No Place To Hide

Phill Thompson

2010-11-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite Walt Whitman poems is about an inspirational leader, Abraham Lincoln, who dies when the victory he has been fighting for is close at hand but not yet achieved. On the anniversary of the death of Phill Thompson, national president of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, on the 23rd of November 1986, Whitman's poem seems apt.

O Captain! My Captain!

by Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Allergic Reaction to Cortisone Injections - Part Two

2010-10-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

As of today, my body has now been covered with itchy red spots for eight weeks. As of today it is now eight weeks and one day since I had cortisone injections in my back.

Welcome Home Parade Anniversary

2010-10-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's the first weekend in October, so happy anniversary to all Vietnam veterans and their families who made the 1987 Welcome Home Parade in Sydney such a great success.

Dunedoo Centenary of Rail

2010-09-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend, the town of Dunedoo will be celebrating its centenary of rail. When I started school, at Dunedoo Central School, I was living in a tent at the foot of the slope at the end of the platform at Dunedoo railway station. The picture below is my family's tent, although the picture was taken before we moved to Dunedoo.

FSB Balmoral, May 1968

2010-09-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've written an addendum to my story of the battle at FSB Balmoral, because of new information I've received from one of the key participants in an incident in which one of my mates was threatened with a charge of cowardice.

Under the Milky Way Tonight

2010-09-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today I have added the lyrics and guitar chords for Under The Milky Way Tonight, by the Church, to the My Song Book page in my web site.

This is what it'a supposed to sound like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mQyRuHluA

Allergic Reaction to Cortisone Injections

2010-09-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

As of today, my body has been covered with itchy red spots for exactly seven weeks. Seven weeks and one day ago, on the 9th of August, I had cortisone injections in the facet joints at L5-S1, in my lower back. Coincidence? I think not. Doctors tell me I can’t be allergic to cortisone, but nothing else in my life changed on the 9th of August. The purpose of cortisone injections is to give weeks or months of pain relief, so it is clearly intended to remain in the body for that long. What else could I have possibly been exposed to on that day, that could stay in my body for seven weeks and counting?

Crazy Heart

2010-03-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been enjoying the soundtrack album of the movie Crazy Heart; not just listening, but learning the songs. I’ve put the lyrics and guitar chords for the seven songs I’ve learnt so far on my web site. They are: Fallin’ and Flyin’, Hold On You, I Don’t Know, Somebody Else (all original songs for the movie, sung by Jeff Bridges); and If I Needed You (Townes Van Zandt), Reflecting Light (Sam Phillips) and The Weary Kind (by Ryan Bingham, the movie’s theme song.)

IF I NEEDED YOU

2010-03-16T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've added the lyrics & guitar chords for If I Needed You to the My Song Book pages of my web site. This beautiful old Townes Van Zandt song has been included on the soundtrack album of the movie Crazy Heart. Click on this link for a film clip of Townes Van Zandt singing the song.

Hold On You

2010-03-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

I've added the lyrics & guitar chords for Hold On You, from the movie Crazy Heart, to my song book pages of my web site.

You Don't Get Me

2010-02-24T21:22:00.000-08:00

I have received a request from a student for information about my poem "You Don't Get Me." Here is what I wrote in reply.

In 1987, nineteen years after Vietnam, I was asleep in my bed in Perth when I had a terrible dream. It was quite common in those days for me to have dreams that consisted entirely of people trying to kill me, and me trying to find ways to escape. I used to call this my recurring paranoid dream. On this one night however, the dream took a disturbing step in a new direction. A bomb exploded in my house, and I was sent flying, in a ball of fire, crashing through a glass window. At this point I would expect to wake up, but my unconscious mind, the director of this dream, kept me flying through the air and thinking about my impending death. I came to the point where I had to accept that there was no way I could survive this fiery explosion, and I was about to die. At that moment I suddenly found myself wide awake, sitting bolt upright in my bed. I was trembling, and my body and sheets were drenched with sweat.

Horrifying though the dream was, I found that the more I thought about it, the more I felt that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Eventually I made a connection between the explosion in my dream and an explosion at Fire Support Base Balmoral in May 1968, when I thought I was going to die. You can read about that incident on my web site at this link.

I came to the conclusion that somewhere in my subconscious mind I had confronted the possibility of my own death way back in 1968, but that the confrontation had been left unresolved. The dream seemed to be something I needed in order to resolve that confrontation. Those thoughts were the origins of the poem “You Don’t Get Me.” As I started to write the poem, I was also aware of the high suicide rate in the Vietnam veteran community. Indeed, the suicide of a friend and colleague, Phill Thompson, had been one of the factors that caused me to leave Sydney and move to Perth at the end of 1986. I had been National Secretary of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia during the peak years of the Agent Orange controversy from 1983 to ‘86, while Phill was the National President. He was also an inspirational role model for me.

The poem addresses Death as a person, and ends with a defiant affirmation. It is written in blank verse: that is, iambic pentameter with no rhyme. There is no particular reason for this; it is just the way the words came to me.

You can find further biographical information about me on my web site in the “My Life Story” pages.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Lachlan Irvine.
http://lachlanirvine.tripod.com

YOU DON'T GET ME

You took so many, as you always do,
Reaping your harvest on the battlefield;
Your youthful crop too prematurely picked,
Not yet prepared to meet you face to face.

There were times when you thought you had me too,
But though I felt your touch and heard your voice
Somehow I managed to avoid your blade,
Leaving our confrontation unresolved.

I saw your face so clearly in the night,
Illuminated by the fire of battle;
Your voice a whisper as the mortars fell,
Exploding into laughter as they hit.

When fighting finally came to an end
You followed all the weary soldiers home;
Knowing the battles they were yet to face
Would mean more harvest seasons still to come.

When wounds of war were deep and slow to heal,
You tempted them with promises of peace;
Relief eternal from the pain of life
For those who felt unable to fight on.

You must have thought you had me in your sights
When you began to strike those close to me;
You even managed to invade my dreams,
But this is where our confrontation ends.

I survived the war, and I survived the peace,
And there are many others just like me;
As we reach out and as we find each other
Our strength increases with each passing day.

And we defy you with this battle cry:
I AM A SURVIVOR - YOU DON'T GET ME!

Lachlan Irvine

One More American Song

2010-02-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, the best song so far from America's Iraq/Afghanistan generation is One More American Song, by a group called The Duke and The King. To see a youtube clip of the group's lead singer, Simone Felice, doing a solo version of the song, click on this link. I've put the words and guitar chords here on my web site.

Website update

2010-01-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some tweaking on my website. I've decided to give my life story its own pages, because it was taking up too much space on my personal pages.

2010-01-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Happy Birthday Martin Luther King.

The Liberal Leadership Song

2009-11-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

It's just a purge of the left,
And then a leap to the right.
Big Malcolm was in charge,
The mad monk wanted a fight.
But it was climate change
That finally drove them in-say-ay-ay-ay-ay-ane.
Libs in a time warp again.
Libs in a time warp again.

Website on hold

2009-11-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

I am unable to add any new content to my website right now, because I have maxed out my free allocation of space. I will eventually have to bite the bullet and start paying the site builder to give me more space, but until then I have to cut some pages and trim others. This may take a week or two.

Mandolin Wind

2009-11-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

Some friends visited on the weekend, and brought a mandolin. This added variety to our singalongs, and also reminded me how much I loved an old Rod Stewart song, Mandolin Wind. So I added the lyrics and guitar chords to the My Song Book pages in my website.

Phill Thompson

2009-11-22T20:10:00.001-08:00

It's 23 years today since the veteran community in Australia lost an inspirational leader, Phill Thompson. Click on this link for a poem I wrote about Phill.

2009-11-18T16:10:00.000-08:00

I am currently doing some much needed maintenance on my website. A lot of my pages need to be updated, so I'm taking care of that while I work on writing the next chapter of my life story. That will be Operation Pinnaroo, in the Long Hai Hills, in March-April 1968. I am also working on my post-Vietnam story, in which the next chapter will take me to England in 1973.

New email address

2009-11-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

Somebody recently sent out a spam email using my name and hotmail address, to everyone on my contact list. As a result, Hotmail shut down my account, and I have no access to my contact list or to any of the emails I have saved over the last ten years or more that I have been with Hotmail. Would anybody who has been, or would like to be, on my contact list please send your email address to me at my new address: lachlanirvine@gmail.com.

2009-11-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a year since I've posted anything on this blog. In that time I've made quite a bit of progress on writing my life story on my website, so I've decided it's time to reactivate the blog to let people know what I'm up to. I've just finished writing about the battle at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, the biggest Australian battle of the Vietnam War. My hope is that the very personal nature of my account of the battle and my feelings at the time will help others to understand the effects of war on young minds, and to understand how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder begins.

The link: http://lachlanirvine.tripod.com/personal/id20.html

Remembrance Day Remembrance

2008-11-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-05T00:09:00.000-08:00

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

2008-08-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-10T01:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

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.

A Day to Remember

2008-05-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have just written an account of the battle at Fire Support Andersen on the morning of the 18th of February 1968, and the events of the morning after the battle. This was one of the most significant days of my life. Click on the link to find out why.

Progress Report

2008-04-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

I've made further progress on my life story. I've added some more to the Vietnam chapter, and I've also added to the post-Vietnam story. It's up to about May 1970, four and a half years after I left school, and already I've had 12 jobs and 12 changes of address. And one of those jobs, the army, lasted for three years!

Battle of the Irvine Homelands

2008-04-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

It's an unusual blog entry today, because I want to talk about a soccer match that was played in Scotland last night (Australian time). One of the giants of Scottish football, Aberdeen, was beaten by one of the minnows, Queen of the South, who have reached the Scottish Cup Final for the first time in their history.

Why am I interested in this match? Because I have a historical connection, many generations distant, with both Aberdeen and Dumfries, the town where Queen of the South is based.

Dumfries is best known for its connection with the great Scottish bard Robbie Burns. But it is also the oldest known home territory of the Irvine family. Irvines were unknown outside that southwestern corner of Scotland until the 14th century.

At the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, William Irvine was the personal standard-bearer for King Robert the Bruce. The king rewarded William for his service by giving him Drum Castle, just outside Aberdeen on the Royal Deeside Road. Drum has been the seat of the laird of the Irvine family ever since.

My own connection with Aberdeen became personal in 1974, when I worked on an offshore oil rig in the North Sea, with a company based in Aberdeen. I watched several matches at Aberdeen's home ground, Pittodrie. I also visited the main Kirk in Aberdeen, with its Drum Aisle and its many Irvine gravestones and effigies. I also visited Drum Castle which, at that time, had just become a National Trust property and was open to the public. My parents and all four of my grandparents were born in Australia, and to my knowledge I was the first member of the family to visit Drum.

Good luck to Queen of the South, and commisserations to Aberdeen. It is great to see teams representing these two Irvine homelands involved in such a historical match.

Autobiographical Info Again

2008-03-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

I have been adding a little each day to my life story in My Personal Pages. Rather than starting at the beginning, which would mean that it would be a long time before my Vietnam story was told, let alone the interesting times I've had since then, I have divided my life story into several pages and I'm adding a little at a time to each of them. For example, there is the story of my early life, my parents and extended family, the story of how I came to join the army, how I became a founding member of 8RAR, the start of my Vietnam story, and the beginnings of my life after Vietnam. Each of these pages is a work in progress, and they will all grow considerably in the coming weeks.

More Autobiographical Info

2008-03-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have taken my life story up until I became a founding member of the 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (8RAR). The story is in My Personal Pages, on pages entitled Family Album Page Two and Family Album Page Three.

Autobiographical Info

2008-03-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

I've had a number of requests from students lately for information about myself. It seems as we get closer to Anzac Day, students are being asked to study war poetry, and my name occasionally comes up, thanks to the "120 war poems of the century" website.

For this reason, I've started telling my life story on my website. I'm using the "family album" pages, in the part of my site that is called "My Personal Pages."

Today I've written about the year I left school, started work, and eventually decided to join the army. I will notify this blog whenever I have added more.

FSB Andersen, 40 Years On.

2008-02-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here we are again, right smack in the middle of 40th anniversary season. Today it is 40 years since the battle at Fire Support Andersen, when my battalion became the first Australian unit to come under mortar, rocket and ground assault at a fire support base in the Vietnam War.

You can read my account of my experiences at Andersen in Benny's Story. Although ostensibly a work of fiction, the action at Andersen in that story is exactly as I remember it.

The ground assault that night came directly in front of my platoon, Anti-Tank, and our neighbours, the Assault Pioneer platoon on our left and some American units on our right. Although it was dark, we had a clear view of the VC who were attacking Andersen, and we must have fired thousands of rounds at them. What is more, we were certain that we hit some and saw them fall.

The clearing patrol in the morning found no bodies. There were only drag marks, blood trails and bits of discarded equipment. As a result, certain of our colleagues gave the Anti-Tank and Pioneer platoons the nickname "shadow shooters." Given that there were four VC bodies inside and on the wire in front of the Americans, and given that I am absolutely certain that we hit some of our attackers, I would not even mention that unkind sobriquet, were it not for the unfortunate consequences that occurred a few weeks later. There is a direct link between being called shadow shooters and the incident on the beach that is described in the second part of Benny's Story.

I will say more on that subject when its 40th anniversary comes along in April.

Significant Passing number two

2008-02-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

In a previous posting I mentioned that I had seen two names of significance to me in the Last Post section of the VVFA journal.

The second name was Morrie Callaghan, who served in Vietnam with 161 Squadron, the Army Aviation unit, and died recently.

Morrie was one of my roommates at Kapooka, where I did my basic training in 1966. There were four recruits to a room, and my other roommates were Ray Todd and Terry O'Farrell.

Terry O'Farrell and I met at the recruiting centre in Sydney and took the oath together. We went through Kapooka and infantry training at Ingleburn together, and Terry went on to join the SAS. He has recently retired after a distinguished career in SAS, and has written his autobiography, entitled Behind Enemy Lines. There is even a picture of Terry and me at Kapooka in the book.

Ray Todd went through Kapooka and Ingleburn with Terry and me, and was posted to 8RAR with me. We were in the same platoon in 8RAR, and in 1967 we were transferred to 3RAR together, and both served in Vietnam with that battalion.

Unfortunately, after Kapooka I never saw Morrie again. That doesn't mean that I ever forgot him. That foursome at Kapooka was a happy little band of brothers, and I couldn't have gone through basic training with a better group of roommates.

The Power of a Symbolic Gesture

2008-02-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

In 1986, I was one of six Aussies who returned to Australia completely overwhelmed by the experience of marching in the Chicago Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Parade.

Although we were all broke and not in the best of health, we decided that somehow we would organize a Welcome Home Parade in Sydney, so that all Australian Vietnam veterans could feel the way we had felt in Chicago.

When we started knocking on doors looking for support, we encountered quite a bit of resistance. The most commonly heard objection was that this would be merely a symbolic gesture.

In spite of the objections, we persisted. We were particularly encouraged by support from outside of the veteran community, from ordinary Australians who wanted to see us have our Welcome Home Parade.

Our persistence paid off, the Welcome Home Parade in 1987 was a massive success, and thousands of lives were changed for the better.

Why do I mention this now? Because this week Australia's new Prime Minister will issue an apology to those indigenous Australians who were taken from their families as a result of the policies of past governments: the so-called "Stolen Generations."

Once again I hear objections on the grounds that this is merely a symbolic gesture. Well, if there is one lesson that can be learned from the experience of the Australian Vietnam Forces Welcome Home Parade of 1987, it is that nobody should ever underestimate the power of a symbolic gesture to change lives.

Significant Passing, number one.

2008-02-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

The Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia has a quarterly journal, which includes a feature entitled "Last Post." It is a listing of veterans who have died recently. In the last couple of journals, two entries in the Last Post caught my eye. I will put them in separate postings, beacuse I have vastly different feelings about them: one entirely negative, the other entirely positive.

The first entry was W. Gutjar, SVN 1967-68, 3RAR/ARU/HQ AFV.

Willie Gutjar was the storeman in the Anti-Tank Platoon, 3RAR. I shared a tent with him for the first four months of 1968. Most tents accommodated four soldiers, but ours had only Willie and me. I can't say I particularly enjoyed sharing a tent with Willie. Anti-Tank spent all of its time either out on operations or in constant TAOR patrols. Willie loved the fact that, as storeman, he didn't have to go out with the platoon. When we came back from an operation or a tough patrol, he would brag about the easy time he was having, or the great time he would have making frequent trips to the PX or to the provincial capital, Baria, places the rest of us never got to go.

Towards the end of Operation Pinnaroo, in the Long Hai Hills, Gary "Polly" Polglase, a dog handler in the tracker team (part of Anti-Tank) returned to Nui Dat because his dog was ill. That night, while the rest of us were still out in the Long Hais, Polly sat on my bed, in my tent, chatting to Willie Gutjar. Willie had just returned from Baria, where he had bought a pistol on the black market. Polly was killed by a bullet through his right temple. Every member of Anti-Tank Platoon believes that, one way or another, Willie Gutjar killed him. Most likely by the kind of stupid accident we all knew Willie was capable of causing.

Willie Gutjar disappeared from 3RAR. Until I saw the notice of his death in the Last Post, I had no idea where he went.

The circumstances of Polly's death are the subject of a short story I wrote some time ago. I made it a work of fiction, changing Polly's name to Benny, and called it Benny's Story. Although I call it fiction, most of the story is factual, at least as I remember it.

Of course, Polly's death also inspired my poem He Was A Mate, which has been studied by students at schools and universities around the world since its inclusion on a British website as one of the 120 war poems of the last century.

I have no idea what kind of a life Willie Gutjar had after 1968. I hope it was a good one, so that his passing was as significant to someone in the world as Polly's was to everybody who knew him.

I'm Back!

2008-02-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

I've decided to reopen this blog, even though my opportunities to post will be limited.

I'm well into what I call my "40th Anniversary Season", and it's been frustrating not being able to comment on the blog. Already I've had the 40th anniversary of my departure to Vietnam, the 40th anniversary of my arrival in Vietnam on the 27th of December, and, just a couple of days ago, the 40th anniversary of the start of the Tet Offensive. Soon it will be the 40th anniversary of the battle in Long Dien, then the 40th anniversary of the battle at FSB Andersen, then the 40th anniversary of Operation Pinnaroo, and on it goes.

On my website last year, I started writing about my memories of Vietnam. I didn't get far at that time, maybe the anniversary season will motivate me to write more this year. You can find my reminiscences of the early days, including Tet, at this link.

This year my battalion, 3RAR, will be holding a 40th anniversary reunion here in Canberra in May, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the battle at FSBs Coral and Balmoral.

Anybody who doesn't already know about this event and would like to know more, please leave a comment on this blog with your email address and I'll send you the contact details for someone who can send you information.

I'd better not overdo it on my first blog entry for more than six months, but I hope to be able to return to the blogosphere in a day or two.

Silence Of The Blog

2007-06-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd let readers know why this blog has been silent for so long.

I've been putting up with back pain for nearly 40 years now, since my Vietnam service in 1967-68. It's been a lot worse lately, and just about the worst thing I can do is spend time in front of the computer.

I've been working on the problem with the help of a physiotherapist, and I hope to be back in the blogosphere soon. Unfortunately I can't say how long this will take.

A Happy Kapyong Day to All!

2007-04-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

This blog has been silent for several weeks, due to health issues and more pressing priorities. I have decided to get back to blogging, and will try to post something of interest at least every couple of days.

Today is Kapyong Day.

What is Kapyong Day, I hear you ask? Well, you won't be asking if you ever served in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), because this is the battalion's special day. It is celebrated each year on the anniversary of the Battle of Kapyong, the most significant Australian battle of the Korean War, in 1951. As a result of that battle, 3RAR became the first Australian unit to be awarded a United States Presidential Unit Citation. I served with 3RAR in Vietnam in 1967-68, and proudly wore the little blue swimming pool on my left shoulder, as is the right of all serving members of 3RAR in perpetuity.

There is a host of information available on the Internet about Kapyong, and you can find it by doing a keyword search on any search engine.

Cheney's "nudge nudge, wink wink" to Australia

2007-02-23T15:10:00.000-08:00

US Vice President Dick Cheney used classic dog whistle rhetoric yesterday, in a speech in which he urged Australia to remain with the occupation force in Iraq. Cheney told us that the US and Australia must stick together because we are “of the same stock.”

Don’t worry Mr Cheney, there is no chance that the people you pitched that message to could have failed to understand it. Thanks to your speech, we now know for certain what your “war on terror” is really about. There are people in this world who are not of the same stock, and those of us who are must join together in a crusade against them.

You can count on Australia.

Open Letter to the Defence Minister

2007-02-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr Nelson,

You have taken your government's pro-war rhetoric to a new low today, when you compared Australia's involvement in the occupation of Iraq with the battle fought by Australian soldiers on the Kokoda Track during the Second World War.

I am a Vietnam veteran, and the son of a Kokoda veteran. My father fought in New Guinea after having previously fought in North Africa, Greece and Palestine. Mr Nelson, you have insulted the memory of my father, and all of the other Australian heroes who fought in New Guinea.

Mr Nelson, is there a mighty military force in Iraq that has already invaded several Asian nations and is advancing towards Australia? Of course there is not. Is there any force at all in Iraq that is capable of invading Australia? Of course there is not. Is there any threat whatsoever from Iraq that can compare with an imminent Japanese invasion? Of course there is not. No rational person would suggest that there is.

We in the veteran community have a term that we apply to the most contemptible of politicians. I refer to those who refuse to serve in the military themselves, but who enthusiastically send other people's sons and daughters to war. We call them Chickenhawks. You sir, are a classic example of a Chickenhawk. You are a disgrace.

Yours sincerely,

Lachlan Irvine

Iran in Iraq

2007-02-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

I find it strange, bizarre even, that the Bush administration is making a fuss about the fact that Iranian weapons have been found in Iraq. Is this not the same United States that has provided weapons to every conflict, everywhere in the world, in the past 60 years?

Thank You Optus, Thank You Telstra

2007-02-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

This blog has been silenced for a month by the combined efforts of Australia's biggest telephone companies, Optus and Telstra.

A month ago, we moved from one north-western suburb of Canberra to another north-western suburb of Canberra, a distance of a mere couple of kilometres. We informed our telephone service provider, Optus, well in advance of the move, and they had no difficulty cutting off the phone from the old address. Providing a service at the new address however, turned out to be an entirely different story.

Now remember, I'm not talking about some third world country with dodgy infrastructure. This is Australia's national capital in the 21st century.

Day after day Optus gave us excuses and promises, but no telephone service. Finally, after three weeks, they told us they had connected our phone. But still the phone was telling us it was not connected. It turned out that the Optus technician's attempt to connect us was foiled by Optus's great rival, Telstra. The previous owner of our new house had been a Telstra customer, and our phone couldn't be connected by Optus until it was first disconnected by Telstra.

A month to connect a telephone. Welcome to the information superhighway!

Sandinista!

2007-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

The return of Daniel Ortega to the presidency of Nicaragua gives me an excuse to use the title of an album by my all-time favourite rock band in a subject line.

The Clash recorded Sandinista! (exclamation mark included) in 1980. In a confluence of events that most bands can only dream of, The Clash were provided with what must have seemed like unlimited studio time while they were at their creative peak. The resultant triple album was remarkably eclectic, certainly self-indulgent, and undoubtedly brilliant.

It helped me to ease my way into the Eighties, following the tragedy and disillusionment of the death of John Lennon. I recorded my favourite tracks from Sandinista! onto a two-hour tape (and my favourite tracks barely fitted on a two-hour tape) so that I could play it constantly in my car.

From my point of view as a Vietnam veteran, it is interesting to note that Clash biographies suggest Joe Strummer (Clash singer and songwriter, who sadly died in 2002) had an almost obsessive interest in the Vietnam War. Sandinista! included a track called Charlie Don't Surf, obviously influenced by Apocalypse, Now! (another title with an exclamation mark). The following album, Combat Rock, included a track entitled Sean Flynn, about the son of Errol Flynn, who was killed in Vietnam. It also included my personal favourite Clash song, Straight To Hell, which has a verse about Amerasian children in Vietnam. It is worth noting also, that at the time of Combat Rock, Joe Strummer changed his appearance so that he resembled Travis Bickle, the fictional, troubled Vietnam veteran character portrayed by Robert De Niro in the film Taxi Driver.

Surge is to Escalation as Iraq is to ?

2007-01-10T17:03:00.000-08:00

The United States is involved in a distant war. The war drags on, with no end in sight. Support for the war among the people starts to drop. Some of the people change their vote because of the war. The president promises a solution. The president announces to the people that his solution is - to send more of their sons and daughters to the war!

Does that sound at all familiar?

Mission Accomplished in New Zealand

2007-01-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

Just before Christmas, the New Zealand government announced a package of reforms in their treatment of Vietnam veterans. This was the government's response to an inquiry by its Health Select Committee, into the health effects of Agent Orange on New Zealand veterans and their families.

Readers will be aware that I made a submission to the inquiry, and also appeared in person. New Zealand veterans had asked me to respond to a government-funded report, known as the McLeod Report, which I regarded as nothing short of a disgraceful whitewash.

The title of Part One of my report was "The McLeod Report: False Central Premise," while in my conclusion I expressed the opinion that the McLeod Report should never be allowed to be used as the basis for future government policy. I am pleased to say that the New Zealand government has agreed with me. They have actually stated that the McLeod Report was based on a false premise, and that it should never be used as the basis for government policy. They have quoted me almost word for word in their own conclusion.

It remains to be seen how New Zealand's veteran community responds to the government report, but at least my part in this process has resulted in a rare victory.

Another Anniversary

2006-12-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

Post-Christmas and pre-New-Year greetings to all. When I looked at the calendar this morning and realised it was the 27th of December (Australian time), my thoughts went back to what I was doing on this day 39 years ago. It was on the 27th of December 1967 that I first set foot on the red dusty soil of South Vietnam at the beginning of my tour of duty.

Unfortunately, I have lost most of my memory of that day. I remember boarding a Chinook on the deck of HMAS Sydney, but I don’t actually remember how I felt when we touched down at Nui Dat. I know the first memory of Vietnam is an important one for a lot of veterans, but somehow, for me, the events of those extraordinary months of February, March, April and May of 1968 seem to have wiped most of the remainder of my tour of duty from my memory banks.

Anyway, the anniversaries keep stacking up. But at least I’m still here to count them.

Season's Greetings

2006-12-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

I've just come back from a short holiday. That's why there hasn't been anything new on this blog for a couple of weeks. There were a couple of significant events while I was away, on which I intend to comment. That will have to wait until after Christmas.

In the new year I will be moving to a new home, a couple of suburbs away from where I am now, which means that the next three weeks will involve frantic family activities, with precious little time for blogging. So I will just take this opportunity to wish everybody a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2007.

I'm on the ABC

2006-12-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

One of my poems, The Thousand Yard Stare, has been put on the ABC Radio National website.

It's all part of a 40th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Long Tan.

There's a lot of other stuff on the site too. It's well worth checking out.

David Hicks & Prime Ministerial Logic

2006-12-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

I note that a group of lawyers has today taken action against the federal government over the case of David Hicks. Hicks is an Australian citizen who has been held by the United States government for five years without any charge being brought against him. That would be reprehensible enough, but the worst part of this case is the fact that the Australian government has made no attempt to have Hicks released. Other nations have made representations to the US, and their citizens have indeed been released. It is only the Australian government that cares so little about its own citizen that it will let him rot in a foreign prison even though he has not been charged with any offence. Furthermore, it is unlikely that he ever will be charged with any offence, since the Americans have held him for five years, and have not produced a single piece of evidence to suggest that he has broken any law.

The response of the Australian Prime Minister to this issue has been probably the most bizarre piece of logic I have ever heard from any Australian politician. It goes something like this: David Hicks should not be returned to Australia, because there is no offence that Australia can charge him with. Let me run that by you again. The Australian Prime Minister is saying that an Australian citizen should not be returned to Australia, because he has broken no Australian law!

Wow! When I think of all the times I have travelled overseas and broken no Australian laws, I breathe a sigh of relief at how lucky I have been to have been able to sneak back in every time.

Political Irony in Fiji

2006-12-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

You have to laugh at what is happening in Fiji. Apparently the military commander does not understand the meaning of irony. He says that unless the Prime Minister accedes to his demands, there will be a military coup.

Sir, please try to understand this. If you succeed in making the elected Prime Minister obey your orders, then there has already been a coup. You, and not the elected government, will be running the country.

All we need now is for Alexander (Wheat for Weapons) Downer to start lecturing Fiji about political propriety and we'll have the comedy smash hit of the year.

Wednesday is Bowling Day

2006-11-29T00:47:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd mention that I bowled a personal best today. 213! That is also the best for my league this year. We're not professionals, we're mostly pensioners and grandmothers, and we play for fun. Our league average is about 140. Scores of 200 plus are still rare enough in our league to be exciting when they happen.

The Kovco Inquiry

2006-11-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

According to leaks reported in the media today, the Australian Army’s inquiry into the death in Iraq of Jake Kovco has decided that he killed himself by accident. Jake Kovco’s mother has refused to accept this decision.

I extend my sympathy to Mrs Kovco, and to all other members of the Kovco family.

By far the greatest number of visitors to my website have been students or teachers, looking for information about my poem, He Was A Mate. What those visitors might not realise is that I wrote the poem as a way of articulating my feelings following the death of my friend Gary “Polly” Polglase, in Vietnam in 1968, and that Polly died in circumstances remarkably, you might say eerily, similar to those of Jake Kovco.

Firstly, Polly and I both served in Vietnam with 3RAR, Jake Kovco’s battalion. Secondly, Polly was killed by a single bullet to the temple, at a time when he was in a tent at Nui Dat with one other soldier. Finally, like the Kovco family, Polly’s family and friends were kept in the dark while the army fed them conflicting and misleading information about the circumstances of his death.

I feel particularly strongly about this. It is not just that Polly was a mate of mine. After all, he was the sort of bloke who had a lot of mates, and most of them knew him longer and better than I did. My particular interest comes from the fact that Polly was killed in my tent. In fact, he was killed while sitting on my bed.

I was with the rest of our platoon, on Operation Pinnaroo, in the Long Hai Hills at the time. The only member of the platoon who was back at Nui Dat was the bloke with whom I shared a tent. Polly was a dog handler, and he decided to go back to Nui Dat before the operation was over, because his dog was ill. Apparently he was sitting on my bed, chatting with my tent-mate when he was shot.

When the operation was over and the platoon returned to Nui Dat, I was only allowed back into my tent long enough to pack my gear. I saw the remains of a bloodstain and a chalk outline, both of which had been cleaned with only partial success, on the floor next to my bed. I also found a Polaroid negative in my wastepaper basket, on which the outline of a body could be seen on the floor next to my bed. There was a strong smell of disinfectant, and to this day I still associate that smell with Polly’s death.

I packed my gear and moved out of my tent. That night, with typical army tact and sensitivity, I was told I had to sleep in Polly’s bed. The next day I was transferred out of the platoon. Needless to say, so was the person Polly had been with when he died.

A few years ago, I met a member of Polly’s family for the first time, when his younger sister visited Canberra. She told me the army had given her family a series of different versions of what had happened, before Polly had eventually been listed as a non-battle casualty, killed by accident.

Is it any wonder that I feel a sense of déjà vu, and the deepest sympathy for Jake Kovco’s family and friends?

A Doubly Significant Anniversary

2006-11-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

Today is the 20th anniversary of the passing of Phill Thompson, who, at the time of his death, was National President of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia.

You can read my tribute to Phill on this link.

Phill (I use that spelling because that is how he always wrote the short version of his name) was one of the most inspirational people I have ever met. I was privileged to be able to watch him in action during the years in which he was National President of the VVAA and I was National Secretary.

Only Phill can possibly have known what caused him to make the decision to take his own life twenty years ago. I have always believed that the most important factor was his ileostomy operation. He was forced to have the operation he was forced to have when it was discovered that he had the familial polyposis that was the precursor to a form of cancer that had already killed several male members of his family. The heaviest workload of Phill’s years as National President of the VVAA came after that operation. He had always coped remarkably well with his health problems before the operation, and he continued to do so. But there can be little doubt that the prospect of living with this new health issue played heavily on his mind.

Apart from running the VVAA and being an inspirational leader for thousands of veterans and their families, Phill also prepared and presented the case for Vietnam veterans at the Agent Orange Royal Commission while coping with his own health problems. He was unable to sleep at night, and was constantly suffering pain and illness. At the same time, his dedication to the cause was putting a terminal strain on his marriage. His efforts to carry on under that pressure can only be described as heroic.

Today is also the anniversary of the death of John F Kennedy. I know the Australian news media reported this yesterday, but they make the same mistake every year. American history books tell us that this event occurred on the 22nd of November 1963. But between Australia and the USA there is a huge ocean, and a thing called the International Date Line. So the Kennedy assassination actually happened on the 23rd of November Australian time.

The Saddam Sentence

2006-11-06T03:06:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, Iraq was ruled by a despotic dictator, who routinely killed his political opponents. But that was in the bad old days. We invaded Iraq and overthrew the dictator. Now we remain in Iraq, so we can show its people a new style of politics. So what shall we do now? I know, let’s kill our new model Iraqi government’s most prominent political opponent!

Cut & Run Good, Moronic Sloganeering Bad!

2006-10-25T02:26:00.000-07:00

I’m sure we are all agreed that the next politician who uses the slogan Cut and Run should be taken by the next extraordinary rendition flight to the nearest secret CIA torture camp, there to have his or her human rights violated with a liberal dose of cruel and unusual punishment. This should preferably involve hoods, dogs and electrodes.

But what about this slogan? What does it actually mean?

The answer is that it is a nautical expression, which means almost the opposite of what its users apparently think it means.

Both meanings refer to actions taken by the captain of a smaller ship, who finds himself in conflict with a larger, faster vessel. The most likely meaning is cutting the ropes that hold the sails, so that the ship can run before the wind. The less likely meaning is cutting the anchor rope to gain a quick start.

Whichever of these alternative meanings you choose, Cut and Run means overcoming a tactical disadvantage by taking a bold strategic initiative. It has nothing to do with retreat, and nothing to do with cowardice. It is a bold move. Only with a degree of stupidity can this expression be used the way the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Australia have used it.

As is often the case, popular culture helps us to explain the behaviour of our politicians. In the film The Princess Bride, the character who regards himself as a criminal genius finds himself constantly exclaiming “Inconceivable” whenever one of his plans comes unstuck. Finally the giant, who is supposed to be the stupid member of the gang, suggests to him “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

The Princess Bride is a fantasy adventure movie. Bush and Howard are political leaders. It’s a frightening thought.

Democracy Rules

2006-10-24T04:44:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning to two news stories, which suggested to me that this was a red-letter day for democracy.

First came the news from Budapest, where the Hungarian people were celebrating the people’s attempted uprising against oppression 50 years ago. The Hungarian government, which had admitted lying to its people to win a recent election, joined in the festivities by using tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators. You couldn’t write that as satire, it has to be true!

Next came the story from right here in Australia, where a government Senator, George Brandis, from Queensland (where else?) wants to do a spot of book-burning. It seems that the good Senator is not content with the government’s current project to take Australia back to the 1950s. He wants to go back two decades earlier.

Apparently the Good Shepherd Catholic College in Mount Isa has been allowing its students to have access to a book called 100 Greatest Tyrants. What is wrong with that, I hear you ask. Well, among the tyrants listed in the book is Senator Brandis’ political hero, Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Bob Menzies.

The picture at the top of this posting is a photo of my first home. It was taken in the 1950s, when Menzies was Prime Minister. My family lived in that tent until I was in primary school. I hope that the good Senator will understand if the fifties are not wrapped in the same nostalgic glow for me as they are for him. As a youngster I learned to walk, I learned to talk, and I learnt that the party of Bob Menzies was my class enemy. And not necessarily in that order. Good on you, Good Shepherd Catholic College. Don’t give in to government censorship.

Howard and Iraq

2006-10-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

Over the past week or so we have seen one of the weakest performances by a Prime Minister in Australia’s history.

John Howard took Australia into a war based on a pack of lies. Now that it is clear that his participation in the invasion of Iraq is one of the foreign policy disasters of the century, Howard is telling the Australian people that we can’t get out of this mess because that would send the wrong message to Jemaah Islamiyah. In other words, John Howard has handed control of Australia’s foreign policy to an Indonesian terrorist group!

I am a Vietnam veteran, and proud of it. I did my duty and I suffer for it every day. John Howard is the kind of politician I despise. He is an old man who wants to send young men off to war, but who has never spent a day in uniform himself. In the veteran community we have a name for gutless politicians like Howard, who is happy for others to do the sacrificing for him. He is a Chickenhawk.

Before the Iraq War began, I donned my Vietnam medals and joined many thousands of other Australians who took to the streets in protest at the prospect that Australia would join in an invasion of a country that had not threatened us or any of our allies. That protest proved to be futile, as it became apparent that Howard was taking his orders from George W Bush and not from the Australian people.

In February 2003, when there was still time for Australia to avoid this disaster, I wrote a critique of the twisted logic of the weapons of mass destruction argument. You may remember that this was the pretext Howard was using at the time for invading Iraq. My critique took the form of a Socratic dialogue, entitled George, Son of George. You can read it by clicking on the link. I believe it remains as valid today as it was then.

Now, it appears that Australia is doomed to remain in the Iraq quagmire for no better reason than that Bush has not told us we can leave yet. Howard is fooling nobody with his meaningless rhetoric about staying the course. There is no course. There has never been an exit strategy, and there is no exit strategy now. Like the spineless lapdog that he is, Howard simply waits for his master’s orders. Meanwhile, he continues to put other people’s sons and daughters in harm’s way.

Vietnam Memories

2006-10-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I started telling the story of my own tour of duty as a young infantry soldier in Vietnam in 1967-68. I have decided that the best way to tell that story is in the History pages of my web site, with links from this blog to direct readers to the site whenever I have added a new chapter or a new page.

I have started writing an introduction, as well as my memories of the early days of the Tet Offensive. Just follow this link.

Writeway: Minister's Reply to My Questions

2006-10-11T01:08:00.000-07:00

The Minister for Veterans Affairs, the Honourable Mr Billson MP, has replied to my questions about Writeway Research. Unfortunately, he has refused to answer my questions, and his reply to me can only be described as contemptuous, both of me and of the veteran community.

You can read Mr Billson's reply by clicking on this link to my website.

AFL Grand Final

2006-10-04T01:09:00.000-07:00

The Grand Final is over for another year, and the Eagles won. It's good to be right occasionally. Things worked out pretty much as I had hoped. The Swans were at least as good as last year, but the Eagles had improved just that little bit more by getting their forward structure sorted out.

Needless to say, it was another thriller. Last year's Grand final was won by the Swans by 4 points. The two teams have now played each other three times this year, for a two point win to the Eagles, a one point win to the Swans, and now a one point win to the Eagles. I think it is fair to say that these teams are pretty evenly matched!

This result makes the West Coast Eagles the most successful team in the AFL. I know some supporters of Essendon and Carlton will disagree. They will want to count all of their wins in the years when the competition was the Victorian Football League and had no clubs from Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales or Queensland. But it has only been a national competition, the Australian Football League, since 1990.

In that time, the Eagles became the first team to win two premierships. That record was later equalled by Adelaide, North Melbourne and Essendon, before Brisbane rewrote the record books with three successive wins. Now the Eagles also have three wins. Looking for a tiebreaker, the Eagles have been runner-up twice to Brisbane's once. QED. That makes the Eagles the most successful team in the AFL.

It makes a pleasant change to support a team that has some occasional success. I've supported a soccer team in London called Queen's Park Rangers since 1973. In that time they have won exactly nothing! Two weeks ago they hit the bottom of the League Championship (that's the division below the Premier League.) They sacked their manager and have since won two out of two under the new man, so they might be due for some improvement.

But that's a story for another post.

AFL Grand Final

2006-09-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

It's AFL Grand Final time again.

My team, the West Coast Eagles, has made the Grand Final for the second year in a row, and they're playing the same team that beat us in a thriller last year, the Sydney Swans.

The Eagles were formed in 1987, which just happened to be the same year I arrived in Western Australia and decided to stay. So I've followed them since their inception.

My second favourite team is the Fremantle Dockers, so I'm not one of those Western Australians who can love one WA team and hate the other. I've never understood that attitude.

I live in Canberra now, so I'm surrounded by Swans supporters. I couldn't begrudge them their victory last year, the first premiership since they have been called Sydney, and the first for over 70 years as South Melbourne and Sydney. But this year I'm hoping for an Eagles win. Can I justify that hope? I believe I can, because the Eagles are definitely stronger than last year.

With Lynch in form and Hanson back, it's a much better forward set-up than last year, and it was the forward set-up more than anything else that cost the Eagles the premiership last year. It's also a youthful team, so the extra year of improvement in some of the younger Eagles players should be significant.

I can't see any diminishing of Sydney's strength this year, so I'm counting on the improvement in the Eagles to deliver the premiership to WA.

Vietnam Memories

2006-09-26T23:58:00.000-07:00

A week ago I posted this photo here on my blog and on my website. The picture brought with it a flood of memories for me, from the months I spent with the anti-tank platoon, 3RAR, in Vietnam in 1968.

I’ve decided to tell the story of those months, at least as much as I remember them. Some of these memories are still quite fresh in my mind, while others are fading with the passage of time. Parts of this story may seem like some kind of Boy’s Own adventure. But it is all true. The Tet Offensive made the months of February, March, April and May of 1968 different from any other phase of the Vietnam War.

While I was in 3RAR I was nominally a member of the signal platoon. I was an infantry signaller, or radio operator (sig for short). Sig platoon does not operate as a platoon however, because its sigs are deployed to various parts of the battalion. I arrived in Vietnam as a sig attached to ‘C’ Company. But I was only in country for a few days when I was shifted to anti-tank platoon.

In 3RAR, anti-tank platoon was a multi-tasked outfit. The Viet Cong did not have tanks, at least not in the III Corps zone where we operated. So we used our anti-tank weapons as infantry fire support. Anti-tank platoon also contained the battalion’s tracker teams, comprising tracker dogs, dog handlers and visual trackers. In addition, anti-tank could also be used as a long-range reconnaissance platoon, or as an extra rifle platoon attached to one of the rifle companies.

From the time I arrived in anti-tank, we seemed to be on an endless programme of patrolling around the battalion’s TAOR (tactical area of operational responsibility). This included day patrols, night ambush patrols, and night listening patrols. Our home base covered a sector of the Nui Dat perimeter, so every night that we spent at Nui Dat we would all be rostered for two-hour shifts on a machine gun post.

And then came Tet.

On the first morning of February 1968, I was doing my watch at a machine gun post when an order came for us to get ready for a patrol. This came as quite a surprise, because it was still pre-dawn. An overnight listening patrol had found a Viet Cong mortar base plate position with a cache of ammunition. Anti-tank platoon was to go out and find the listening patrol, set up an ambush on the ammunition cache in case anybody came back for it and, if not, blow it up.

At this stage 2RAR, 7RAR and one company of 3RAR were away from Nui Dat. They were in Bien Hoa Province on Operation Coburg. 3RAR were still the new boys on the block, having been in country for just a month. Because of the absence of so much of the task force, the listening patrol was made up of rear echelon personnel with little patrolling experience. That’s why anti-tank was tasked with this job.

On the western side of the road between Nui Dat and Hoa Long there is an old rubber plantation. Beyond the rubber there is a wide expanse of rice paddies. The paddies end with some thick bush flanking a stream that runs from north to south. The listening patrol was in the rice paddies. A troop of armoured personnel carriers picked us up and took us as far as the rubber trees. That is when they told us that they couldn’t take us any further. The provincial capital, Baria, had been attacked. Our APCs had to go back to Nui Dat, pick up ‘A’ Company and go into Baria and take back the town. Baria had become part of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese offensive, which took advantage of the national cease-fire for the Tet national holiday to attack every city and major town in South Vietnam.

After they dropped us off and picked up ‘A’ Company, those same APCs drove into Baria, where they were hit by rocket propelled grenades in a VC ambush. In charge of the APCs that morning was a young Lieutenant, Roger Tingley. Roger was wounded in the RPG attack, but stayed on duty, and was later awarded the Military Cross. Some 20 years later, Roger and I would find ourselves working together in veterans’ organisations in Western Australia.

We found the listening patrol, and they led us to the ammunition cache. We set up an ambush, but the VC did not return. So, just after dawn, we blew it up. My old mate “Jack” Hammer was the demolition man who did the job. Jack and I had been founding members of 8RAR (in Brisbane), before we were both transferred to 3RAR (in Adelaide). I owned a car at the time, so Jack and I cashed in our travel warrants and drove non-stop from Brisbane to Adelaide together. When we arrived, I was placed in Sig Platoon, while Jack went to Anti-tank, where he was a machine gunner, as well as being a demolition expert.

By the time we blew up the ammunition cache, a battle was raging in Baria. We could see it, and we could hear it. At some time during the morning, a message came over the radio. 4 VC had been seen leaving the fighting in Baria, and they were headed in our direction. We were given a grid reference for a place where the track they were on would cross a dry creek bed. If we hurried, we could reach the crossing and set up an ambush.

We charged off in the direction of the crossing. Before we got there though, there was some pretty thick jungle to get through. It included an incredibly thick stand of bamboo. When this stuff grows in the wild, it bears little resemblance to the ornamental bamboo that grows in domestic gardens. Its branches are pointed like spears, and it gets so thickly entangled that the only way you can get through it is to crawl on your belly. Even then it can rip the clothes right off you.

Now remember, at this stage we were not just anti-tank platoon, with its extensive patrolling experience from its first month in country. Our numbers also included the members of the listening patrol we had picked up earlier. They were cooks, clerks and storemen, and this was their first time outside the wire.

Just as we arrived at the creek crossing, another message came over the radio. It wasn’t four VC, it was forty, and we had better get the hell out of there! Now, I actually remember the number as four hundred. But anti-tank had a reunion in 2002, and was evenly split between those who remember it as 40 and those who remember it as 400. So, in telling the story, I have decided to err on the side of not exaggerating. So let’s say it was 40. That is still too many for a platoon to ambush. So, as quickly as we had struggled through the bamboo jungle to reach the crossing, we now had to clear out of there.

Eventually we made it back to the rice paddies between the rubber and the creek. This was when we realised that there was a role we could play in the Battle of Baria. The creek, with its thick cover, was a VC escape route from the fighting in Baria. As long as we could stay out of sight, we could observe their escape and call in artillery or air strikes on them. Staying out of sight was the key, because we were in the middle of an expanse of wide-open (dry season) rice paddies. If anybody saw us, we were sitting ducks, and heavily outnumbered sitting ducks.

We started calling in artillery, and that appeared to be working. Then some American pilots asked for a chance to get in on the action. They soon grew impatient going through the usual radio procedures, so one of the pilots gave me a radio frequency that I could use to talk directly to him. This was against the rules we normally operated under, but my platoon commander, Lieutenant Clark, agreed to it. So we were calling in air strikes and giving immediate corrections to the American pilots as they bombed the escaping VC. We had our own fireworks display all through the afternoon.

So that is my memory of Day One of the Tet Offensive. It was just the beginning of my adventures with anti-tank platoon. I will post the next instalment as soon as I am able to do so.

Australian Army Tracker Dogs, Vietnam 1968.

2006-09-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

A few days ago this picture appeared on the website of the Australian Army Trackers and War Dogs Association. The person who placed the picture on the site wanted to know who the soldiers and dogs in the picture are. The answer is that they are the tracker team of the 3rd battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), and for the first four months of 1968, until a couple of weeks before this picture was taken, I was their radio operator.

For further information about this picture, where and when it was taken and who is in it, you can click on this link to my website.

Writeway Research Examples

2006-09-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

WRITEWAY EXAMPLES

On a page of my website entitled Writeway Examples, I will list some of the garbage that has appeared in reports prepared by Writeway Research for the Department of Veterans Affairs. I will start by listing a few examples here. To all veterans who read this, I say please do not laugh. This is serious. Not only are these reports being used by the Department of Veterans Affairs as evidence against veterans, they are also being accepted as evidence, without question, by the Veterans Review Board and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The following examples come from actual Writeway reports:

Every Australian soldier, in every unit in Vietnam, had a two-night spell at the Peter Badcoe Club every six weeks;

Four man listening patrols were only ever led by officers or warrant officers;

All Australian patrols operating out of Nui Dat had to fire off all of their bullets every time they came in through the wire;

Bodies were never seen in village squares in Vietnam;

Tracer fire is not visible by day;

On HMAS Sydney’s troop-carrying voyages to Vietnam, no sailor or soldier was ever able to obtain more than his allocated ration of beer;

M60 machine guns fire 50 calibre bullets;

Kangaroo Pad was located at Vung Tau.

When time allows, I will add more examples to the list on my website.

Don Chipp R.I.P.

2006-08-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

Don Chipp has died, at the age of 81.

Readers of this blog from outside of Australia may not know who Don Chipp was. He had been a member of Australia's longest serving conservative government under Prime Ministers Holt, Gorton and McMahon. But he is best remembered for leaving that government and forming a new party, the Australian Democrats. The Democrats became the third power in what had previously been a two party system, when they gained enough seats in the Senate to hold the balance of power. We have proportional representation in the Senate, unlike the much less representative House of Representatives. A party that wins ten percent of the vote nationally can win ten percent of the Senate seats. In the House of Reps, a party that wins ten percent of the vote nationally will not win a single seat. The ten percent of voters who voted for that party are effectively disenfranchised.

For a large part of the past 25 years, with the help of a few independents and other minor parties, the Democrats have acted as a much needed brake on executive power, and ensured that there has been one house in our federal parliament in which legislation has actually been debated. It should be pointed out however, that they have never wielded power disproportionately. The Democrats were powerless unless the opposition voted against the government. When they did, the combined numbers of opposition, Democrat, independent and other minor party Senators represented a clear majority of Australian voters.

I first met Don Chipp in 1983, when I was the newly elected National Secretary of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia. I was on my first political lobbying visit to the national capital, with little idea of how the system worked. I made my first port of call the Democrat spokesman for Veterans Affairs, Senator Michael Macklin, whom I had met at a number of VVAA public meetings. Senator Macklin told me about the pigeonhole system, whereby people like me could get our printed material to all members of parliament and the press gallery. He offered the use of his office for me to do my photocopying, addressing and stuffing of envelopes.

This was the old Parliament House, where the offices were not much bigger than the broom closet in the average family home. The only place where there was room for a job like this to be done was on the floor. Before long, Senator Macklin and his staff were all on the floor with me, helping out. That was the sight that greeted Don Chipp when he came to the door to talk to Senator Macklin. Chipp was then the Democrat Leader in the Senate. He spoke to Senator Macklin, and went back to his own office. Seconds later, members of Don Chipp's staff arrived to help me with my envelope stuffing. Then Don Chipp himself arrived, and got down on the floor with me to lend a hand. So there I was, on the floor of a Senator's office, with two Senators, one of them a party leader, and their combined staff, helping me to stuff envelopes. That will remain my lasting memory of Don Chipp.

Long Tan Day 2006

2006-08-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

The 18th of August is Vietnam Veterans Day in Australia. At least, that is how it has been officially designated, although we Vietnam veterans generally prefer to call it Long Tan Day. This year it was the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan.

I attended the ceremony at the national Vietnam War Memorial in Canberra. As I turned the corner from Constitution Avenue and looked up Anzac Parade towards the memorial, what I saw was a huge crowd, television cameras; an outside broadcast unit, a military band, and a troop of armoured personnel carriers.

As I walked slowly up the hill, the Prime Minister’s motorcade drove past me, followed closely by another motorcade, this time belonging to the Governor-General. “Wow,” I thought, “This is big.”

My thoughts went back to a day in August about 25 years ago. The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, still a mere fledgling organisation in the veteran community, had just decided to make Long Tan Day our official annual day of commemoration. We planted a lump of granite in the backyard of our headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Granville, bearing the simple inscription “for those who died and those who suffered as a result of the Vietnam War.” It was a small but dedicated group of veterans and family members who gathered in front of that stone to commemorate our first official Long Tan Day. Little could we have imagined that Long Tan Day could draw a crowd like this in the national capital in 2006.

I reached the edge of the crowd, still marvelling at its size. Yet even though I was pleased to see how big the ceremony had become, somehow I just didn’t want to be part of its “bigness.” So I walked across the road to where I could sit and watch from a distance. There was something about the crowd, the speeches and the VIP guests that gave me just the slightest niggling feeling that, at least for some people, this ceremony was as much a celebration of those of us who were there as a commemoration of those who weren’t. As welcome as that sentiment might be for some, it is not what the day is supposed to be about.

The most moving part of the ceremony for me came when Long Tan veterans Morrie Stanley and Dave Sabben read out the names of those who died at Long Tan. These men clearly understood what the day was really about. I can only hope that the majority of the crowd did too.

History For Sale: Writeway Research and the Department of Veterans Affairs

2006-08-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

This week I have written a letter to the Minister for Veterans Affairs, asking seven questions about the relationship between his department and a private company that calls itself Writeway Research.

For those who are unaware of what this issue is about, let me give you a bit of background.

When veterans lodge claims with the DVA, mostly the facts of the case are well documented. There are occasions, however, especially with cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), when a veteran may claim to have been traumatised by an incident for which there is not a lot of supporting evidence. Now, the Veterans Entitlements Act is clear on this. There is no onus on the veteran to prove his or her case. The burden of proof is entirely on the department.

There was a time when, in cases where the department wanted to look for further evidence, it would turn to the Army History Unit. Some time in the year 2000, the department made the decision to take their research work away from the History Unit, and give the work instead to Writeway Research. This appears to have been done without any tendering process.

At that time, Writeway Research was an organisation for which the term "obscure" would have been a massive understatement. The organisation consisted of a telephone number and a post office box on the south coast of New South Wales. Now remember, what we are talking about here is a considerable amount of taxpayer-funded historical research work. As I say in one of my questions to the Minister, there was nothing about Writeway Research to suggest it was qualified for government funded historical research. Yet, for some reason, the DVA was determined to hand out the taxpayer's money to give these people research work that they were not qualified to do.

Here is the full text of my letter to the Minister.

Dear Minister,

I am a qualified and published Historian. I am also a Vietnam veteran with more than 25 years of voluntary service in the veteran community, working with organisations such as the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia, Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, Legacy, Australian Veterans and Defence Services Council, Australian Vietnam War Veterans Trust Limited, Vietnam Veterans Job Link Program, and the organising committee of the Australian Vietnam Forces Welcome Home Parade and National Reunion.

I know you are aware of widespread concern in the veteran community regarding an organisation which calls itself Writeway Research, and its relationship with your department. I have personally raised this issue at deputy commissioner level, and I know it has also been raised at federal and state level by the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia (VVFA).

My interest in this issue began when a local veteran, William Bastion, took his own life, apparently believing that he had been branded as a liar by Writeway Research and your department. James Wain, the President of the ACT Branch of the VVFA, asked me to look into the case from my perspective as a historian, and investigate the quality of research provided by Writeway in this case.

I was appalled at the shocking lack of research competence and ethics that I found in the Bastion case. Just to give one obvious example, John Tilbrook of Writeway claimed that the incident as described by William Bastion did not happen. He apparently failed to notice that the incident was reported in the official history of the RAAF in the Vietnam War! Unfortunately this is not an isolated example. It is sadly typical of the standard of work Writeway provides for your department at the expense of the Australian taxpayer. I enclose a copy of my report to the VVFA on the Bastion case as an attachment to this letter.

I have since broadened my interest into other cases involving Writeway, and as a result I am working on a research paper entitled History For Sale: Writeway Research and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It would be of great assistance to me, and of great interest to the veteran community, Minister, if you could answer the following questions about Writeway Research.

Question 1.

In the year 2000, the Department of Veterans Affairs made the decision to switch the task of researching the historical facts in claims presented by veterans from the Australian Army History Unit to a private firm called Writeway Research. Was John Tilbrook, then of the Australian Army History Unit, involved in any of the discussions or correspondence that led to that decision?

Question 2.

At the time that it made the decision to allocate taxpayer-funded research work to Writeway, was your department aware of the involvement of John Tilbrook in both the Australian Army History Unit and Writeway Research?

Question 3.

Did your department follow any tendering process when it made the decision to allocate taxpayer-funded research work to Writeway Research?

Question 4.

Given that at the time that your department made the decision to switch its research work to Writeway, the personnel at Writeway Research had no qualifications in historical research, no publication record, no teaching record, and in fact no track record of any kind in the Australian History profession, on what basis did your department decide that Writeway Research was a suitable organisation to receive taxpayer funding for historical research?

Question 5.

Given the standards of proof required in the Veterans Entitlements Act, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act and their predecessors, what historical sources are considered by your department to be of a suitable standard to be used as evidence against claims made by veterans?

Question 6.

What independent analysis by suitably qualified professional researchers has your department sought, in order to monitor the standard of research provided by Writeway?

Question 7.

Given that they are not eyewitnesses to the events on which they are commenting, and given that they lack any professional qualifications to give evidence as experts in historical research, what legal standing do the opinions of Writeway personnel have before the Veterans Review Board and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal?

Given the seriousness of this issue and the level of concern it has caused to Australian veterans, I look forward to receiving your answers, and to ensuring that they are widely distributed throughout the veteran community.

Yours sincerely

I then enclosed my analysis of the Bastion case. You can read my report by clicking on the link.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - #1

2006-08-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a week since my last posting on this blog, and that is extremely annoying. I've got a backlog of things I want to write about. So why have I been so slack? The answer is simple: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I've had CFS for more than a decade now. It started after a bout of pneumonia, and it took a couple of years to be diagnosed. About seven years ago, I had reason to be optimistic, when I was found to have a tumour on my pituitary gland. Now, a pituitary tumour may not sound like a good thing. But this particular type of tumour is treatable, and can actually produce the symptoms of CFS. So, I thought, maybe this tumour is the reason I've got CFS. Treat the tumour and maybe the CFS will end. No such luck. I've been taking medication to shrink the tumour for several years now, and still the CFS persists.

I want to make it clear that I refuse to let this thing get me down. I've been able to get on with my life. I've managed to get a university degree. I've become a father for the first time. I've been able to do some voluntary work in the veteran community. If you check out my website, you'll find that it's a pretty substantial piece of work. Apart from my early poetry, everything on that website has been written since I have had CFS.

CFS is not a pleasant subject to talk about. But I'm sure there will be other CFS sufferers out there in the blogosphere who will want to compare their experiences with mine, and maybe even be encouraged by the fact that I have been able to put up with CFS for a substantial period and still have a decent life. For that reason I will talk about it.

So what is CFS like for me? Symptoms seem to go in cycles. But I certainly wouldn't call them peaks and troughs. More like plateaus and slumps. I've just been through the worst part of a bad slump, and symptoms are just starting to ease again. By way of illustration, I'd like to describe how I felt when I woke up last Saturday morning, the worst day of my current slump.

First, it was difficult to open my eyes. I felt like I had not slept for a week, even though I had actually had a reasonable night's sleep. It really took a force of will to get my eyelids to open. As I lay there in bed I felt like every part of my body had been laden down with lead weights. I just felt like I could not raise any part of me above the horizontal. The very thought of getting up and doing anything was just inconceivable. I thought about the things I would have to do if I got up, my normal daily routine: shower, dressing, breakfast, and it just seemed too horrible even to contemplate.

I am a father now, and I no longer have the option to stay in bed. I have parental responsibilities and I take them seriously. Eventually I had to force myself to get up. Immediately I was hit by a headache, followed by waves of nausea. These would stay with me throughout the day.

The family day out that we had planned did not involve anything particularly strenuous. Even so, it was a real struggle. Most of the afternoon was spent at a cafe, reading the weekend newspapers. But although it was a fairly easy day, even ordinary actions, like getting up to go to the bathroom, required an effort of will. My legs felt like jelly, my body like a lump of lead, and my brain like porridge. This was a bad day. On a good day, I still have the same symptoms, but they are somewhat more mild.

In this posting I have only mentioned physical symptoms. I will save for another day discussion of the psychological effects of spending day after day like this.

So that is a day in the life of a CFS sufferer. We put up with it and we get on with life because we have to, and because we can.

Wednesday is Bowling Day

2006-08-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

Today (Wednesday Australian Eastern time) is bowling day. I bowl in a tenpin bowling league. How and why did this come about, I hear you ask?

Well, last year I consulted my assorted health practitioners about the possibility that I might undertake some kind of organised physical activity. They all thought this was a good idea. So I sat down and wrote a list of all the things I used to do when I was a younger man. Things like Cricket, Soccer Rugby League and Union, Aussie Rules, Athletics, Basketball, Rock Climbing, Bushwalking, Parachuting, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

I should explain that not only am I now middle-aged, I also suffer the following medical conditions, in addition to PTSD: a pituitary tumour; sleep apnoea; chronic fatigue syndrome; lumbar-sacral disc degeneration; hypertension, and probably several others that I've forgotten.

What do all of these things have in common? Perhaps you've spotted the common denominator. These are not only conditions that make it difficult for a person to participate in competitive sport, they also make a person feel absolutely disinclined to do so. They make you so tired and sore that the very thought of physical activity is downright depressing.

So I sat down with my list and one by one I crossed everything off until all that was left was tenpin bowling. I figured it would probably hurt, because of all the bending involved, but if I was going to do this I had to put up with some pain, and bowling was worth a try.

I used to enjoy bowling when I was younger, but I had never bowled in an organised league. I really had to join a league this time, because I needed to be accountable, so that I couldn't just give up. So I had a few games by myself to see if it was really feasible, and then I contacted a local bowling alley and asked about joining a league. They told me to come along on a Wednesday morning.

So I turned up at the bowling alley, and to my surprise I saw two women I knew. They were both wives of Vietnam veterans, and both active in the same veterans' organisation for which I volunteered as a pensions officer. I saw them frequently, but never knew they were bowlers. They invited me to join their league, and I've been bowling with them ever since. In fact, I won the league in my first year, but that is mainly because I started badly and inproved steadily throughout the year. That meant that my improvement always stayed one step ahead of the handicapper. It is harder this year, because my handicap now realistically reflects my ability.

So now, in my second year, I am averaging 153, and that is way beyond anything I had in mind when I started.

It still hurts, and every week it takes me about a game and a half to get the creaky old joints and muscles going, but it is a lot of fun and I'm glad I took the plunge.

Agent Orange - #2

2006-07-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, a couple of years ago I wrote a report that was presented to a parliamentary inquiry into Agent Orange and birth defects in the children of New Zealand Vietnam veterans.

In the latest follow-up to that inquiry, a report has been released by Louise Edwards, of the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at Massey University. The title of the report is Genetic Damage In New Zealand Vietnam War Veterans. The report finds:

The SCE assay conducted on a small sample of New Zealand Vietnam veterans in this study would suggest that these men have been exposed to a harmful clastogenic agent as a result of service in Vietnam. Within the strictures in interpreting the biological significance of this particular assay, there is an indication that these men may have incurred genetic damage.

It recommends further study on a larger group of veterans and, most importantly, on their children. The report suggests that detrimental health effects may be passed on through “many generations to come.”

On a personal note, I could not help noticing that my own report is cited many times throughout this new report.

It seems that progress is being made in New Zealand, and I am proud to have played a part.

First-Time Father At Fifty-Something - Part 1.

2006-07-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

I have recently become a first time father at quite an advanced age, well into my fifties. I am not usually the kind of person who shares personal information in such a public way. I started a website a few years ago as a way to give widespread access to my poetry and historical writing, not details of my private life. I do think however, that somewhere out there in the blogosphere there might be other mature age fathers who might enjoy finding out that they are not alone, and may want to compare their experiences with mine.

So why did I leave it so long before trying my hand at fatherhood? As a teenager I always thought that I would have a fairly conventional life. I would have a career, probably in a white collar environment, a wife, children and a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence. What changed all of that was the Vietnam War.

I came home from Vietnam as a 20 year old, and all of a sudden I found that I had become determined to take the road less travelled. I wanted to be different. I wanted to challenge the conventions that I had always taken for granted. What I did not realise is that I was already suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and that this condition had started to drive my thought processes.

I became the kind of person who would leave a job as a bank teller to be a male model. Or leave a job as a sales rep to be a stunt man. Or leave a job as a computer programmer to do a stint on an offshore oil rig. Or leave a job as a public servant to be a private investigator. And yes, I have done all of those things, and many more. I had more than 40 jobs in the first 20 years after leaving the army.

During that time I had no desire whatsoever to be a father. I had medium to long term relationships with some terrific women, some of which may well have resulted in marriage if my mind had been working in a different way. My unwillingness to commit to a future that involved stability and family undoubtedly contributed to the end of those relationships.

Then, when I was in my early forties, I was at last diagnosed as having PTSD. The Department of Veterans Affairs put me straight on to the highest level of disability pension, and I started getting help from the Vietnam Veterans Counselling service. Gradually my thought processes started to mellow.

It was shortly after I was granted the pension that I met the woman who is now the mother of my son. We met at university, and there was a 24 year age difference. She completed a PhD, had her first book published, and started a job in the public service, in which she rose to executive level in her early thirties. It was time for us to become a family.

I will continue this story shortly, in First Time Father At Fifty-Something - Part 2.

Happy Birthday Bro

2006-07-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Today (Australian time) is my younger brother's birthday.

My brother lives in Tasmania. That is the large island state off the south-eastern coast of Australia. That is a long way from where I live, so I don't get to see much of him these days. He is what is known in this country as a good bloke. There is no higher praise.

Happy Birthday Bro.

Agent Orange - #1

2006-07-18T21:48:00.000-07:00

In a previous posting, in which I gave some background information about my poetry, I mentioned my involvement in the Agent Orange issue. On my website you can read my history of the origins of the Agent Orange issue in Australia, entitled The Decade of Silence: Vietnam Veterans in the 1970s. I was quite gratified a year or so ago when I found that this history had become part of the South Australian secondary schools curriculum for Australian Studies.

Unfortunately, there exists in Australia a false history of the Agent Orange issue, published by the Australian War Memorial and Allen & Unwin. It was the subject of a seminar paper I gave at the Australian National University in 2002. I called the paper Lies, Damned Lies and History, and it is available on my website.

The Agent Orange history appears in a book entitled Medicine at War, a volume of the "official" history of Australia's involvement in wars in South East Asia. The author of Medicine at War is Brendan O'Keefe. The Agent Orange history however, is not written by Brendan O'Keefe, but by F B Smith. Now, readers might well ask themselves why a volume written by one author would include a single chapter by a different auther. Some readers might suspect that the author of the larger volume may have been unwilling to compromise his professional integrity in order to write a history with the political slant required by the publishers, and that the publishers therefore had to seek out a more compliant historian to write that single chapter. That suspicion is further strengthened by the appearance at the beginning of Medicine at War of a disclaimer by Brendan O'Keefe, emphasising that he had nothing to do with Smith's chapter of his book.

In his Agent Orange history, Smith claims that he came to the Agent Orange issue free of any preconceptions. Unfortunately for the credibility of Smith and his publishers however, the views expressed the Agent Orange history (published in 1994) were previously expressed by Smith, in public and in print, at the 1991 conference of the Australian Society for the History of Medicine. The conference was held in Perth, and its proceedings were published. I found a copy in the library of the Australian National University, and it should be freely available at all Australian university libraries. The conference was called The Impact of the Past on the Present.

In the process of researching my paper, Lies, Damned Lies and History, I wrote to the publishers of Medicine at War, pointing out the errors and falsehoods contained in Smith's Agent Orange chapter. Unfortunately, even though they are now well and truly aware of these issues and the anger they have provoked in the veteran community, the parties to this reprehensible publication refuse to take any action to make amends.

In 2004 I gave expert evidence to a parliamentary inquiry in New Zealand on the subject of Agent Orange and birth defects in the children of New Zealand Vietnam veterans. I also provided a written submission, which can be accessed on my website. It is called Agent Orange: A History of Deception. Although produced in response to circumstances in New Zealand, this report contains a lot of information for anybody interested in the Agent Orange issue.

My Poetry - for Students and Teachers

2006-07-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

Since my poetry is the most likely reason that people will visit my website, I thought I should put some information about my poetry, and especially about that poem, on my blog.

A couple of years ago in Britain, some English Literature types were putting together a website, listing 120 war poems of the 20th century. Somehow, through word of mouth, they heard about my poetry, and decided to include one of my poems, He Was A Mate, on their site. As it happens, I am the only living Australian on that list. In the alphabetical list of poets I appear somewhere between Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling. As you might imagine, I was quite stunned and deeply honoured when I saw that list.

That war poems site must be quite a popular one, because since my name appeared on it I have been contacted by teachers and students at university and high school level who have been teaching or studying my poetry around the world. So far they have come from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Finland and Hong Kong.

For those students and teachers, here is some background information about me and my poetry.

I served as a young Australian infantry soldier in the Vietnam War in 1967-68. It was an interesting time to be in Vietnam, as the Tet Offensive triggered the heaviest fighting of the war. Among many other operations, I participated in the biggest Australian battle of the Vietnam War, at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, in May/June 1968.

As a result of my Vietnam service, I am now on a full war service disability pension. In 1987 I began writing poems about my experience. This came out of the blue, as I had never previously written a poem in my life.

With one of my earliest poems, I wanted to portray some of the thoughts that go through the mind of a young soldier when one of his close friends is killed. I thought about my own feelings on the death of my mate Gary Polglase, on Operation Pinnaroo in April 1968, and tried to express them in a way that other veterans could identify with.

At the time, I had been reading the works of C J Dennis, an Australian poet of the First World War era. Dennis wrote in a unique style, combining the Australian vernacular with Shakespearean form. It is undoubtedly because the poetic voice of Dennis was in my head that the words of this poem came to me in lines of iambic pentameter.

I wanted the soldier in my poem to be like me in 1968: young, unsophisticated, educated only to high school level, and forced for the first time in his life to think about some pretty deep issues. He needed to be struggling to find the vocabulary to deal with what he was feeling.

So this is what I came up with:

********************

He Was A Mate

He was a mate, a real good mate 'e was,
A friendly sort of feller, liked a joke;
And if it had to happen, it's a shame
It had to happen to such a decent bloke.

But - ah, fair dinkum, don't it make you wonder
What God in Heaven's thinkin' about up there;
The way He chooses who to sacrifice
To me somehow it doesn't quite seem fair.

You'd think He'd want to take a bloke like me
Who'd be no loss to no-one here on Earth;
But no, He always seems to pick the best
Whose life amounts to ten times what mine's worth.

But I suppose He'd say it's not His fault,
It's us and how we treat our fellow man;
And if too many good blokes' lives are lost
We can't just blame it all on His great plan.

He slung us here on Earth and said "Righto,
Get on with it you blokes, the world is yours";
But all we've done is fight among ourselves
And destroy each other with our endless wars.

Now, there's a sort of aching here inside,
I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong;
But a soldier can't afford to feel this way,
He's got to grit his teeth and carry on.

So how's a bloke supposed to deal with this?
I know they trained me well, I can't complain;
But this is somethin' you don't learn about
When they teach you how to play the soldier's game.

They teach you how to shoot and how to kill,
You even learn which enemy to hate;
But nowhere in their training do you learn
How to live with the loss of a real good mate.

********************

When I came home from Vietnam at the end of 1968, I was 20 years old. I took my discharge from the army shortly after, and in the next few decades I was never able to settle. I worked at more than forty jobs in twenty years. These ranged from the fairly normal (public servant, bank teller, computer operator, computer programmer) to the more exotic (model, stuntman, private investigator and others too numerous to mention, including a stint on an offshore oil rig in the North Sea.)

Around 1980, like many other Vietnam veterans, I became politically radicalised by the Agent Orange issue. It became apparent that the health of Vietnam veterans and their children may have been damaged by herbicides and pesticides that were used in Vietnam. This need never have become an issue, except that when we sought information from our governments they chose to lie to us. The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia was formed to fight this issue, and I became its National Secretary. I also became one of the instigators of a movement to hold a Welcome Home Parade for Australia Vietnam veterans.

In November 1986, after years of political struggle and health difficulties, the National President of the VVAA, Phill Thompson, took his own life. This had a profound effect on me, and I decided to take time out. I moved from Sydney to Perth, and it was during this period of rest that I started writing poetry.

During my years in Perth, I enrolled as a part-time student at the University of Western Australia. I graduated some years later with a first class honours degree in History, and began working on a PhD. I decided to quit the PhD recently when my son was born, although I may return to it one day. I am still active in the veteran community, though only at a local level, and only within the constraints of my health and my parenting duties.

If you want any more information about me and my life, you can find it in the personal pages of my website.

First Post

2006-07-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

I've decided to use a weblog as a way of keeping my website up to date. I am about as new to this as I could possibly be, so please be patient.

One of the main reasons my website has had little new content recently is the fact that I have become a father for the first time. Babies tend not to leave you much time for anything else.

And yes, I have pictures!