PM re-states official apology to Vietnam veterans

The commemoration on Friday of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War was a milestone date in Australia’s history.

But another significant milestone was reaffirmed the same day – a further official apology from the Prime Minister Mr Albanese for the treatment of Australian troops by a sector of the community as they arrived back home from the war.

Former Prime Minister John Howard had apologised to Vietnam War veterans at the Vietnam War Memorial on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Long Tan in 2006, one of the deadliest battles involving Australians in Vietnam.

Australia was “not as grateful and respectful as it should have been 40 years ago,” Mr Howard said at the time.

“They are owed our apology and our regrets for that failure. The very least we can do is to acknowledge that fact.”

The apology was re-issued and emphasised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week.

Aircraft ferrying the troops back from Vietnam service were sometimes scheduled to arrive late at night to avoid protestors, a low key strategy the government felt necessary because of the controversy Australia’s role in Vietnam generated.

The fact that troops were despatched by the government as national policy, not as an individual choice, was disregarded by the war’s opponents.

However, most who served were certainly not reluctant soldiers and volunteered or willingly sought to help South Vietnam which was under attack from a communist insurgency, the Vietcong, with the active and considerable engagement of the full strength of the North Vietnamese Army.

Returning Australian troops were in some cases vilified and discriminated against.

They were not encouraged to be members of some RSL sub branches, a stance which was reversed and acknowledged by the RSL.

NSW RSL president Ray James last week apologised for the Vietnam veterans’ past treatment by the organisation.

“RSL NSW acknowledges a generation of veterans who are still healing and we publicly recognise our charity’s past mistakes this Vietnam Veterans Day,” he said.

“As a Vietnam veteran myself, it’s extremely important to me that all veterans know that RSL NSW is committed to ensuring that no veteran is ever left feeling unwelcome.”

Fifty years on, Vietnam veterans have long since been welcomed and embraced by RSLs.

There are anecdotal accounts of abuse aimed at returning Vietnam soldiers in the war’s aftermath.

A now-local National Serviceman recalls he was abused in Queensland.

“My wife and daughter lived in a caravan while I was in Vietnam” he said. “Two young women came up and said ‘you’re just back from Vietnam. You murdering bastard – and I got spat on and kicked.”

Being called ‘a baby killer’ was reportedly a common attack phrase used by Vietnam War opponents.

A Narrabri ex-Vietnam serviceman noted wryly ‘some said at the time it wasn’t a ‘real’ war’.

“I said ‘you are just as dead when you get shot whether it’s a war or a ‘police action’ as it was labelled.

“The bombs and bullets are just as deadly.”

From 1962 to 1973, more than 60,000 Australians served in the Vietnam War.

Australian casualties were 523 dead and 3000 wounded.

And the psychological trauma remains very real for many veterans to this day.