Bruce Carlyle Ruxton, AM, OBE (6 February 192623 December 2011) was an Australian ex-serviceman and President of the Victorian Returned and Services League from 1979 to 2002. Early life Ruxton grew up in Kew, Victoria. He attended Melbourne High School. War service Ruxton served in World War II in the South West Pacific Area. He enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force on 21 February 1944, listing his civilian occupation as "pupil land surveyor". He was allocated the service number VX94379. In late 1944, he was posted to the Royal Australian Engineers, serving for two months with the 2nd Australian Field Survey Company in Queensland before then joining the 2/1st Australian Topographical Survey Company in December 1944. He sailed to Morotai with this unit in April 1945. In June 1945, Private Ruxton was posted to the 2/25th Australian Infantry Battalion and served both as a rifleman and in the battalion's intelligence section in the Battle of Balikpapan (1945) in Borneo. After the war ended, Ruxton volunteered to serve in Japan with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. He was posted to the 65th Infantry Battalion, part of the 34th Australian Infantry Brigade, and was deployed to Japan in early 1946. In late 1947, Ruxton attended the British Commonwealth Occupation Force School of Cookery and qualified as an army cook, after which he was transferred to the Australian Army Catering Corps. He served in Japan until December 1948 when he returned to Australia. He was discharged from the Army on 13 January 1949. Representing the war veterans After his war service, he became a spokesman on behalf of war veterans and their families, ensuring they received their pensions and entitlements. As the Second World War veterans grew older, he lobbied on their behalf regarding issues such as nursing homes and retirement accommodation. He lived in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Beaumaris. Following two years of ill-health due to viral pneumonia contracted during a visit to Boer War sites, Ruxton resigned as President of the Victorian RSL in June 2002. Advocacy Along with RSL National President, Brigadier Alf Garland, Ruxton was an opponent of the Multifunction Polis (MFP), a Japanese funded technology city proposed in 1987 for the north of Adelaide. Ruxton said it would become "a Jap city". He opposed any association with homosexuals in the armed forces and in official memorial services. While president of the Victorian RSL, during the Anzac