DAVID BRIGGS

Dave Briggs was a National Serviceman during the Vietnam War. He was called up in 1969 and discharged in 1971, just as the Vietnam War was ending for Australia. He served less that the proscribed 12 months in Vietnam. He tried to enlist in the Regular Army in 1971 but was rejected because of his unsatisfactory and ill disciplined Military Service.

Briggs' military history is dotted with charges and inefficiency. He was a discipline problem from day one. Briggs was a problem child while on Active Service during the Vietnam War, which means he was not loyal to his mates and didn't pull his weight. It is crucial during War for all to be reliable and trustworthy.

Many Diggers and rank holders found themselves in mishievious trouble from time to time in Vietnam, but chronic, serial trouble makers like Dave Briggs were a totally different kettle of fish.

Diggers fighting the enemy do not want to be distracted by mates who cause trouble in the ranks. Lives are at stake.

Briggs is another leading light and a very vocal, very vicious, nasty member of the mad galahs. He became active on the internet scene a few years ago and has tried to build a reputation of Military expertise, Military respectability and Military knowledge for himself in the online Veteran community, where he has engaged in abuse, threats, intimidation, defamation, misinformation, conspiracy theories and, well, just plain nonsense.

It was Dave Briggs who circulated the KILL BILLSON FIRST poster in 2006.

When Dave Briggs estranged wife heard he was abusing fellow Veterans she said thank God, while he is abusing them he is leaving me alone.

Briggs has no Military experience to speak of and was never promoted. He was a Sapper [ Private ] in the Royal Australian Engineers, and that was it.

Briggs likes to boast he is a former Infanteer. While it is true Dave Briggs served in 3 Training Battalion for a very short time as an Infanteer, he never served in a combat Infantry Battalion.

Those who try to impress their fellow Veterans and the civil community usually try and convince others they served in combat Corps such as Armour, Cavalry, Artillery or Infantry [ the favourite trick is to claim they were in SAS or an Engineer Tunnel Rat in Vietnam ]. Somebody said there must have been so many Tunnel Rats in Vietnam the VC would never have had room to fit in the tunnels. They think that somehow the combat rolls of these Corps will rub off on them if they can be seen to have been part of these Corps.

Dave Briggs is another who never held any Military responsibility or authority, yet tries to create the impression he did. Not everybody in the Military can hold Rank, and not everybody achieves high rank. This is usual and par for the course and without the Private Diggers the Military would be nothing. The Diggers are the backbone of the Military.

However all decent Diggers never pretend they were anything other than Diggers, and they never try to embellish their records or history to aggrandise themselves.

There were a small number of National Servicemen during the Vietnam War who did all they could to convince the Military they were unfit for Service. In other words they would deliberately make discipline problems of themselves, cause trouble, fake illness and generally misbehave. In this way they tried to convince the authorities they should be discharged. Sometimes this worked and other times it didn't. It may be that this is what Briggs was hoping to achieve. If so he failed. The funny thing is that if this was his modus operandi, he later tried to enlist in the Regular Army but was rejected as being unsuitable. Maybe he decided that,after all, it was more secure in the Military than in the dog eat dog world of the civilian job market.

After discharge Briggs became a West Australian copper. It seems the uniform had started to attract him. Goodness knows how he went in the WA Police if his behaviour was the same as it was in the Army.

If he didn't change his bullying and abusive ways there is no doubt decent WA coppers would have ostracised him. These days Dave Briggs acts as if he is still a copper, and conducts private investigations of fellow Veterans, using any old Police contacts he can muster up, and his misguided understanding of the system, to help him form dossiers on Veterans. The trouble is Briggs few contacts seem just as ill informed and unreliable as he is. What a way to treat your fellow Veterans. In effect Briggs spies on his fellow Veterans. If you deal with Briggs we suggest you be very careful indeed.

In 2003-2004 some Veterans and civilians formed a Veterans political party. Briggs was the WA representative for this political party. At one stage the national leadership of this party, which claimed it was independent of all other political parties, made a statement which virtually said it supported the Labor Party. This was a stupid thing to do for a party which claimed independence. During the 2004 election campaign, Briggs and the national leader of the Veterans party arranged to meet with and speak to RSL members in a WA sub branch. Don Randall, WA Liberal Party member, was present. When Briggs and this other member turned up they looked like they had just come in from crabbing. The RSL members were all well dressed. The Veterans Party made it's presentation and when Randall's turn came to speak he said" But you are the party which supports Labor aren't you?". Naturally this blew Briggs and his offsider out of the water and they lost all credibilty, if they ever had any.Another mad galah leading light of this former political Party, who is obviously a Labor man, was Jim Wiltshire.

Recently somebody made this comment to us about the mad galah people.

"Don't you just love the conspiracy theories coming from very short term failed soldiers who have no understanding of how the Defence Force runs. It is rather amazing how they seem to be a group of failed soldiers. Most appear to have been unable to perform at the very bottom of the Army/Navy ladder. Now they are pretending to be battle hardened veterans speaking with great understanding and on behalf of their military peers - when in fact they have no peers, because they were never part of the group of servicemen who understood the true spirit of the service. In fact their only peers are other failed and sidelined servicemen"

You may care to read of the very short and embarrassing Military history of Dave Briggs, an abusive, arrogant, ill disciplined Serviceman who went from unwilling National Serviceman to trying to become a volunteer.

TO READ THE MILITARY SERVICE OF BRIGGS CLICK THE LINKS BELOW