American flag honour for Warrnambool's Vietnam War fallen soldier

David was just six months old when his father, Private William 'Bill' Thomas Carroll, died after a grenade accidentally detonated just days before the 21-year-old was due to end his tour of duty.

The flag arrived in Warrnambool earlier this month after first being taken to the White House and then flown in an aircraft over the Capitol building in Washington DC.

David said it may even be the first time it had been done for a fallen Australian Vietnam soldier, and was something Warrnambool RSL president Tony Geyer said was a "fairly significant gesture".

Since his first trip to the US in 2010 to witness the unveiling of a war memorial in Fort Benning, Georgia, that included his dad's name, David has been embraced as a "gold star" family.

Bill is among 35 other Australian soldiers listed on the memorial - the first time in history foreign soldiers have featured on a US war memorial.

Gold star families are those who have lost loved ones to war, David's wife Lani said.

"Because David's father was a fallen soldier under their flag they take that extremely seriously. They embrace David as their son and they want to look after him," she said.

Bill was part of the multinational taskforce attached to the US 173^rd Airborne Brigade when he and two others were killed at Bien Hoa air base on June 26, 1965.

He was Australia's first 1RAR soldier to die in a combat zone, and had been due to return home with plans to relocate to Western Australia to join the SAS.

It was an emotional day for David when the American flag arrived in the mail - something organised by one of the gold star families.

"I read all the inscriptions and I was like 'wow'. Very emotional. Them honouring Dad not only as an Australian soldier but as an American soldier," he said.

A photo on display at Warrnambool's RSL of a four-month-old David sitting on his father's lap was taken just before Bill shipped out. "I never got to know Dad," he said.

But through his trips to America for the 173^rd Airborne reunions, he has got to know his father better.

"You just can't explain what happens," he said. "You meet soldiers that served with Dad, and they'll tell you a story about Dad."

David said he was honoured by how he and his father had been embraced. "It's an honour that I wish I didn't have but it's an honour that I have to live with," he said.

On one trip to the US, David was also presented with a 173^rd Airborne flag when they realised he didn't have one.

"There was one flying at the top of the pole. They took it down, they blessed it. They got the colour guard to fold it and presented it to me," he said. "It's a very special thing to have."

David hopes to return to the US and have them do the same thing with his American flag.

He said fallen soldiers, like his dad, were held in such high regard.

"It's amazing," he said. "When we were coming out of the airport, five soldiers walked by. Everyone stopped, dropped their bags and clapped them all the way down to the plane."

One of the first fallen soldiers to be brought home from war, Bill was laid to rest in Warrnambool with military honours in a funeral that cost $10,000 paid for by his Dennington footy club and a private donor.

David followed in his father's footsteps and played football for South Warrnambool, but Bill had also won two best and fairest awards in the Dennington under 18s. "He was a talented footballer and he was a surf lifesaver," he said.

Bill had even saved his mate who had got into trouble while they were swimming in the Merri River near the old Nestles factory. "Then they both went off to war together," David said.

The political climate in Australia at the time was so divisive that Bill's wife Lorraine let people believe he had died in a car accident.

David said it wasn't until he was in his early teens that it really sank in who his dad was, and he only started marching in the ANZAC Day parades when he was in his mid-20s.

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