The Personal Significance of 21

It only occurred to me recently how important the number 21 was in my life. From about two years of age, I lived at 21 Mayneview Street in Milton, Brisbane. Here is a link to photos of the house and its interior.

I lived there uninterruptedly until I was 21 years of age. A couple of weeks after my 21st birthday on April 3rd 1970, I was conscripted into the army. That was a hugely significant event in my life.

Prior to my conscription I had been completely aimless, dropping out of University and then out of a teachers training college. The experience, a brief nine months, was transformitive and I emerged from it with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. The time span of nine months of course is suggestive of a gestation period.

By my 22nd birthday I was out of the army thanks to my recently won conscientious objector status, I was employed full time as a high school teacher thanks to my uncle's assistance and was studying part time at the University that I had dropped out of in 1968. Turning 21 proved to be a pivotal year in determining the future direction of my life.

Looking forward to 1995, this year's number factorises to 3 x 5 x 7 x 19 or 21 x 95 and this was another pivotal year for me. My father died midway through that year and then later in that same year my then wife and I made the decision to leave Australia, marking the start of my adventures in Singapore, Jakarta and Shanghai.

Everything Old Is New Again

It was a week after my 21st birthday in April of 1970 that my freedom of movement was suddenly and drastically curtailed by my conscription into the Australian Army. 50 years later, in April of 2020, my freedom of movement was again restricted by the measures taken to combat the pandemic. These restrictions have gradually but progressively tightened to the extent that I cannot now enter any of the local malls because I don't have my vaccine passport. I certainly can't travel on domestic airlines and, were I to venture out more than I do, I would probably encounter further restrictions on my movement. Hence the title of this post: everything old is new again.

Having my freedom taken away from me at age 21 certainly made me appreciative when it was restored about nine months later in January of 1971. This followed the success of my appeal to be recognised as a conscientious objector. That was a pivotal point in my life. Part of the reason for my success was that the tide of public opinion had began to turn against the war in Vietnam and the conscription of Australian youth to fight in it. Even though the political parties of today are scarcely differentiable, such was not case back then. 

I'll forever despise the Liberal National Party (LNP) in Australia for its introduction of conscription. Over 800 Australian males, many of them conscripts, were killed in Vietnam and these deaths can be squarely blamed on the NLP politicians of the time. When the Labor Party was elected in 1972, conscription was abolished. Of course, the Labor PM of the time, Gough Whitlam, was overthrown in a cleverly contrived coup three years later and the LNP took over the reins of government again.

I spent a weird nine months in the Army and how I got out is another story. None of my friends had been conscripted. Their birthdates had not come up in the lottery to decide who would be conscripted and who would not. Their lives rolled happily on, unlike mine. I emerged with an appreciation of my freedom and thereafter it was never curtailed, until now. It's become apparent how fragile that freedom was and how easy it was to shatter. 

Back in 1970, the Australian government declared that certain individuals must join the Army and, if required, go to Vietnam and kill the Commies. In 2021, governments around the world are declaring that all individuals must join the ranks of the vaccinated and a war of sorts has been declared on the unvaccinated.