Vietnam
These pages have some writings on my time in Vietnam. The First Tour took place in 1970 and involved combat with The 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (7RAR) while the Second Tour took place in 2004 and involved my eldest son and myself touring the old battle scenes and spending some quality time together sightseeing and visiting the bars of Vung Tau, Saigon and Nha Trang.
I preferred the Second Tour.
FIRST TOUR
At the end of June after three and a half months as Intelligence Corporal I took over 3 Section, Reconnaissance (Recce) Platoon, radio call sign ‘six-one-charlie’. The previous time in country fades and even now I remember little of the time in the Intelligence section. The events that followed shaped all of my following days with most of it remaining clear and some real bad nights eclipsed by the brains defence mechanism only to be bought to the surface by remarks from friends or triggered memories.
On 26 August we are ordered back to the east of Dat Do, specifically near the Ear (so called because it took the shape of an ear on our battle maps), to look for signs of the enemy. We patrolled all day on the 26th and 27th without cutting any sign but late on the afternoon of the second day we hit pay dirt, unfortunately. We were moving through the jungle looking for a safe harbour in which to hide and ambush for the night with the Platoon Commander, Staff Sergeant Col Rowley taking the lead. A little after 1600 Staff Sergeant Colin Rowley sights and fires on a fleeting glimpse of a Viet Cong soldier. It was such a good site for a lay-up that the enemy had also chosen it. They had been there for a fortnight on retraining when we arrived to add some reality.
On Monday, 1st February 1971, Recce Platoon had been ordered to ambush two kilometres southeast of Phuoc Buu on Route 328. En-route we stopped for a break on the very edge of the now deserted village. Phuoc Buu had been the Southern Headquarters of the Viet Minh when they fought the French in the 1950s but when we were there it consisted of ruins of buildings and men’s lives represented by the graveyard on the edge of the village. A poet might see ghosts in Kepi hats watching as we patrol though. I saw nothing. We put out sentries and manned the machine guns while Lieutenant Winter got on the radio to Headquarters to continue the patrol We had virtually hidden ourselves and waited for orders to move on with sentries out and machine guns manned.
Sherro (Graham Sherrington) and I were recruits together and served in 1RAR as soldiers in the early 60s. Our relationship weathered many years only to be broken by his untimely death in 2003. I was with him when he died and during the afternoon he spoke about his writings of his time in Vietnam with 5RAR. I eventually found his stories at a US sight and have them linked here in his memory.
SECOND TOUR
Flying low over the city the Saigon River still snakes through the suburbs and the old aircraft bunkers protecting memories and old oil slicks at Ton Son Nhut are still there as if the Vietnamese are maintaining them. Small memorials to many brave deeds.