Letter to the Editor

To the Editor

I read with great interest the very informative article by Applegarth S.C. (as The Honourable Justice Applegarth then was) titled “Hell Without Harbour Views” in Hearsay Issue 26 (May 2008). That article importantly referred to the outstanding service of David McLure on operational deployment as a reserve Army Legal Officer in Afghanistan. Further to that fine article and as an epilogue to it, I understand that recently two members of this Bar Association, John Devereux and Russell Pearce, who in their capacity as reserve lawyers deployed operationally into the Middle East, have received the “Bronze Star” for that service. The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration which may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit or meritorious service. John Devereux is a Professor of law at the T. C. Beirne School of Law at The University of Queensland and Russell Pearce is the CMC’s Director of Misconduct Investigations. In their military guises, John is a Wing Commander in the RAAF Reserve and Russell a Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army Legal Corps. It goes without saying that this is a very notable and significant achievement on their part for which they should be sincerely congratulated.

Dominic Katter