Dick is my mate Turtle's dad- or was, I'm not sure if he's still around.
I watched a movie last night about Australians in Vietnam, and it reminded me of being at Turtle's house when I was young. By that time Dick was single, divorced I think - raising Turtle and his elder sister Lara. Their house was a Mackay-special, two-story Queenslander of the type with weatherboards upstairs, and downstairs a concrete floored garage which had been walled in to accommodate a bar and a car- it was on Bridge Road opposite the end of our street, and a stone throw from the junior rugby league grounds.
The house was clean, tidy and quiet. Upstairs was cool in the daytime, and the kitchen and living room were comfortably and simply furnished. The kids rooms were self-decorated, light and colourful by contrast. Nothing upstairs was out of place. The backyard was fenced, and the lawns front and back were always cut tidily, although I don't think I ever saw them being mowed- they just were.
Dick had a record collection, I remember playing Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. Near the record player there was military memorabilia in glass-fronted, faux-timber, china cabinets. I don't remember what exactly- maybe it included a picture of Dick in fatigues. According to Turtle, Dick was in Vietnam and was a member of the RAR, the Royal Australian Regiment.
Dick was tall, and thin, and weathered - old to me, although he would have been my age now, between 40 and 50. He wore eye-glasses with smoke coloured lenses, not quite sunglasses inside and outside regardless of the light. Dick came to watch us play football and drank beer quietly. He spoke gently, definitively and rarely to adults and children alike. He may have been an alcoholic- but if drinking every day was that measure, so were most of the adults I knew. He came to football to watch us until Turtle stopped playing about the same time he started surfing, in high school.
I went looking for Dick's service history last night for no other reason than I remembered him. I think I liked and respected him.
I found these photos posted by Dick, in the table on this page, there are 3 sets next to his name- almost 150 photos taken on operation: 9 RAR Association | Queensland Australia (9rarqld.org)
They're not the kind of photos you might find from a passive deployment. 1968 was the deadliest year for the US allies in Vietnam, and it's when Dick and 9RAR arrived.
"Over the 12 months 9RAR took part in 11 major operations, each lasting roughly a month. These operations focused on pacification and reconnaissance, and aimed to isolate Viet Cong from the local population."
9RAR is listed as having had 35 unit casualties, another 150 men were wounded.
One of Dick's last 'Nui Dat' pictures is the operations board for 9RAR- listing December '68 to November '69. Thirteen operations are listed- a couple more than the official record.
Dick's photos show the camp bar, skinny young men in greens holding beer. South Vietnamese crouching in tiger fatigues. Timber bunkers in the jungle. White men swimming on a beach. Aircraft- Chinooks, Hueys, a Caribou. Armoured personnel carriers and tanks, artillery. Pink and blue smoke grenades puffing in a clearing. Buffalo and wagons. A pretty young woman, in a white dress and a bamboo bonnet on a village street, the tip of the photographer's GP boot resting in the foreground on the edge of an armoured vehicle.
In Vietnam, 516 Australian soldiers died in these ways (official casualties are 521):
274 in battle
102 by mine
46 accidentally
44 'medical'
39 by friendly fire
11 murdered
300,0000 South Vietnamese died; and an estimated 1,100,000 North Vietnamese. (Roughly 2700 Vietnamese died for each Australian soldier killed.)
This interview with Dick was conducted on Anzac day 5 years ago. Dick was drinking at Harrup Park, the cricket club a block from the houses where we used to live: People don’t fight for their countries, they fight for their mates | The Courier Mail
Dick volunteered to for the army, although many did not. He would have been 24 years old, making him 4 years older than the average Australian soldier in Vietnam.
"From 1965 to 1972, over 15,300 national servicemen served in the Vietnam War, with 200 killed and 1,279 wounded." Those 15,300 men conscripted were sent without choice. National service was later abolished in 1972 by Gough Whitlam's Labour, in response to public feeling about the Vietnam conflict.
These are comments from Australia's prime minister and opposition leader when Australia chose to engage in Vietnam:
“We do not think it [the deployment of Australian troops in Vietnam] a wise decision. We do not think it will help the fight against communism. We do not believe it will promote the welfare of the people of Vietnam.” - Arthur Calwell, Australian Labor Party leader, April 1965
The military sacrifices of the past can be honoured, at the same time as recognising the mistakes of the leadership which led to those sacrifices. It is not a contradiction to feel a deep sadness for those who suffered throughout and after those conflicts, and to be critical about the sheer waste of the exercise and its continuing repetition. Politicians and powerbrokers do not place themselves in harm's way when they launch rhetorical battle-cries; they are not the soldiers who will fight, nor are they the civilians who reside upon the battlegrounds. To those who would lament 'Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die': (Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809-92): I say that you will know when you are fighting for your country, because you will be standing on it.
Remembrance does not need to be an acceptance that those sacrifices of the past were necessary, simply because they were made. Nor should it be an open criticism of those who served the will of others with honourable intent. Instead, it should force us to question not only the past, but the present, and make us consider our current choices and their motivations. Remembering helps us to recognise and engage with those we know and those whom we knew, who were marked by conflict, so that we might do better- for them and for the rest of us - lest we forget.
