On 30 September 2003, the President of the 2/14th Battalion Association, Stan Bissett AM MC invited me to become an associate member of their battalion association.  He wrote:

Adventure Kokoda Director Charlie Lynn inducted as an Officer of the Order of Logohu by the Government of Papua New Guinea
Imita Ridge: Designated to be Australia’s last stand during the Kokoda campaign – ignored by the Australian funded ‘Kokoda Initiative’ over the past decade
Steps built by Australian engineers during the Kokoda campaign
Local villagers could be paid to rebuild steps to reconstruct this iconic image with the imposition of a PNGK100 ‘Trail Maintenance Levy’ on trekkers
The site of the biggest battle of the Kokoda campaign has been ignored by environment-DFAT officials over the past decade
Mortar position is owned by Naduri villagers who used to protect it and charge each trekker PNGK10 to visit it – they earned around PNGK40,000 (A$17,000) each year as a result
After Australian environment officials made the position ‘safe’ by locking the mortars in a wire cage the site is now ignored by trekkers – Naduri villagers are now PNGK40,000 per year poorer as a result (we don’t know who dragged the tail wing of a PNG plane to the site)
Local villagers could be easily employed to erect old tents to replicate the wartime hospital at Lake Myola
Hard to imagine why such a significant site has been ignored by environment-DFAT officials over the past decade
Iconic photo by Damien Parer – one of the most desperate of all scenes during the Kokoda campaign
Local villagers could easily be engaged to replicate the wartime village site.
Opening of the Isurava Memorial by Prime Ministers John Howard and Grand Chief, Sir Michael Somare to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Battle on 26 August 2002
Troops parading before Major General George Vasey as they raised the Australian flag on the Kokoda plateau on 3 November 1942
Hard to imagine why environment-DFAT officials have ignored the need to design a Commemorative Centre on the Kokoda plateau in view of its significance and its road access to the Popondetta airfield
Owers Corner: Managed by the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative
Politically correct interpretive panels display incorrect and irrelevant information
Not a single toilet along the Kokoda Trail meets the most basic of hygiene standards
Toilets are built by local campsite owners – no privacy and no protection against the smell
It is hard to imagine more disgusting toilets than these – hard to understand why Australia have not allocated some of the millions of Aid dollars they have spent on consultants towards meeting the needs of male and female taxpayers
Difficult to describe – beyond 3rd world!
Smell is atrocious – infestation is chronic – Australian taxpayer dollars at work!
Bomana War Cemetery managed by Department of Veterans Affairs
The Kokoda Trail