Double brevet for a ‘dangerous job’

Former CPL Tony Reynolds-Huntley

FORMER Air Force corporal Tony Reynolds-Huntley served two tours in Vietnam and now has a double brevet to prove it.

Wing Commander David Shepherd recently presented him with the brevet during a short ceremony at RAAF Base Williamtown in front of a small crowd of Mr Reynolds-Huntley’s friends and Air Force personnel.

CPL Reynolds-Huntley and WGCDR Shepherd’s late father, Squadron Leader Bill Shepherd, had flown together during the Vietnam War.

WGCDR Shepherd said they had become “good mates”. “This was a dangerous job and not one that one would be volunteered for lightly,” WGCDR Shepherd said.

“It speaks volumes for the kind of man Tony is.”

Mr Reynolds-Huntley said he had never thought twice about volunteering for duty. In 1966 he was 22 years old and had considered himself “bullet-proof and 10 feet tall”.

His first tour was as a cook. During the posting, he decided to swap his menus for machine guns and volunteered as a door gunner with No. 9 Squadron.

During the second tour, he served as an aerial door gunner crewman. As well as his duties with 9SQN, he flew some 40 sorties out of Vung Tau as a gunner with the US Navy’s “Seawolves”.

He now has a crewman’s brevet and a gunner’s brevet.

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