Volume 48, No. 16, Sepetember 7, 2006
 |
|
HUEY
SALUTE: Two former RAAF 9SQN Iroquois helicopters fly over
the crowd attending the Vietnam Veterans’ Day Memorial
Service on Anzac Parade in Canberra.
Photo by LS Phillip Cullinan
|
By
Andrew Stackpool
“NO bloody guns this time,” were the words of one Vietnam
veteran as two former RAAF 9SQN Iroquois helicopters flew over
Anzac Parade in a tribute to the diggers below.
The “Hueys” were the special finale to the emotional
service held on August 18 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the
Battle of Long Tan.
It began on a cold Canberra morning at the Australian War Memorial,
provided a fitting allegory to rolling back the mists of time
to the hot, humid Thursday afternoon of August 18, 1966, at the
Long Tan rubber plantation in Vietnam.
A common phrase among the lines of greying, be-medaled men and
their families in the memorial forecourt was, “It wasn’t
this cold in Vietnam.”
Despite the cold, hundreds of veterans, their families and serving
ADF members, including ACM Angus Houston and Governor-General
MAJGEN Michael Jeffery attended the anniversary service.
The veterans came in business suits, Service uniform, casual clothes
and the distinctive leathers of the Vietnam Veterans Motor Cycle
Club.
There were men on foot, men on crutches and men in wheelchairs,
some smiling, some sombre, all with some grief, not just from
the war but from the impact of a country that betrayed them when
they came home.
The strains of “Amazing Grace” opened the service.
In his address, MAJGEN Jeffery said that Long Tan displayed the
best characteristics of Australian soldiers.
He then turned to the vets’ homecoming, saying it was “to
our country’s shame” that it did not recognise its Vietnam
veterans until the national welcome home parade in 1987.
“We honour those who did not return and those who returned
hurt in body or mind,” he said.
“None should ever be forgotten. None will be forgotten, nor
indeed will the families and loved ones who supported us.”
“Be proud of what you achieved and hold your heads high in
the knowledge that you were the equal of the very best that ever
went away to serve our nation, from the Boer War to the present
day, and that you did make a difference,” he said.
There were veterans with tears in their eyes, again their dress
no barrier to perhaps years of pent-up emotion and sorrow.
For this journalist, the final, indelible memory was sharing handshakes
and hugs with complete strangers; men never to be seen again,
but brothers from an era of change.
May they find peace at last.
