Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I join with my colleagues in this chamber to pay my respects to and to honour those people who fought in the Vietnam War and also, most especially, those who lost their lives and/or were wounded.

It was my era but, fortunately, I was not called upon to go to Vietnam, although a number of my friends were. Although, fortunately, none of them lost their lives or were too seriously wounded, every single one of them was scarred by the events and what happened to them in Vietnam—in one instance, for a very personal friend, it has been very sad to see how it has affected him mentally and in his life choices thereafter.

I too remember the unfortunately shameful way that we failed to recognise the service of our servicemen in Vietnam. The opprobrium of the politics of the war was directed towards them instead of where it belonged, or at least where the responsibility for the decision to go into Vietnam lay. In 1987 we did the right thing as a nation and welcomed them home. As unfortunate as it has been that our serving personnel have had to represent our country in the cause of both peace and peacekeeping in our contribution to service overseas, we recognise most especially our service personnel and the wonderful job they do on our behalf.

One of the good things that came out of 1987 and the return was the recognition of Vietnam Veterans Day, or Vietnam war day. A lot of that is centred round an event that tended to summarise the feelings of many in Australia, and certainly of those who served, about what it means to represent your country, irrespective of the politics of the decision making to send you. It brings to mind to observers like me and others at a long distance what it means in a moment in history to serve your country.

I read with great interest, and emotionally at times, the comments of Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith as the commander of Delta Company. He is a very straight-shooting person, if you will excuse the pun, who wrote a paper called 'No time to fear'. What an extraordinary title. I have never been under fire, but one of my colleagues here indeed has. No time to fear—I just try to understand myself and what it would mean to be in a serious firefight, a serious battlefield situation. How would I feel? To realise that in the Battle of Long Tan and on the Long Tan battlefield the youngest participant, I understand, on the Australian side was 19 years of age and the eldest was 22. I think of my children, my sons, and it really beggars belief. At 19 years of age you are in a plantation facing overwhelming odds—we use that term but I do not mean it in the hero sense; I mean it in the extraordinary sense—an extraordinary number of enemy soldiers before you and you enter into a firefight over three or four hours in the pouring rain. You are in there, totally undermanned and underprepared, and this force is dedicated to making a statement about your presence in their region and a firefight takes place. Fortunately, our soldiers were aided by others in this firefight. There were 18 young Australians killed and 24 wounded.

We do not know what the total loss of life was in that battle. I am sorry that there was any loss of life. We know that at least 245 Vietnamese opposition soldiers died, and we expect that there were many more. It sounded like absolute carnage. But they survived, with great will, and so much so that they were cited for the US Presidential Unit Citation. Long Tan has become, if you like, a symbol of what it means to face danger and to have to cope with that danger. You have no say, you have no time even to fear, as Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith comments. So that battle has begun to symbolise (1) their sacrifice and (2) what it means to share your life and your death with someone at a particular moment in time. I could not even begin to imagine what that must mean to those who shared that.

But I do know that the Long Tan Cross must be an extraordinary symbol, a living symbol, to them of that moment. It has come to symbolise something very important, not just in the military tradition in Australia, which is a fine tradition, but also in our national tradition. I saw a record of one of those who took part in the battle and who saw the carnage, Peter Slack-Smith. This is a record of what happened when he first saw the cross, which has come to Australia—and that is fantastic thing. He said:

The first thing I saw was the red mud—

at the base of the cross—

I know that mud; I have grovelled in that mud.

For him it is not just about grovelling in the mud. For him that was a life-changing, life-surviving experience with colleagues, some of whom did not live after that event or were wounded because of that event. Mud. That is what war is, apart from the extraordinary emotion and human qualities that are part of that terrible thing.

The cross itself has an extraordinary history. Some years after the war, Australian troops got together and made a cross, which they helicoptered into the site and there it remained for some time, until it was removed and another replica was put there by locals to remember the event. They too lost people in that extraordinary event. The cross made its way to Dong Nai Museum, and the cross that is in Australia today is that cross. It is now on loan, and we do thank the Vietnamese authorities and the museum for it and also those Aussies who campaigned to get that cross to Australia. It will be here until next year. It is going to be hard to remove that cross.

I want to thank and pay homage to those who fought on that day against extraordinary odds, who grovelled for us and also those who fought in Vietnam, particularly those who lost their lives and those who were injured. As I said, so many have been scarred thereafter. I do apologise for the way that we treated those soldiers, my friends. I was one of those who did not pay enough respect and thank them. I forever live with that. It will never be repeated again, I hope, in our history. I particularly want to say that the cross symbolises more than just a battle and the carnage that took place there; it symbolises the importance of being a human being and doing what you think is right.

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