To use a historical military metaphor the Defence Forces were on the beach at Dunkirk just over a year ago and facing seemingly irresistible forces. It was time to fight or die. In the previous six months the controversy over the Army hearing claims - likely to cost the State around £1 billion for what was really a case of prolonged negligence by both the Department of Defence and the Army - had stimulated a highly critical climate in both the broadcast media and newspapers.
The hearing compensation claims spawned a series of side-bar stories about compensation claims for food poisoning (the soldiers who ate a souffle made from dodgy eggs at a barbecue in Lebanon); traumatic stress (the soldier who heard gunfire close to him and thought he saw a dead body - again in Lebanon); and the one that went around the world through news agency copy about the soldier allegedly claiming for sunburn. Then there was the one about the Army band, most of whom were claiming compensation for deafness, and in the barracks 90 per cent of the soldiers were claiming compensation for hearing damage.
The tabloids reported with glee the story of the massively overweight (not in such delicate terms) soldier in Donegal who was barely able to walk - and who later died from heart failure. Soldiers were caught pilfering drink and cigarettes from a PX (duty free) shop in Cyprus.
It became open season on the Defence Forces. Paddy Power, the bookmakers, began to take odds on what soldiers would claim for next, with odds on things like sore feet from square bashing. The British tabloids ran big with the story and again it was picked up on the international wire services and popped up all over the world with plenty of headlines of the "Have you heard the one about the Irish Army . . . " type. There were the jokes about the new army salute (a hand cupped around the ear).
Radio talk shows here took up the chorus. A number ran on the theme: "do we need an Army?" and someone pointed out that the Central American country Costa Rica doesn't have an army (it has a "police" force that is armed with missile systems, artillery and armoured personnel carriers - something that was overlooked during the debate).
Gay Byrne devoted an hour on his morning radio show to the theme. He apparently felt he was reflecting the outrage of the country about the compensation culture and shame that had befallen the Defence Forces.
Gay held a telephone poll which, it may have been presumed, would have reflected the common view - that we had enough of this "Army" whose soldiers couldn't hear, had weak stomachs, who didn't like loud noises and were squeamish about the sight of death or injury - and whose band was deaf. The result of the poll, at the height of this massive negative image of the Defence Forces, came as quite a surprise. Seventy per cent of the callers were in favour of the Army and against any notion of the Defence Forces being disbanded.
The result of that telephone poll should have been an indicator to anyone observing the reaction of the Defence Forces that they were no longer taking this kind of thing lying down. You can take it that a large number of the calls were from Army barracks around the State where (if not officially standing to attention) soldiers and their families were beginning to fight back.
The poll was possibly the point where the tide in the Army's PR battle began to turn (a comparison with the Battle of Stalingrad might be over the top but the Army was beginning to take this very, very seriously). The Defence Forces press officer, Cmdt Eoghan O Neachtain, who fielded the questions and put forward the Army's case on the Gaybo show, now had the job of heading the PR battle to save the increasingly tattered reputation of the Defence Forces.
According to inside sources a meeting of top brass was called and the decision was made to go on the offensive. Immediately the Press Office challenged the more exuberant and less-than-100 per cent accurate stories about the compo claims. The "sunburn" claim was actually nothing of the sort. It referred to a claim for alleged medical misdiagnosis about a skin melanoma, a very serious complaint and not in the slightest a "funny" story. Paddy Powers was made to retract its jocular bets table on Army claims and shamed into paying £1,000 to the Army Benevolent Fund.
Another mistaken story by an Irish newspaper reporting that the Defence Forces had refused to send a band to play at the dedication of the Irish war dead memorial at Ypres, was immediately challenged. This time, rather than taking such bad publicity lying down, O Neachtain went on RTE's Saturday morning media programme Sound Byte and made the offending newspaper swallow its words. For the first time in the history of the Defence Forces the Chief of Staff gave a press conference at which he was prepared to field any and all questions - the Press Office was lucky that the last Chief, Lt Gen. Gerry McMahon and his successor Lt Gen. Dave Stapleton are both good communicators.
Then the serious spinning began. Last year, as it happened, was the 20th anniversary of the Army's involvement in Lebanon. More than 30 soldiers have died in service there, more than half of them as a result of hostile fire. The Press Office secured agreement with RTE to have the Gerry Ryan and Larry Gogan shows broadcast from the Irish Battalion HQ in south Lebanon with Ryan and Gogan interviewing the soldiers on service in the war zone. Pat Kenny devoted an entire Saturday night show to the 20th anniversary, with hardly a mention of deaf musicians or dodgy souffles.
The previous Christmas, the President Mrs McAleese had visited the troops in Lebanon, and in January this year the Taoiseach flew out to meet the troops - remarkably the first time in 20 years that the head of State had gone out to see the soldiers on UN duty.
The publicity attending the visits and broadcasts from Lebanon re-focused attention on the fact that the Defence Forces have been carrying out critically important and dangerous peace-keeping work in a far flung place for 20 years with almost no recognition. When the 21-year-old soldier, Pte William Kedian was killed, and his friend Pte Ronnie Rushe terribly injured, in a mortar attack, the country's sympathy was reflected in the President's attendance at his funeral in Ballyhaunis. The deaths last month of the four Air Corps helicopter crew members, as they returned from a rescue mission off the coast of Waterford, tragically underlined the reality of the life-and-death work done by rescue crews, sailors at sea, bomb disposal squads and the UN soldiers in Lebanon that had been set aside in the previous year of Defence Force bashing.
The tragedies also compounded the work done in turning around the country's image of the Defence Forces. A year ago we were laughing at them. No one is laughing now.