Going Back (2 page)

For Viet Nam veterans, there are no national or state Viet Nam War cemeteries like we see at Gallipoli, on the Western Front in France, or in New Guinea. Those who died in Viet Nam were initially buried in the Australian section of the British War Cemetery at Terendak in Western Malaysia. This practice followed the Australian Government's longstanding policy of interring war dead only in cemeteries overseas. The policy was changed in 1966 after several Training Team members killed in action were brought home to Australia to be buried, their passage paid for by both American and Australian advisers.
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War historian Elizabeth Stewart suggests ‘two types of people have traditionally made battlefields visits—the pilgrim, and the tourist'.

Tours to battlefields often contain a mix of both. The tourist is there out of interest; perhaps keen to make a family connection with a particular gravesite, or to see the places they have heard so much about. The pilgrim is a different kind of tourist. He or she is often a veteran or a relative of one, undertaking a mission which aims to help heal emotional wounds, or to pay tribute to fallen comrades. Members of a pilgrimage are a group with a united purpose—they want to revisit the past, learn more about themselves and gain a greater understanding of their war experience. Not all are searching for closure or resolution— some may be going out of interest to see old battle sites, and to once again enjoy the mateship that they experienced at the time of their war service. There is no one overriding reason why people undertake these journeys. To try and seek a simple explanation for them may indeed ascribe false motives to groups or individuals. To say that all Viet Nam veterans return to Viet Nam for closure on their wartime experience is too simple an explanation. Having said that, there is no doubt that for many of those who participate there is often a sense of anticipation and even fear beforehand, with a build-up to an often cathartic commemorative event during the tour, followed by a defined sense of relief and happiness. Pilgrims return home, richer for having undertaken the visit, and still closely bonded with those with whom they shared the experience.
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Prime Minister Robert Menzies committed Australian troops to the Second Indochina War on 25 April 1965. On 29 April he announced the deployment of a battalion of soldiers from 1 RAR to South Viet Nam, to help what he claimed was the struggle against incursions by the Communist north. Although initially widely approved by the Australian public, the Viet Nam conflict became Australia's longest military commitment, and the most divisive social issue of a generation.
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When Australian servicemen returned from South Viet Nam, they were sometimes accorded a parade through the streets of some of Australia's major cities, and occasionally regional centres such as Townsville in north Queensland, where a large military garrison was billeted. However, these were not celebratory homecoming parades of the sort Australians witnessed at the end of the Second World War. A few parades were marred by demonstrators, but overall there was precious little recognition for the Viet Nam veteran. What also differentiated the Viet Nam veteran from other returned servicemen and women was that there was no overall victory, no important military success to celebrate: the fact that Australian units were never defeated on the field of battle meant little in a war that was eventually abandoned and ultimately lost to the Communist cause.

As Elizabeth Stewart so perceptively noted:

When Viet Nam veterans returned home to either apathy or outright hostility, many chose to remain silent, burying their wartime memories for many years. Most got on with their lives—married and worked, some with more success than others. Viet Nam memories were only revived occasionally— at Anzac Day reunions, or local unit gatherings, and shared only with those who had the same experiences to remember.
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In October 1987, Viet Nam veterans were given a Welcome Home Parade in Sydney, and thousands turned out to cheer on the men and women who had served their country either as Regular or National Servicemen. But as many veterans cynically observed, ‘it was only fifteen years too late'. On the fifth anniversary of the Welcome Home Parade in 1992, a National Memorial was unveiled in Canberra's Anzac Parade, the avenue leading up to the Australian War Memorial, and veterans finally had a place of homage on Australian soil where they could gather and reflect as the occasion arose.

However, for many veterans the draw of Viet Nam remains powerful, and often conflicted. Issues of recognition, ‘guilt' and involvement in an unpopular war all invite doubt and questioning: should they go back, or shouldn't they? Hopefully this book will help answer these questions.

In Viet Nam itself, the one constant is change. Very little has stayed the same, especially in the southern regions, which have witnessed spectacular economic development in the last few decades. When peace finally came to Viet Nam in 1975, the population was approximately 40 million. By 2006 it had more than doubled. Economically, growth in gross domestic product averaged 6.8 per cent per year from 1997 to 2004, despite the Asian financial crisis and a global recession, and hit 8 per cent in 2005, when it was estimated at US$235.2 billion. Meeting the demands of a booming population, of which a quarter are under the age of fourteen, has required massive change to cater for infrastructure and industrial growth, and membership in the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the US–Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement have precipitated even greater changes in the country's trade and economy.
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The place is on the move.

As a result, much of what existed in the 1970s has been upgraded, or demolished and replaced by something more modern and twice the size, or subsumed by other development. For example, the macadam road between Vung Tau township and the provincial capital of Ba Ria (Phuoc Le) was a two-lane road that wound its way up the Vung Tau peninsula through small villages that specialised in producing
nuoc nam
(fish sauce) and left an indelible olfactory memory on the senses. Today that road is a four-lane kerbed and guttered tollway.

In the 1990s, increasing numbers of tour operators responded to the opening up of Viet Nam. They organised tours solely for tourists, but a growing part of their market was war veterans and their families. One veteran who began as a tourist but ended up running highly successful battlefield tours there was Garry Adams, who had served with 6 RAR in 1969–70. Towards the end of his tour of duty, he recalled sitting aboard an Iroquois, flying back to base, enjoying the view below of jungle, paddy fields and distant hills draped with mist. He thought then that it would be a good place to visit after the war. In 1994 he again saw the Viet Nam coastline from the air, this time on a flight from Singapore to Hong Kong. As he glimpsed the familiar ground below he felt he had to return, and did so in 1996. Dissatisfied with his first trip back, which he thought would give him closure on his war service, Garry returned again to Viet Nam with a tour company that he later joined, and has been taking veterans back to their battle sites ever since.
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Garry has some thoughtful insights into why Viet Nam veterans are returning in increasing numbers. Tourism has improved enormously, and many veterans have reached a point in their lives where they are financially able and emotionally ready to deal with their Viet Nam memories by confronting them head-on. While the dominant reason veterans return is for closure, many want to again experience the close mateship they shared during their tour of duty by returning with a group of veterans from the same unit. Their families are pilgrims too: many have lived with their father's or husband's Viet Nam experiences in one form or another, and want to see for themselves the places they have heard about. As well, they want to support the veteran as he confronts his memories, and gain a better understanding of what he went through so many years ago.
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Pilgrimages to Viet Nam usually take a similar form. Most veterans are keen to see their former areas of operations, and most visits begin in Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, as veterans still refer to the former capital of South Viet Nam). On landing at Tan Son Nhut airport, the busiest airfield in the world during the war, many veterans are surprised to see so few relics of the war. This is to be a common theme of their visit. In Ho Chi Minh City, they visit various sites including the former Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace), and the markets of Cholon. Most tour groups then head into the former Australian area of operations, basing themselves in the coastal town of Vung Tau, formerly the location of the Australian logistics support base. Visits out of Vung Tau take in the towns of Ba Ria and Hoa Long, the Long Hai Hills—still a heavily mined and dangerous place—and, of course, the Long Tan Memorial Cross.
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This book looks at the sites that most Australian veterans will want to visit, including the base at Nui Dat, the logistic support base and town in Vung Tau, the Horseshoe feature, the Long Tan Cross and areas such as the Long Hais, the Hat Dich area and towns like Binh Ba, Xuyen Moc and Ba Ria. The 5 RAR first tour veterans who made a pilgrimage in 2005 tailored their tour to take in specific locations that were important to them such as their lines in Nui Dat, the Long Hai Hills, the village of An Nhut and Long Son Island. For many veterans, simply driving the major arterials gives them the memory freshener they have been craving.

For a soldier, sailor or airman, returning to a battlefield is a very personal confrontation. War is one of the most life-changing events an individual could ever experience, and it shapes their personality, their behaviour and the way they live their lives. For many who have been involved in war—and not just the combatants—it is a time when they have their morals, beliefs and ideologies seriously challenged. Regardless of who they are, their family background and their education and social status, war affects them all—albeit to varying degrees.

As a veteran who has returned to my own battlefield many times, I decided the best way to write this book was to lay out all the facts and let veterans decide for themselves whether and how to undertake their own pilgrimage. This book concentrates on the areas in Viet Nam where most Australian forces served, Phuoc Tuy Province (now called Ba Ria–Vung Tau Province). To adequately cover the regions where the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) served would take another volume. For those readers wishing to gain a better idea I recommend the book
The Men Who Persevered
.
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For many Viet Nam War veterans the thought—and the practicalities—of going back where they served as soldiers, sailors and airmen is fraught with problems. For some it is the fact that they are now in their sixties and their health is beginning to falter, or even downright fail. For others it is not so much a physical or medical issue that concerns them but the thought of unlocking potential demons from the recesses of their mind.

I found myself in a similar situation back in 1993 when I was researching a book called
Delta Four—Australian Riflemen
in Vietnam
.
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I wanted to get a better grasp of the province in which I had fought, and also to interview the former enemy to discover their impressions and recollections of fighting against the Australians. I was distinctly nervous about the idea, especially as I was still serving in the Australian Regular Army as a lieutenant colonel. My fears were realised when it was discovered during my three-week visit that our tour party was being ‘shadowed' as we travelled around Ho Chi Minh City, Vung Tau and around the old Phuoc Tuy Province. The ‘agents' tracking our group were far from covert and were in fact captured on home video.

Thankfully that xenophobic approach to serving Australian Defence Force members has changed somewhat with the more ‘open door' policy taken by the Vietnamese government, although serving personnel do attract some special attention at Customs and Immigration on arrival at Tan Son Nhut airport even today. However, the veteran who has no ties to today's military has nothing to worry about, and will pass through the airport much like the thousands of other foreign tourists flocking to the country every other day.