12 April 2006

Dick's million dollar chopper donation

| Kerces
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Dick Smith donated $1 million to the Australian War Memorial yesterday for a new war-time helicopter exhibition.

The ABC had the story yesterday (but note it hadn’t happened yet then) and the Canberra Times is running it today complete with photo of the entrepreneur in an Iroquois helicopter.

The chopper exhibition will be part of a $17.5 million expansion of the memorial which is due to open in October next year.

Part of the reason behind Mr Smith’s donation is he thinks the Vietnam veterans deserve more recognition for their efforts and believes this helicopter exhibition will help that.

Mr Smith counts himself lucky because he was too young to fight in the Korean War and too old to be drafted to Vietnam, but as a pilot he has a great deal of respect for those who did go.

He told the CT, “We hero-worship the Anzacs, but I don’t see a great deal of difference between the Anzacs landing at Gallipoli and fighting the Turks and the people who went to Vietnam.”

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I think Dick Smith has a great attitude, thanks for the donation, good on you. I think he is down to earth, and I cant name many Aussie millionaires who have donated as much as he has.

I think he’s a self aggrandising scumbag – but a million bucks is a million bucks. Go Dick.

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