PaulL.>"Just drop the Allied part. It isn’t justified. So apologise, you made a big mistake either way. "

I don't really need to respond, since my last couple of posts have already answered this. Besides I'm getting tired of your overweening impudence in asking for an apology.

O Sung Wu,

It seems clear that the cost of war is not only in the physical damage of the battlefield but extends well beyond that point.

I’m personally of the opinion that “welcome home” parades are vital to let diggers know that they are valued members of the community, that their sacrifices are accepted and honoured and that the tasks they undertook were on our behalf. To let them know that if anyone has blood on their hands, we all have blood on our hands. Instead, the so called “peace activists” drove a wedge between the community and the veterans. I think that this was appalling, both on behalf of the public, for allowing it to happen; and the “peace activists” for taking the easy target and shooting the messenger. (sorry about the mixed metaphors )

I have read a couple of accounts which have suggested that the Australian army circa 1945 would have needed 2 divisions to undertake the same work that the brigade-plus unit that was 1 ATF carried out. I think that the evidence suggests that the long periods actually in proximity to the enemy, that were not seen in WW2, has contributed to the higher rates of health issues in Vietnam vets.

I think we asked a lot of our Vietnam vets and they responded superbly. I think it is to our eternal shame that we were unable to properly repay this debt upon their return home. I think we broke the social contract that has always existed between a society and its soldiers. In the process we caused more harm to the people we should have been welcoming back into the fold.

The recent war in Iraq has showed up the need for specialist PTSD and trauma counsellors to help returned servicemen cope with the exceedingly high burden placed upon them. The overarching point they are trying to make to these new blokes is that getting help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of leadership and it’s a readiness issue.

o sung wu

You keep talking and don't apologize for a "This is Your Life" theme as a Vietnam Vet. "This certainly IS your life" the legacy of fighting in a war that wasn't ours.
The fact that it took 20 years for our Government to Welcome you and our boys back home - so shameful.
I have attended the dawn service in the city for thirty years.
Why do I attend? I wish to show respect and honour to my father (ww2)and all serving personnel who fought in any war for the freedom we have today. I also know personally several Vietnam Vets just like yourself who on Anzac Day wish to remain "silent", and have a quiet beer/ale by themselves.....as they continue to try and live one day at a time in coping with the trauma of losing mates and the destruction of human lives they witnessed.
o sung wu - you are correct when you say that no one who wasn't there can appreciate what you guys went through, I have heard many stories over the years all like your own.
o sung wu - stand tall in the knowledge that many people attend Anzac Day as a mark of respect for our diggers.....and not necessarily attend any church service.

One can appreciate the sacrifice and the sufferings of the veterans of any war. One can appreciate the sacrifice and the sufferings of the people in the territory where the war was fought. The fact that Australians suffered and died in Vietnam does not mean the war was justified or good. The Vietnamese who died fighting the Australians died for their country and were fighting on their own soil against the Australian and other invaders. Whenever there is a conflict between humans there are humans on all sides of the conflicts. In my opinion the sacrifice of Australian and Vietnamese lives was pointless. We can mourn all the dead regardless of what country they owe allegiance to.

Steel,

And I’m getting tired of the brain dead insistence that somehow you have shown that “allied” soldiers were involved in killing babies.

I’ve demolished your pathetic attempts to cover up your original error. It took half a dozen posts for YOU to accept what “YOU ACTUALLY SAID”. I’ll take impudence over intellectually challenged any day.

David F,

No one has suggested that because we lost soldiers that Vietnam was a “good” war. The point I have been making the whole way along is that just because you think the war was wrong doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t support our soldiers. If you want to be an internationalist and mourn everybody, that’s your right. But don’t try and tell the rest of us that we can’t honour our own.

You also forget to mention that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died fighting the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. These people were also fighting for their country. Indeed the South Vietnamese were so happy with the Communists victory that 3 million promptly jumped into anything that floated, putting themselves in grave danger, to emigrate permanently.

The South Vietnamese weren't fighting for their country. This was an artificial construct, a regime propped up by the US. Why didn't the US allow elections to go ahead in 1956 across all of Vietnam? Because Ho Chi Minh would have won about 80 per cent of the vote.

I can't support Australia invading other countries, whether it be Sudan (1885), South Africa, Turkey, Europe, anywhere in Asia, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Iraq or Afghanistan.

But in fact the idea that Australian soldiers were spat upon and so forth on return from Vietnam is a myth as far as I am concerned. The real villain here is the governments who sent these people overseas to invade foreign countries and then ignored them when they returned. There should be a huge increase in funding for counseling services and other support for World War II, Korean, Malaya, Vietnam, Iraqi and Afghan war vets. There won't be because it is not in the Government's interests to do so, and Anzac Day is a lot cheaper than real services for vets (or so their thinking goes.)