Warrnambool Vietnam veterans say war bonds have helped heal their scars

THEY never met but James 'Bim' Affleck and Robert James Gillard shared a connection like no other.

Both were young men of 21 on their tours of duty in Vietnam. Although a few years apart, Robert in 1968 and James in 1971, they were in the same unit, A Squadron 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the armoured corps.

James came home to the family farm outside Warrnambool and 16 years later he joined his former comrades in Sydney's 1987 Welcome Home Parade for the Vietnam veterans.

More than 22,000 service personnel marched to the cheers of 100,000 onlookers in what was a pivotal moment in the healing process for many left emotionally scarred by their role in the divisive war.

Trooper Robert Gillard was killed when his armoured personnel carrier hit a mine at Bien Hoa on August 2, 1968. But, like the more than 520 other Australians who gave their lives in the conflict, he was at the parade in spirit, represented by friends, relatives and comrades bearing Australian flags.

His name plaque was on the flagstaff James carried proudly that day, an honour he still holds dear. James was among the two coach-loads of 89 south-west veterans who travelled to Sydney that October long-weekend to enjoy the welcome home parade, unit reunions and concert that provided long overdue recognition after years of exclusion, hostility and misunderstanding.

Some had felt unwelcome in their own RSL clubs, others were the target of public abuse and most struggled without assistance to reassimilate into civilian life. Post traumatic stress disorder pervaded their lives and those of their families, going undiagnosed and untreated for decades.

Unable to function without the structure and mateship of the army, many re-enlisted.

Others self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Some simply couldn't cope. A 2005 study showed suicide rates among Vietnam veterans were 21 per cent higher than for the general male population.

However, Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia (VVAA) Victoria branch president Bob Elworthy believes the figure is much higher.

For Warrnambool veteran and co-organiser of the south-west trip to the welcome home weekend, Tony O'Dowd, the event was a cathartic experience.

"It was probably the first time since we'd been home that we were thanked or recognised,' he recalls.

"It was terrific marching in Sydney, seeing people line the streets and clapping."

Vets came from Portland, Port Fairy, Hamilton, Warrnambool, Cobden, Camperdown, Colac and Geelong for the trip to Sydney.

So reticent had they been about their service that many were unaware that their travelling companions had also fought in Vietnam until that weekend.

"There were guys people worked beside or even lived next door to who didn't know they were in Vietnam. A lot of us just didn't talk about it," reflects Tony, a radio operator in 104 Signals Squadron, who spent 12 months in Vietnam until April 1970.

It was a year that still plays out in his mind more than 50 years later. Like most veterans, it took decades to receive a diagnosis of PTSD and the treatment that would allow him to lay the ghosts to rest.

More recently he's discovered the therapeutic benefits of writing.

"It started off as a family history and branched into army training and progressed from there," he explains.

"Some things you find hard to write about, but I tend to think if you write about the good and the funny things, the other stuff won't seem so bad.

"The army brings out a sense of humour."

It was humour that Warrnambool's Jeff Maddocks says has also helped him deal with the baggage of Vietnam.

"I still tell people that I got two sea cruises and a backpacker's holiday out of it," the former Sydney bus conductor quips.

In reality, the 'holiday' was a dangerous 12-month deployment from July 1968, during which the regular soldier had stints as a machine gunner, rifleman, platoon medic and signalman.

It took nearly 30 years before the impact of his service was diagnosed as PTSD, a condition he believes contributed to a marriage breakdown, temperament changes and difficulty fulfilling his role as local RSL sub-branch president.

Long-term treatment and counselling control the condition, but Jeff says there's no better tonic than the brotherhood of veterans.

"You can talk to a Vietnam veteran quicker than you can talk to a psychiatrist because they've been through what you've been through and they've done what you've done," he says, citing the importance of the vets' weekly coffee catch-ups at the Warrnambool RSL clubrooms.

For many vets, like Jeff, it was a trip back to Vietnam in 2003 that provided a sense of closure.

"I suppose I got it out of my system," he says.

It's something that former long-time Warrnambool RSL president John Miles can relate to all too well after a fraught return to civilian life.

A transport driver in the service corps in the second intake of national servicemen in 1966, John recalls being bussed to Watsonia barracks on the day of his return home and discharged from the army three hours later.

"There was no debrief, no support whatsoever. It was very, very hard."

When he tried to transfer his RSL membership from his hometown of Bairnsdale to Warrnambool after moving here, he was greeted by a World War II Digger with the words "you're not one of us".

John walked away from the RSL for 20 years, didn't march on Anzac Day for 15 years and turned to alcohol to self-medicate. That rejection became a driving factor in his successful lobbying for a local veteran support centre in his later RSL service.

But it was going back to Vietnam in peacetime that proved the most healing experience of all.

"It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders," he reveals.

Fifty-five years after serving in Vietnam, Port Fairy RSL branch president Doug Nolte can't bring himself to watch war movies.

"It's just too disturbing," says the one-time rifleman and forward scout who spent most of 1968 with 1RAR, living on his nerves and functioning on little sleep. He copped a shrapnel wound to his leg and suffered a back injury for his trouble.

The injuries healed but the trauma lingered after coming home.

"I found it very difficult to deal with everyday things and to associate with some of my past friends. They were still on the level we were before we went away, but we had to grow up very quick and it was hard to blend back in with your mates' lifestyle," Doug explains. "It mucked up your life."

He completed a mature-age building apprenticeship and became a workaholic to forget the bad times, his temperament changed and his relationships suffered.

No amount of treatment can ever erase the spectre of Vietnam for Doug, now 76.

"I guess it still haunts you, even today. When you're down a bit you still have dreams. I'm still seeing doctors and trying to overcome issues but most of the vets you talk to have similar problems."

Ken Cumming clearly remembers the disconnect with his former peers on his return home.

"When we came back, they (mates) just seemed to talk rubbish. We'd been in a war zone, but they just talked about cars and football," he recalls.

"It wasn't them who'd changed, it was us.

"We'd had such a regimented life for two years, we'd matured, we'd been responsible for a province. Our job was to keep the people of Phuoc Tuy province safe."

The legacy was an unbreakable and enduring bond of mateship with his comrades.

"That's why, to this day, we're still as close as we were 54 years ago, if not closer. The bond hasn't changed one bit."

Ken was a medical and dental assistant with 7RAR Infantry Battalion in 1967 at the Nui Dat Australian Task Force base, working not only with Australian, NZ and American forces, but also local village families with whom they developed strong friendships.

It was part of Australia's significant civil aid program in South Vietnam, work of which Ken is justifiably proud.

"There was so much work that we did to help the people that wasn't truly military and those people have never forgotten it," he says.

Rather than trying to bury the past, Ken has made it his mission to honour the vets and build on the work he began in 1967 to improve the lives of the Vietnamese.

He was a driving force in establishing Warrnambool's Vietnam Veterans monument in 2002, he teaches English online to the grandchildren of Vietnamese friends and supports one family with income-generating assistance.

There are things Peter Cassady saw "outside the wire", during his deployment with the engineers of 1 Australian Task Force in 1970 that no 22-year-old should have to see.

But it was the public ignorance and lack of empathy on his return to Warrnambool that he found equally disturbing.

Public name-calling by strangers, protest marches and being told by World War II veterans that Vietnam "wasn't a real war", made reassimilation challenging.

"It was incredibly hard adjusting. No one could understand me. I was completely different and I'd fly off the handle for no reason," he recalls.

Peter came home on a Wednesday and was back at his job as an ambulance driver and mechanic the following Monday.

"You were just expected to go home and get on with it," he says.

These days Peter finds comfort within the fold of his Vietnam brotherhood at their weekly catch-ups.

There's plenty of banter, good-natured ribbing, friendship and support.

But the one topic of conversation that's rarely mentioned is Vietnam.

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