Remembrance Day Remembrance

A couple of weeks ago it was Remembrance Day. I lost quite a bit of sleep at the time, lying awake thinking about another Remembrance Day, back in 1990. The events of that day played an important part in hastening my progress towards “hitting the wall” and ending up on a TPI pension for post traumatic stress disorder.

Rather than lose any more sleep, I decided that the best thing I could do for my own peace of mind was to write the whole thing down. So I have written that story on my website. I was heavily involved in the politics of the veteran community in 1990, so this is not just a personal story. It is also a small slice of Australian Vietnam veterans' history.

To read the story, click on this link.

Good On You America!

This is a day to celebrate all that is great and inspiring in the American political system.

To paraphrase something I heard today, in my own lifetime, Rosa Parks sat down so that Martin Luther King could stand up. King marched so that Barack Obama could run. Obama ran so that others could fly.

To add a personal note, when I was a baby, living in a railway tent in the Australian outback, my mother lulled me to sleep by singing Paul Robeson songs. At that time Robeson was invited to Australia but could not come, because the United States would not give him a passport. Today an African American, standing on the shoulders of the likes of Robeson, Parks and King, has been elected by Americans of all colours, creeds and ethnic origins, as their president.

It's a great day for America and the world.

FSB Balmoral

On my website I have started writing my own story of the battle at Fire Support Base Balmoral in May 1968, as I remember it. This is not only the story of the battle itself, but also the long term effect it has had on my subsequent life.

There will be parts of this story that will be news even to my closest friends and family members, because I have only ever spoken about them to a handful of people, most of whom are counsellors at the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service. The prospect of putting these things out there for the world to read fills me with dread, but it has to be done if I am to be able to get on with my life story.

A General Update

It is now several weeks since the 40th anniversary of the battle at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral in Vietnam in 1968.

As that anniversary approached, I believed it would be a perfect opportunity for me to write about the battle, and about that period of my life. This proved to be a false expectation. In fact, I have found myself unable to write about anything.

This situation has not been helped by the fact that I have been trying to cope with a level of physical pain and discomfort that has been unprecedented in my life. At Woodside army camp in South Australia 41 years ago, I dislocated my right knee in a game of Aussie Rules football. Today, every time I try to walk I get crunching, clicking and pain, lots and lots of pain. Being the father of a two year old is the top priority in my life at the moment, and to that end this knee problem has to be fixed. I will be seeing a knee surgeon next week, and let's hope a solution can be found.

I will get back to writing my life story on my web site today, but whether I am ready to write about Coral and Balmoral remains to be seen.

New Zealand Apology to Vietnam Veterans

The New Zealand government has issued a remarkable and very welcome apology to its Vietnam veterans for the way they have been treated by successive governments. The full apology is reproduced below.

I am pleased to be able to say that I played a modest part in the chain of events that led to this historic apology.

In 2003, while I was working on a PhD at the Australian National University, I was approached by a New Zealand Vietnam veteran who gave me a copy of the McLeod Report. He asked if I would read the report and point out any errors and faults in it. I won't embarrass this Kiwi veteran by naming him, because he has close connections with the New Zealand government. His approach to me was on behalf of John Masters, a former battery commander of 161 Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery, a leading figure in the New Zealand veteran community.

I believe the New Zealand Prime Minister sincerely thought she was doing the right thing by veterans when she commissioned the McLeod Report, and that she was only marginally less shocked than the veterans when she saw McLeod's conclusions. In response to protests from veterans, outraged by the McLeod Report, the New Zealand Parliament's Health Select Committee set up an inquiry into Agent Orange and the health of the children of Vietnam veterans.

I was appalled when I read the McLeod Report, and agreed to produce a report of my own, and present it as part of John Masters' submission to the Health Select Committee.

My report is available at this link on my website.

In 2004 I went to New Zealand and appeared in person at the Health Select Committee, to answer their questions about my response to McLeod.

The Health Select Committee also enlisted the services of a scientific adviser, who agreed with most of my criticisms of the McLeod Report, and added some more of his own. Acting on his advice, the committee made the findings that are mentioned in the apology below.

161 Battery was the unit that provided my own battalion, 3RAR, with its artillery support in Vietnam. It was a pleasure and a privilege to be able to work with the Kiwis again. Congratulations to John Masters and all of the New Zealand veterans who put in so much effort to achieve this result.

Here is the full text of the apology, read in Parliament by Prime Minister Helen Clark:

The Crown formally acknowledges the dedicated service of the New Zealand Regular Force personnel deployed during the Vietnam War, and those many servicemen and women who supported them in their mission.

Further the Crown records that those armed forces personnel loyally served at the direction of the New Zealand Government of the day, having left their home shores against a background of unprecedented division and controversy over whether or not New Zealand should participate in the war.

The Crown extends to New Zealand Vietnam Veterans and their families an apology for the manner in which their loyal service in the name of New Zealand was not recognised as it should have been, when it should have been, and for inadequate support extended to them and their families after their return home from the conflict.

The Vietnam War was a defining event in New Zealand's recent history, and one during which significant divisions and tensions emerged within our own society.

Old allegiances and alliances were tested, and New Zealanders began to question the role their country was playing in global affairs.

On all sides, strong views were held with conviction. My own party, the New Zealand Labour Party, opposed New Zealand involvement in the war, and acted immediately to withdraw the troops on election to office in 1972.

Many others also spoke out, often coming under attack from the government and other establishment voices of the time for doing so.

Vietnam itself suffered huge damage from the war – to its people, its cities and ports, and its countryside.

The consequences there have been long-term and intergenerational. Today we count Vietnam as an Asia Pacific partner, and welcome its leaders to our shores.

Today's focus, however, is on those who served, regardless of what our personal views on the decision to send them were. It is time for reconciliation.

The Crown is placing on record its respect for the service of the nearly 3400 New Zealanders who served in Vietnam during the war between June 1964 and December 1972.

We honour the 37 personnel who died on active duty, the 187 who were wounded, some very seriously, and all those who have suffered long-term effects.

The service of those who fell and all who served in that conflict should now be honoured, alongside that of other brave service personnel deployed to other conflicts in the service of our country.

For too long, successive governments ignored concerns being raised by Vietnam veterans.
It was the emergence of Agent Orange as a serious health and veterans' issue in the United States which began to change the way in which issues surrounding Vietnam veterans came to be perceived and then treated in New Zealand.

In 2003 the Health Select Committee undertook its own inquiry into the concerns raised by veterans.

It investigated whether New Zealand defence personnel had been exposed to Agent Orange.
It also assessed the health risks to defence personnel and their families, and the health services available to them.

The Committee concluded that New Zealand personnel who had served in Vietnam had indeed been exposed to Agent Orange, and that this exposure had had adverse health effects not only for the personnel themselves, but also for their children.

A Joint Working Group on the Concerns of Vietnam Veterans was established in July 2005, under the chairmanship of the former State Services Commissioner, Michael Wintringham.
The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association, and the Ex-Vietnam Services Association participated in the group.

In their report of April 2006, the Joint Working Group proposed that the Crown apologise formally to veterans and their families for the history of pain and suffering experienced by many of them.

That recommendation was accepted as part of a wider package of measures proposed under the themes of Acknowledging the Past, Putting Things Right, and Improving Services to Vietnam Veterans.

A range of steps under each of these headings was agreed.

Today the Crown has offered a formal apology to the New Zealand Veterans of the Vietnam war and their families.

The Crown places on record recognition of the service of those personnel; and acknowledges the many consequences of that service, including the physical and mental health effects.

The failure of successive governments and their agencies to acknowledge the exposure of veterans to dioxin contaminated herbicides and other chemicals is itself acknowledged, as is the way in which that failure exacerbated the suffering of veterans and families.

The recommendation of the Joint Working Group report that the earlier Reeves and McLeod reports should no longer form the basis for policies towards Vietnam veterans and their families is accepted by the Crown.

Finally, there is the commitment to put things right, where government action is the appropriate means of achieving that resolution.

The commitments the Crown has made to the treatment of Vietnam Veterans who were affected by toxic environments in Vietnam and to their families are set out in the Memorandum of Understanding of 6 December 2006, and the Crown will adhere to them.

In concluding, the Crown thanks the members of the Joint Working Group who provided a way forward for dealing with these troubling issues of New Zealand's relatively recent past.

This has led to the opportunity for the Crown to put on record its thanks for, and its apology to, those brave service personnel who became the Veterans of the Vietnam war, and to pay tribute to those who never came home.

We will remember them.

Coral/Balmoral Clarifications

I want to make a few clarifications regarding my last posting about the battle at FSBs Coral and Balmoral 40 years ago. First, I said 25 Australians were killed in the battle. I was making the common mistake of counting those who were killed on the ground, and overlooking Major Constable, the army pilot who takes the number to 26. Second, I said we returned to Nui Dat at the end of the battle on the 5th of June. I should have said the 6th of June. Finally, due to the quirks of using a blogging system from America, it appeared as though I was posting the message on Sunday the 11th of May, and going to Parliament House that night. I actually posted that message on Monday the 12th, Australian eastern time. Blogspot took my message on Sunday the 11th, American time, and posted it with that date.

The event at Parliament House was an outstanding success. The Great Hall was packed with veterans. The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader gave speeches that made all of us feel that our efforts at Coral and Balmoral, and the sacrifice of those who died, were appreciated, and that the battle would be given due recognition at last. The Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and Minister for Veterans Affairs spent a lot of time mingling and talking with the veterans and the next of kin of those who were killed in the battle. It was good to see a number of other politicians, who had no official role to play and didn't have to be there, came along in their own time.

The memorial service was held on the 13th, the 40th anniversary of the first attack on Coral, at the National Vietnam Memorial. It was an extremely moving service, although it was unfortunate that the information given out to the veteran community before the event did not make it clear that the service would start at 10 a.m. I arrived at 10.05, thinking I would be early, only to find the service in progress. I believed it was to start at 11 o'clock, and only came earlier because somebody I'd met at the Parliament House event told me that the Governor-General would be arriving at ten.

The Balmoral commemorations and 3RAR reunion are on next weekend. I will be reading a poem at the 3RAR banquet on Saturday night.

Battle of Coral/Balmoral 40th Anniversary

This evening I'm off to Parliament House for a reception hosted by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, for veterans of the Battle of Coral/Balmoral. This is the first of several events to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the battle at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral in 1968.

Although it will never have the same place in Australian folklore as the Battle of Long Tan, and for good reasons, Coral/Balmoral was the biggest battle Australians fought in the Vietnam War. It was the biggest in terms of the number of Australians involved, the number of Australians killed, and the size of the enemy force we faced.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the day I arrived at Coral with 3RAR battalion headquarters. The first attack by the North Vietnamese came that night. They overran parts of 1RAR and got into the Australian artillery, temporarily capturing one gun. 13 Australians were killed in that first attack. Following the first attack, 3RAR left Coral and moved on to FSB Coogee, leaving 1RAR and the Australian and New Zealand artillery and other support units at Coral. After just over a week at Coogee, we moved to Balmoral, which, according to the "official" history of Australia's involvement in Vietnam, was a mere 1500 metres from the headquarters of the 7th Division of the North Vietnamese Army, the unit that had attacked Coral while we were there and again after we left. The NVA made two attempts to overrun Balmoral, hitting us with mortars, rockets and ground assaults. They also tried again at Coral. After the second attack on Balmoral on the 28th of May, they gave up trying to remove us, and the battle fizzled out. We returned to Nui Dat on the 5th of June. 25 Australians were killed in the battle.