cannot effectively advocate for itself, support its mates, or fight for those who need help.

We need to put aside petty battles, personal egos, and individual status. We need to return to the principles that guided us during military service: service before self, loyalty, courage, respect and working together to achieve a shared goal.

That includes supporting those who have accepted the responsibility of leading us, and those we stand alongside in this community.

Our service may not have been identical, and we will not agree on every issue, but we do not need to agree on everything to stand together.

The veteran community needs to be strong again.

That will only happen when veterans stop treating one another as the enemy and start rallying behind and alongside the people working to build a better future for us all.