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My name is Janice Christina Anne McCarthy,
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and I served at the 1st
Australian Field Hospital
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in Vung Tau in Vietnam.
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My name is Steve Kyritsis.
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I'm a National Serviceman,
and I was called up
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in June 1966
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for two years service
in the Australian forces.
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I served in Vietnam in 1967 and '68
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with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, first tour.
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My name's Bill Cornford.
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I was a conscript.
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I became sort of permanent army,
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but I spent all of 1969 in Vietnam.
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Prior to that, I was at the Ordnance
Training Centre in Bonegilla, near Albury.
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My name is Barry Aumann.
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I served with the Australian Army
in the engineers
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from May 1967 until the end of February 1968.
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Well, I was born on a very small island
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in Greece called Nisyros.
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That was back in 1947.
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And we arrived here in Melbourne in 1959.
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In 1963, My parents wanted to become
Australian citizens
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to get the pension of course.
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And Mum said to me
'Why don't you join us?'
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'You've got nothing to lose.' I said 'Mum,
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at this stage there’s no benefit.’
00:02:03:14 - 00:02:05:19
She said 'Come on!'.
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At the end of the day, I went along with them
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and in 1963 I became an Australian citizen
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not knowing that three years later I would be called up as a National Serviceman.
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I registered with conscription, of course, and
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luckily or unluckily, whichever way you look at it,
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my numbers came up and in June 1966,
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I was in the Australian forces with my first training at Puckapunyal.
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I know a lot of my mates were concerned
that they would get called up,
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but that didn't seem to worry me
all that much.
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Throughout my childhood,
I'd seen pictures of people in the army.
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My father had been in the army
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prior to the Second World War
and during the Second World War.
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My uncles, my great grandfather,
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they'd been in the First World War, and
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I was just surrounded
by people who had been in both
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the First and Second World War.
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So it didn’t sort of
hit me as much as it might have done
00:03:27:02 - 00:03:31:18
and certainly not as bad as some of my mates who desperately didn't want to be called up.
00:03:31:18 - 00:03:34:19
Well, after I finished my midwifery training,
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I trotted around Europe for a few months
and decided it was time to come home.
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And I came home and on the way home
00:03:45:06 - 00:03:48:09
I visited a friend in Singapore
00:03:48:09 - 00:03:54:14
who was in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Service
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and went up and saw her in the mess.
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And I thought "Oh, well, this isn't bad. I could do with this."
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Anyway, when I came home I went
00:04:06:12 - 00:04:08:13
back to Box Hill for a few months
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because I wasn't sure whether, you know,
it was just itchy feet.
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But I decided after about seven or eight months that I would join the army.
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And coming from a country town
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where Puckapunyal was very close by,
I guess that was a bit of an influence.
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Deep down, I think I would have been a little bit disappointed if I hadn't been called up.
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I think that has perhaps
taken me decades to actually admit that.
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I wouldn’t have been broken hearted
if I hadn't been called up.
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But there was a sense of adventure.
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It also appealed as a challenge.
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I enjoyed the trip over, that was good fun.
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We kept stopping at all these places.
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I was able to see Darwin, I'd never been to Darwin.
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I'd never been
to Singapore, never been to Penang.
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And because the plane was dropping
stuff off on the way, we'd get in fairly
00:05:06:13 - 00:05:11:00
early and off we'd trot and go
and have a look at the scenery.
00:05:11:00 - 00:05:15:22
So the trip over was quite good. I enjoyed that.
00:05:15:22 - 00:05:24:05
But landing in Vietnam,
that changed my view.
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The trip from the airport to the camp that we were involved in,
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that sort of, Vietnam was a bit of a mess.
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Everything was on a war footing,
as you might understand.
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And you know, everywhere you went
there were guns and there were tanks
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and there were military vehicles
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and barricades and all that sort of stuff.
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And that was a bit of a culture shock.
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Culture shock, that's
probably not the right word, but
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I hadn't sort of expected it.
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I hadn't sort of mentally processed that until I got there.
00:06:06:15 - 00:06:09:22
And then I thought ‘Ah,
yeah, this is for real’.
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We landed in Saigon on the 12th of December 1967.
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It was a bit frightening.
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I mean, you could feel
this country was at war.
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There were lots of Americans about.
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A lot of helicopters at the airport.
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Aeroplanes, of course, American aeroplanes.
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So we really felt, hey,
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we are approaching to do what we're supposed to do here
00:06:49:24 - 00:06:51:24
in South Vietnam.
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Well, at the airfield
there were hundreds of military aircraft,
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I'd never seen so many aircraft
in my life.
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Helicopters, planes, everything.
00:07:04:16 - 00:07:08:07
But then we went out to the hospital
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and we were on a beach sandy area.
00:07:12:01 - 00:07:14:11
And I've never seen
so much sand in my life
00:07:14:11 - 00:07:18:01
and there was not a bit of grass.
00:07:18:01 - 00:07:19:12
Not a bit of grass.
00:07:19:12 - 00:07:23:12
And it was very grey
and I thought ‘Oh, what have I done?’
00:07:23:12 - 00:07:25:20
But anyway, I got used to it.
00:07:25:23 - 00:07:27:21
I've never forgotten
00:07:27:21 - 00:07:31:13
when we were at the airport in Manila,
because we'd been sort of
00:07:31:13 - 00:07:34:21
put in a corner out of the way
00:07:34:21 - 00:07:39:02
and told to stay there
until someone came to get us.
00:07:39:02 - 00:07:45:08
And I guess we were all feeling pretty grown up, puffed up, full of ourselves.
00:07:45:08 - 00:07:49:21
We'd sort of handled
everything that the Army had thrown at us
00:07:49:21 - 00:07:54:10
during recruit
training and corp training and Canungra.
00:07:54:10 - 00:07:58:06
I guess we had our chest
puffed out a bit and a bit of a swagger,
00:07:58:06 - 00:08:02:01
and this woman came up
and she could have been
00:08:02:01 - 00:08:05:16
the mother of any of us,
and she was quite emotional.
00:08:05:17 - 00:08:08:10
She said 'Oh, but you all look so young'.
00:08:08:10 - 00:08:12:10
Kind of deflated us a little bit.
00:08:12:10 - 00:08:19:10
I was in charge of a unit that was responsible for identifying parts.
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It sounds silly, but for example,
if you were out in the field
00:08:24:03 - 00:08:26:17
somewhere and something broke,
00:08:26:17 - 00:08:30:05
you would send back to get a replacement.
00:08:30:05 - 00:08:33:13
Now, if the replacement wasn't in country,
00:08:33:13 - 00:08:37:05
I'd get your request.
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And that was then my job
and my team of people's job to find it.
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I was in an infantry battalion.
00:08:45:06 - 00:08:46:23
I was a rifleman.
00:08:46:23 - 00:08:49:23
And also I was in charge
00:08:50:01 - 00:08:54:19
in our platoon of the M79
grenade launcher.
00:08:55:14 - 00:08:58:18
And this M79 launcher
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is similar to a rifle, but more powerful.
00:09:02:22 - 00:09:03:21
Very much more powerful.
00:09:03:21 - 00:09:07:08
So I was in charge in our platoon of that.
00:09:07:16 - 00:09:12:16
If the battalions were out, you got gunshot wounds,
00:09:12:16 - 00:09:17:15
you got sadly some amputations,
particularly if
00:09:17:15 - 00:09:20:20
they were in minefields
and things like that.
00:09:20:20 - 00:09:23:14
Occasionally you got an accident,
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you know, from trucks
and things like that.
00:09:25:20 - 00:09:27:07
That was just occasional.
00:09:27:07 - 00:09:32:06
But mainly
it was boys who were wounded and ill.
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But in the wards when I was up there,
we had an outbreak of malaria
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and that was very, very busy
and the poor boys
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were very sick actually,
and they were coming off the choppers.
00:09:43:22 - 00:09:46:11
The choppers were coming in all the time
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and we had to set up another ward
00:09:50:06 - 00:09:54:12
and we also had to put them
over at 36th Evacuation Hospital
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over at the airfield with the Americans
because we just ran out of beds.
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The trauma in some regard,
I guess I was a bit used to.
00:10:04:15 - 00:10:09:18
But of course, you know,
they were Australian boys and
00:10:09:18 - 00:10:15:11
we really worked very hard to make sure they were going to be okay.
00:10:15:17 - 00:10:25:04
Engineers were responsible for building roads, the airstrip, electricity, water supply.
00:10:25:04 - 00:10:29:13
And there was a desperate
push on to get people out
00:10:29:13 - 00:10:33:11
of living under canvas into buildings.
00:10:33:11 - 00:10:38:06
One photo I've got, we poured the concrete slab to the floor of the building
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and they'd already put a refrigerator
and cardboard boxes on the slab.
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We hadn't even started
to put the building up yet.
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We were under constant pressure
00:10:51:08 - 00:10:54:11
to just get a lot
of work done in a short time.
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The Tet Offensive was a
00:10:57:11 - 00:10:59:17
massive operation.
00:11:02:03 - 00:11:07:04
Of course, 3RAR and our platoon
00:11:07:04 - 00:11:12:03
found ourselves fighting in towns
00:11:12:03 - 00:11:16:24
such as Baria, Long Dien, Hoa Long.
00:11:16:24 - 00:11:21:03
And it was nothing like what
we were trained to do.
00:11:21:15 - 00:11:24:17
This was in the main streets
00:11:24:17 - 00:11:28:06
fighting the enemy house to house.
00:11:28:14 - 00:11:32:04
There wasn't a jungle to fight the enemy.
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It was different
to what we were trained for.
00:11:34:23 - 00:11:39:22
But certainly, after a while,
after a few days, we managed to
00:11:41:03 - 00:11:43:14
get rid of the enemy from these towns.
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We lost a few soldiers, but thankfully,
00:11:48:05 - 00:11:50:20
a lot of us returned back to our base
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I think two or three weeks later.
00:11:53:00 - 00:11:58:14
We tried to look after ourselves
00:11:58:14 - 00:12:02:21
and pay night I think was on a Thursday.
00:12:02:21 - 00:12:05:13
I might be wrong,
but I think it was a Thursday night.
00:12:05:13 - 00:12:11:00
And on pay nights,
not that you drew much pay anyway,
00:12:11:00 - 00:12:15:24
We'd have a function somewhere,
in one of the sergeant's messes.
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We used to have a prawn and beer night.
00:12:19:10 - 00:12:23:09
I don't know what we did,
but I know one had a bingo night
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and another was a karaoke
type night or whatever,
00:12:27:23 - 00:12:31:07
so you'd invite people from the other
units.
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The best one and the one
you never missed out on was the one at the
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Air Force Sergeant's mess
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because they flew in Australian meat pies.
00:12:41:06 - 00:12:45:01
They'd fly them in from Darwin
with real tomato sauce.
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We used to, on Sunday actually,
00:12:48:10 - 00:12:53:15
occasionally go out to the local
00:12:53:15 - 00:12:58:01
area where the nuns were
that had an orphanage
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and we'd go out there and work
and do a few things
00:13:01:14 - 00:13:05:11
and mainly talk to the kids
and play with the kids.
00:13:05:11 - 00:13:11:13
And it was good for the boys, particularly
because they had children at home.
00:13:11:13 - 00:13:13:21
So they were getting a bit of,
00:13:13:21 - 00:13:18:06
you know, away from the theatre a bit.
00:13:18:06 - 00:13:24:06
But we went in an ambulance with a gun jeep up in front
00:13:24:06 - 00:13:27:02
and flak jackets on
and what have you.
00:13:27:02 - 00:13:29:07
So that was different.
00:13:29:07 - 00:13:34:03
But it crossed my mind, I thought ‘I hope
my mother has no idea what I'm doing’.
00:13:34:19 - 00:13:40:03
I think one of my fondest memories
is the fantastic relationship
00:13:40:03 - 00:13:44:10
that there was between the regulars
and the national servicemen.
00:13:44:19 - 00:13:48:18
There really was no distinction at all.
00:13:49:19 - 00:13:51:23
I mean,
there was a lot of good natured banter,
00:13:51:23 - 00:13:53:24
which could be fairly brutal at times.
00:13:53:24 - 00:13:56:19
But it was always good natured.
00:13:57:13 - 00:13:58:19
Always.
00:13:59:05 - 00:14:01:07
I think to me
that was one of the highlights.
00:14:01:16 - 00:14:06:02
Coral Balmoral didn't finish until about the 6th of June
00:14:06:02 - 00:14:10:18
but around about the 2nd of June
we returned back to our base.
00:14:10:18 - 00:14:14:07
We spent a day or two at the base,
00:14:15:00 - 00:14:17:14
and then we flew home.
00:14:17:14 - 00:14:21:10
We flew back on a Qantas flight
00:14:21:10 - 00:14:24:10
at about 11:00 at night.
00:14:24:11 - 00:14:27:02
We landed at the Sydney airport.
00:14:27:02 - 00:14:29:14
There was nobody to greet us.
00:14:29:14 - 00:14:34:06
And I think this is
where the Australian Government
00:14:34:06 - 00:14:37:18
made lots of mistakes.
00:14:40:18 - 00:14:42:24
I think they've learned their lessons.
00:14:42:24 - 00:14:46:06
Now landing at 11 o’clock at night
00:14:46:06 - 00:14:51:01
with nobody to greet
us, I think was a very low point.
00:14:52:10 - 00:14:56:07
I mean
you are in a war zone in the morning
00:14:56:07 - 00:15:02:14
and you're landing in Sydney 11 hours later.
00:15:02:14 - 00:15:04:20
It wasn't good.
00:15:05:02 - 00:15:09:02
The thing that got me most was arriving in
00:15:09:02 - 00:15:13:18
Mascot Airport in Sydney
well after midnight,
00:15:13:18 - 00:15:17:01
and I'm told the reason for arriving at
00:15:17:01 - 00:15:20:06
that time of night was so
as the public wouldn't see us.
00:15:20:06 - 00:15:24:06
But we got off the plane
and there's a whole plane of soldiers
00:15:24:06 - 00:15:26:10
that were going on leave
and they were going on long
00:15:26:10 - 00:15:29:01
leave like about six or eight weeks
or something like that.
00:15:29:01 - 00:15:32:08
And they had to be paid money,
real cash money.
00:15:32:08 - 00:15:35:24
This is the days before,
you know, credit cards and stuff.
00:15:35:24 - 00:15:41:05
And there were all these soldiers running around holding weapons, guarding the money.
00:15:41:05 - 00:15:45:03
And it was sort of like shattering
00:15:45:03 - 00:15:49:07
to get off the plane and think ‘Oh,
I'm coming back home to Australia where
00:15:49:07 - 00:15:52:24
all that war part is gone,’ and there's
all these guys holding weapons.
00:15:52:24 - 00:15:55:08
That was a bit disconcerting.
00:15:55:18 - 00:16:00:09
What you found was, I went back to Ingleburn and,
00:16:00:09 - 00:16:03:17
you know, you'd be sort of sitting
in the mess afterwards,
00:16:03:17 - 00:16:07:11
it didn't matter where you were,
but people would be talking away
00:16:07:11 - 00:16:10:16
and they'd be talking about little things
and things
00:16:10:16 - 00:16:14:03
that you probably talked
about beforehand too.
00:16:14:03 - 00:16:16:19
And I found myself
00:16:16:19 - 00:16:19:20
sort of getting up and going
because I thought ‘Oh,
00:16:19:20 - 00:16:22:10
you know, they're making mountains
out of molehills’.
00:16:22:10 - 00:16:27:04
And I guess it took me about twelve months
to realise
00:16:27:04 - 00:16:32:18
that life was a bit different back home than it was over there.
00:16:33:07 - 00:16:35:05
So I would have had
00:16:35:15 - 00:16:40:02
probably about three weeks leave,
most of which I spent picking pears
00:16:40:02 - 00:16:43:24
because that was always
our very busiest time of the year.
00:16:43:24 - 00:16:51:16
And then I had to report to the Simpson barracks at Watsonia, which I did.
00:16:51:16 - 00:16:56:14
And he said 'Well, get yourself up
to 21 Construction at Puckapunyal’.
00:16:56:14 - 00:16:59:13
So I think I got there
just about lunchtime.
00:16:59:13 - 00:17:03:09
And in some ways, I was very fortunate
00:17:03:09 - 00:17:07:05
because that six months
was really my transition time.
00:17:07:05 - 00:17:15:18
I was still in the Army, but I was spending a lot of time back in my previous occupation.
00:17:15:18 - 00:17:21:16
And I've often felt for some of my counterparts who, in some cases,
00:17:21:16 - 00:17:25:18
they were out operations
one week, and a week later,
00:17:25:18 - 00:17:29:16
they're back in Australia,
they're out of the Army,
00:17:29:16 - 00:17:34:01
they've lost all of their mates
for the last two years
00:17:34:01 - 00:17:37:09
and they're on their own.
00:17:37:09 - 00:17:41:14
And I think that in some cases
would have been very, very difficult.
00:17:42:03 - 00:17:43:06
You've probably heard the story
00:17:43:06 - 00:17:46:02
that the public tended to blame
00:17:46:07 - 00:17:50:00
the people that were there
rather than the government
00:17:50:00 - 00:17:52:09
for the chaos that had become Vietnam.
00:17:52:09 - 00:17:57:15
And one thing that still sticks with me
is I remember my father,
00:17:57:15 - 00:18:00:07
he was an old soldier
from the Second World War,
00:18:00:08 - 00:18:03:21
a member of the RSL up in Morwell, and
00:18:03:21 - 00:18:09:10
he wanted to take his son down
to the RSL and introduce him.
00:18:09:10 - 00:18:13:22
So I had to dress up in the uniform,
the whole bit, and go to the RSL.
00:18:13:22 - 00:18:18:02
Now the RSL made you a member
automatically if you returned from Vietnam,
00:18:18:02 - 00:18:21:11
You didn't have to apply,
they just made you a member.
00:18:21:11 - 00:18:27:24
So I go into the RSL and the old man is sort of showing off his boy.
00:18:27:24 - 00:18:32:01
And most of the guys were pretty good,
but one of them came up to me
00:18:32:01 - 00:18:35:14
and he said ‘So you're one of the baby killers, are you?’.
00:18:35:14 - 00:18:38:16
And I remember that.
00:18:38:16 - 00:18:42:03
This was a Second World War veteran,
and he said that.
00:18:42:03 - 00:18:47:08
I didn't go back into an RSL for 35 years after that.
00:18:47:17 - 00:18:50:17
I became a protest marcher.
00:18:50:17 - 00:18:54:10
It took me about five minutes to realise we shouldn’t have been there.
00:18:54:10 - 00:19:01:13
After seeing what we’d really done to the Vietnamese without really helping them very much
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I just felt sorry for them. I thought ‘We shouldn’t be doing this’.
00:19:07:13 - 00:19:10:06
And I joined in with everybody else.
00:19:10:20 - 00:19:13:20
We were told
we weren't to wear our uniforms
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out of the unit areas where we were
because there were a few problems.
00:19:19:09 - 00:19:27:12
A few soldiers had been not assaulted,
I guess, verbally abused and things.
00:19:27:12 - 00:19:32:06
But what we felt,
and we did feel very strongly about it,
00:19:32:06 - 00:19:35:10
was that it shouldn't have been, you know,
00:19:35:10 - 00:19:43:00
everyone has a right to march and carry on about things if they don't agree with it,
00:19:43:00 - 00:19:44:22
but not to abuse the troops.
00:19:44:22 - 00:19:53:02
I mean, they were sent there by the government and that was the way it happened.
00:19:53:02 - 00:19:55:17
The soldiers deserved better
during that time
00:19:55:17 - 00:19:59:20
of the moratoriums and things,
and that used to upset us a bit.
00:20:00:03 - 00:20:05:02
I think there was an error
made by the population,
00:20:05:02 - 00:20:08:20
by the demonstrators, to pick on us
00:20:08:20 - 00:20:11:15
instead of the government really.
00:20:11:15 - 00:20:14:19
The government made a decision,
it wasn't us.
00:20:14:19 - 00:20:18:16
We were called up. We did our duty as soldiers.
00:20:18:16 - 00:20:23:20
And I think we all should be
proud of that, 100 per cent.
00:20:24:21 - 00:20:29:02
But saying that, things have changed.
00:20:30:05 - 00:20:39:17
I think we are looked upon as, I wouldn’t say the word heroes, but
00:20:39:17 - 00:20:46:04
we did a good job. Job well done. All the Nashos that served in Vietnam.
00:20:46:04 - 00:20:48:14
It was a job well done.
00:20:48:14 - 00:20:55:09
I never experienced any hostility or antagonism at all.
00:20:55:09 - 00:21:03:05
But I did quickly realise that people weren't
that interested in my experiences.
00:21:03:21 - 00:21:07:01
I think it was more
a case of 'Well, he's back
00:21:07:01 - 00:21:11:20
and he seems to be okay, you know,
so let's just move along.
00:21:11:20 - 00:21:18:24
We won't take the chance of causing,
you know, upsetting him or anything'.
00:21:19:18 - 00:21:28:02
And then it was compounded as the demonstrations and that grew bigger
00:21:28:02 - 00:21:31:05
and that was difficult.
00:21:31:05 - 00:21:35:02
On one level, I felt that
they had the right to demonstrate.
00:21:35:02 - 00:21:39:22
That was part of the reason
that we'd been fighting.
00:21:39:22 - 00:21:44:01
And that was the reason
why Australians had fought in the First
00:21:44:01 - 00:21:47:24
and the Second World Wars,
to give people that freedom.
00:21:47:24 - 00:21:52:07
Back then, and I still do,
00:21:52:08 - 00:21:56:17
I would have loved to have seen from
some of those people demonstrating
00:21:56:17 - 00:22:01:06
if they had expressed appreciation of the fact
that they had the freedom to demonstrate,
00:22:01:06 - 00:22:05:02
because I don't think there's any doubt,
they wouldn't have lasted
00:22:05:02 - 00:22:08:23
their counterparts in North Vietnam,
if they'd attempted to demonstrate
00:22:08:23 - 00:22:12:22
against the war, well, they wouldn't
have lasted very long at all.
00:22:13:08 - 00:22:17:04
Anzac Day to me is a time of remembrance.
00:22:17:04 - 00:22:21:00
It’s not about the medals you’re wearing or anything else.
00:22:21:00 - 00:22:25:21
It’s remembering. Remembering those who’ve gone before
00:22:25:21 - 00:22:27:24
and those that didn’t come back.
00:22:27:24 - 00:22:31:15
I just think of the people who
00:22:31:15 - 00:22:34:04
for no fault of their own,
00:22:34:04 - 00:22:35:17
lost their lives or
00:22:35:17 - 00:22:39:10
lost some part of their being like,
00:22:39:13 - 00:22:43:05
you know, their mental health
or have lost a limb or whatever,
00:22:43:11 - 00:22:47:17
and they did it because they were just
00:22:47:17 - 00:22:51:01
normal people who thought they were doing
the right thing.
00:22:51:01 - 00:22:53:19
Whether they were or not is irrelevant
because,
00:22:53:19 - 00:23:00:12
you know, they were doing something that they thought was patriotic and
00:23:00:12 - 00:23:03:14
they suffered the consequences of that.
00:23:03:14 - 00:23:10:18
And for that, I feel sorry and grateful.
00:23:10:18 - 00:23:15:19
I had a phone call
from one of my mates here in Melbourne
00:23:15:19 - 00:23:18:23
back in 2000.
00:23:18:23 - 00:23:24:18
He said 'Steve, why don't you join us
to march on Anzac Day?'
00:23:24:18 - 00:23:29:09
Now I'd never marched on Anzac Day prior
to that,
00:23:29:09 - 00:23:33:02
since 1968 when I returned home.
00:23:33:02 - 00:23:36:08
That's 30 years later.
00:23:36:08 - 00:23:38:18
And I did go to Anzac Day.
00:23:38:18 - 00:23:42:07
We marched under our banner.
00:23:42:07 - 00:23:47:17
And I have to say that was my rehabilitation,
00:23:47:17 - 00:23:58:15
my returning back to commemorating events
such as Anzac Day and marching.
00:23:58:15 - 00:24:03:16
And I have to say I haven't missed one year after that.
00:24:03:16 - 00:24:07:13
Every year we march on Anzac Day. We are proud.
00:24:07:13 - 00:24:10:11
We feel proud, of course.
00:24:11:04 - 00:24:17:13
But Anzac Day now means a lot more to me
than it did in the past.
00:24:17:13 - 00:24:23:15
And I think part of that is because I have to appreciate the life that I've enjoyed.
00:24:23:15 - 00:24:27:03
And along with that comes the realisation
00:24:27:03 - 00:24:32:05
of what some of my colleagues have missed out on through no fault of their own.
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