By REBECCA BILLS
IT MAY be a case of too little, too late but the RSL is determined to never make the same mistake again.
Vietnam veteran Roger Boness said for years after the Australian soldiers returned home from Vietnam they felt isolated and shamed.
“We would try and talk to people, but no one was prepared to listen with most RSL’s saying we weren’t welcome there,” he said.
“But times have changed and they (the RSL) are very concerned that they didn’t get it right with the Vietnam veterans and they don’t want to make that same mistake again.”
At 21 years of age, Roger was sent to Vietnam in 1966 as part of an artillery unit that was deployed to an infantry unit.
“It was my responsibility when we got in contact with the enemy to bring in supporting artillery,” he said.
“For my job, I had to map read and to know every minute of the day where we were on the ground – for the 11 months that I was in Vietnam, nine of those months was on the ground.”
Roger said when they got word at how public the war was in Australia and the bitterness from the public, it hurt the soldiers.
“We were over there on behalf of our government, in mortal danger, and these people were concerned about their own political agendas and we were used as a tool,” he said.
Post-traumatic stress, bilateral hearing loss, skin cancer alongside the skin on his hands peeling off each year as a result of the chemicals Roger was exposed to during his time in the jungle are all ongoing reminders of his time in Vietnam.
“We were often sodden, quite often our clothes would rot off us, our skin would start to peel off and then there were the leeches and the snakes,” he said.
Australia’s military involvement in Vietnam lasted 10 years (1962 to 1972), the longest in our nation’s history, with almost 60,000 Australian soldiers serving in Vietnam.
During those 10 years, 521 Australians died and more than 3000 were injured, with many of the soldiers sent to Vietnam being sons of the soldiers who fought in WWII and the grandsons of Gallipoli veterans.
The Yarra Valley Vietnam Veterans’ Day Combined Service will be held in Mount Evelyn this year on Sunday 17 August.
The service will commence at 11am at Mount Evelyn Memorial Gardens, corner of Birmingham Road and Wray Crescent followed by commemorations and a veterans’ march to the RSL.
