Overview
🦘My story will take you through my Army experiences including the dreadful inhumane mess that was the Vietnam War.
Vietnam was mostly unknown to Australia before the war and whilst it is now a popular tourist destination, litt...
Photo - media. Sydney Airport June 1966. First meeting with first Son, Dean. (Photo left)
June 1966 - Our tour of duty was concluded and we were heading home. The situation in Vietnam was of course that the war was continuing and would rage for another nine years with Australia involved for seven more years. The war for me had ended as we prepared to leave with the solemn promise to myself that I would not return to Vietnam with the Army - Period. (achieved)
The main worry about flying out for home from Ton Son Nhut airport, the main air gateway to the south was the fact that the flight may be delayed and it was so for 24 hours due to a 'hot' airport. 24 more hours of waiting tension ensued before we lifted off with a roar of approval from the cabin which drowned out the engine noise of the Qantas 707.
As the aircraft clawed for height there was three cheers for the aircraft crew who actually risked their lives in transiting through one of the most dangerous airbases in the world. A like drama that an aircraft crew felt was to be had again in 1976 as the magnificent Israeli crews sat waiting on the strip at Entebbe, Uganda.
We were absolutely exhausted and hyper active at the same time, this was a clean cut from the war and back to the 'world' which appeared initially as Manila in the Phillipines. Two hours of drinking 'San Miguel' beer and then being poured back onto the aircraft before liftoff seemed more like 5 minutes A am a little lost to describe my feelings about coming home, we tried not to think about it as it seemed something surreal, home was on another planet. Next and final stop was home. When I stepped off the aircraft in Sydney on that cold dark morning the first thing I noticed was that I could smell Australia, I noticed that smell again later when returning to Australia from my two years posting to the British Army in England. We were hustled into a building away from the maddening crowd and there was Rhonda and Dean.
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Photo (British Pathe) Home, Sydney Airport June 1966, so tired I could hardly stand up. Some years later I stumbled across a British Pathe' newsreel recorded at Sydney Airport on YOUTUBE and I was able to rescue the photo above.
It was soon announced that we would be leaving the airport for our new barracks at Holsworthy NSW before taking up leave and that relatives could meet us there. Rhonda quickly and firmly advised the powers to be that there was no way she was going to leave me after a year of absence. So it came to pass that elements of the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment including Rhonda and Dean convoyed to the barracks at Holsworthy. We had married quarters allocated at Lansvale off the Hume Highway in western Sydney and then...
Disaster Soon after I arrived home, totally unsettled, startled, hyper vigilant and (later) diagnosed with severe PTSD and without any remembered reasons, I left home one morning and went 'Bush' a secret I have kept until very recent times all those years later, because I am better informed and understanding of my plight. I am not so embarrassed about it now as it turned out that I was one of many who reacted badly to being plucked out of Vietnam and deposited in the 'real' world within a few hours. I was certainly in a mess and my approx 6 weeks (I think really, I wouldn't have a clue) long foray into the outback is poorly remembered except for the booze and getting sacked from a dreadful job and believing that I was leading a normal life or not believing anything. I was totally unaware of my poor wife and son until one morning weeks later in a pub which I think was in Blackall Queensland. I suddenly wondered where they were. Feeling sick, dizzy and totally confused, I absolutely cannot relate the trauma that followed however, I went home after identifying the correct house ! I have always regretted the stress that I caused Rhonda, who never faltered in her support for me.
