Post by corsair67 on Aug 20, 2006 19:15:25 GMT 12
Thought this article from The Australian may be of interest, especially since Morrie Stanley (mentioned halfway through this article) is a Kiwi who on 18th August 1966 was a young NZ Army Lieutenant attached to the Australian patrol as their Forward Artillery Observer. His accurate calling in of artillery support played a big part in helping to break up massed attacks by the VC/NVA and added to the huge losses suffered by the Vietnamese on that fateful day.
Lest we forget.
Vets relive days when they were only 19
Rowan Callick
August 19, 2006
JOHN Schumann capped his rousing set of 60s classics on Thursday night with his most famous song - I was only 19.
The veterans gathered in the Vietnamese town of Vung Tau - who during the rest of the concert had danced, drunk Foster's and raucously called out, "John Lennon? What mob did he serve with?" - suddenly fell silent. Many clasped their arms round each other in circles of comradeship as they heard the familiar falling cadences of the unofficial anthem of all Australian Vietnam veterans.
Mick Storen, now 57, stood listening alone. He knows the song better than any of them. It's about him.
Returned from war, Storen, sitting with Schumann, talked into a tape recorder for three or four hours in the family's TV lounge in Adelaide, recalling his national service year in Vietnam from May 1969.
Schumann, who was soon to marry Storen's sister and was an opponent of the war, transformed his account into song for his band, Redgum.
Storen was the first person to hear I was only 19. Schumann asked what he thought of it, "but I couldn't speak for five or six minutes", he says. "It was not just a song about Vietnam, it was my own story. And it still affects me. Always will."
Now Storen has returned to Vietnam for the first time - in part encouraged by his mate and brother-in-law, who is also visiting the country at last.
Schumann's presence is contributing to the healing of old psychological wounds that often happens when veterans come back and are welcomed with smiles.
Around Australia yesterday, thousands of Vietnam veterans and their supporters gathered for ceremonies to mark the 40th anniversary of the battle of Long Tan, near Vung Tau.
It was Australia's bloodiest battle of the war, with the country losing 18 soldiers over hours of brutal fighting against a force 10 times bigger.
Politicians from John Howard down used the occasion to continue the reconciliation process with the nation's poorly treated veterans.
In Canberra, more than 1000 mostly grey-haired bemedalled veterans, some walking with a limp, the legacy of wounds or age, gathered for the colourful ceremony on a windy but sunny day in front of the War Memorial's Vietnam monument.
A flock of squawking galahs in gum trees competed with the Prime Minister's speech, in which he repeated his apology for the shabby treatment given to Australian soldiers on their return from active service in Vietnam.
Governor-General Michael Jeffery, himself a veteran of the war, said it was "to our country's shame" that it did not recognise veterans until the national welcome home parade in 1987.
"Be proud of what you achieved," he told fellow veterans. "Hold your heads high in the knowledge that you were the equal of the very best that ever went away to serve our nation, from the Boer War to the present day."
The most poignant moment came when two Long Tan veterans, Morrie Stanley and Dave Sabben, read the names of the soldiers who died in the desperate combat. The youngest was 19 years old, the oldest 22. All except three were national servicemen.
Mick Wilson was in a different uniform yesterday than the army-issue jungle greens worn during his two-year tour from 1971-72. Dressed in the colours of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club, Mr Wilson, who worked on "ordnance" in Vietnam, said that while overdue recognition had finally been given, many Vietnam veterans "were still hiding in the woods" suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Sydney, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson admitted many more Vietnam veterans should have been awarded bravery medals and Australia should be ashamed of the way survivors were treated.
In remote Cape York, about 400 veterans, many with their families or mates, gathered at a small cenotaph at Kalpowar, a former cattle station near Lakefield National Park, for a service and a minute's silence followed by hours of yarn-spinning.
Storen was an infantryman with A Company of the 6th Royal Australian Regiment, whose D Company had lost 17 soldiers at Long Tan. His own ordeal, captured in Schumann's song, was caused by land mines sown by the Viet Cong. He had been only 19 when first called up, but was 20 by the time he arrived in Vietnam.
His platoon was patrolling through an area "like mallee scrub". They located a well-worn path, deployed into a circular defensive position, and began preparing to eat lunch. As the platoon commander, Lieutenant Peter Hinds, took off his pack and sat down, he set off a mine.
Storen, "with the world's smallest war wound", was evacuated in the same flight as the lieutenant's body. After a week in hospital, his first operation was in Long Tan plantation, building the cross there as a memorial to the 18 Australians who died there three years earlier. "You can imagine what effect that had," he says.
Hundreds of veterans assembled yesterday afternoon around the unadorned cross in the middle of the Long Tan plantation, whose trees are still being tapped by villagers.
The ceremony was a plain affair. There was no Last Post, no prayers, no medals. Even the plaque explaining the significance of the cross is removed after each commemoration, and only brought back for the next.
Additional reporting: Mark Dodd, Ian Gerard, Nico Hines
Lest we forget.
Vets relive days when they were only 19
Rowan Callick
August 19, 2006
JOHN Schumann capped his rousing set of 60s classics on Thursday night with his most famous song - I was only 19.
The veterans gathered in the Vietnamese town of Vung Tau - who during the rest of the concert had danced, drunk Foster's and raucously called out, "John Lennon? What mob did he serve with?" - suddenly fell silent. Many clasped their arms round each other in circles of comradeship as they heard the familiar falling cadences of the unofficial anthem of all Australian Vietnam veterans.
Mick Storen, now 57, stood listening alone. He knows the song better than any of them. It's about him.
Returned from war, Storen, sitting with Schumann, talked into a tape recorder for three or four hours in the family's TV lounge in Adelaide, recalling his national service year in Vietnam from May 1969.
Schumann, who was soon to marry Storen's sister and was an opponent of the war, transformed his account into song for his band, Redgum.
Storen was the first person to hear I was only 19. Schumann asked what he thought of it, "but I couldn't speak for five or six minutes", he says. "It was not just a song about Vietnam, it was my own story. And it still affects me. Always will."
Now Storen has returned to Vietnam for the first time - in part encouraged by his mate and brother-in-law, who is also visiting the country at last.
Schumann's presence is contributing to the healing of old psychological wounds that often happens when veterans come back and are welcomed with smiles.
Around Australia yesterday, thousands of Vietnam veterans and their supporters gathered for ceremonies to mark the 40th anniversary of the battle of Long Tan, near Vung Tau.
It was Australia's bloodiest battle of the war, with the country losing 18 soldiers over hours of brutal fighting against a force 10 times bigger.
Politicians from John Howard down used the occasion to continue the reconciliation process with the nation's poorly treated veterans.
In Canberra, more than 1000 mostly grey-haired bemedalled veterans, some walking with a limp, the legacy of wounds or age, gathered for the colourful ceremony on a windy but sunny day in front of the War Memorial's Vietnam monument.
A flock of squawking galahs in gum trees competed with the Prime Minister's speech, in which he repeated his apology for the shabby treatment given to Australian soldiers on their return from active service in Vietnam.
Governor-General Michael Jeffery, himself a veteran of the war, said it was "to our country's shame" that it did not recognise veterans until the national welcome home parade in 1987.
"Be proud of what you achieved," he told fellow veterans. "Hold your heads high in the knowledge that you were the equal of the very best that ever went away to serve our nation, from the Boer War to the present day."
The most poignant moment came when two Long Tan veterans, Morrie Stanley and Dave Sabben, read the names of the soldiers who died in the desperate combat. The youngest was 19 years old, the oldest 22. All except three were national servicemen.
Mick Wilson was in a different uniform yesterday than the army-issue jungle greens worn during his two-year tour from 1971-72. Dressed in the colours of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club, Mr Wilson, who worked on "ordnance" in Vietnam, said that while overdue recognition had finally been given, many Vietnam veterans "were still hiding in the woods" suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Sydney, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson admitted many more Vietnam veterans should have been awarded bravery medals and Australia should be ashamed of the way survivors were treated.
In remote Cape York, about 400 veterans, many with their families or mates, gathered at a small cenotaph at Kalpowar, a former cattle station near Lakefield National Park, for a service and a minute's silence followed by hours of yarn-spinning.
Storen was an infantryman with A Company of the 6th Royal Australian Regiment, whose D Company had lost 17 soldiers at Long Tan. His own ordeal, captured in Schumann's song, was caused by land mines sown by the Viet Cong. He had been only 19 when first called up, but was 20 by the time he arrived in Vietnam.
His platoon was patrolling through an area "like mallee scrub". They located a well-worn path, deployed into a circular defensive position, and began preparing to eat lunch. As the platoon commander, Lieutenant Peter Hinds, took off his pack and sat down, he set off a mine.
Storen, "with the world's smallest war wound", was evacuated in the same flight as the lieutenant's body. After a week in hospital, his first operation was in Long Tan plantation, building the cross there as a memorial to the 18 Australians who died there three years earlier. "You can imagine what effect that had," he says.
Hundreds of veterans assembled yesterday afternoon around the unadorned cross in the middle of the Long Tan plantation, whose trees are still being tapped by villagers.
The ceremony was a plain affair. There was no Last Post, no prayers, no medals. Even the plaque explaining the significance of the cross is removed after each commemoration, and only brought back for the next.
Additional reporting: Mark Dodd, Ian Gerard, Nico Hines
