Peter Groves, 105 Field Battery, Royal Australian Artillery (national serviceman), July 1969, letter to family This all took place pretty close to the base, & we could hear the mines going off & one of the fellows reckoned he could hear screams every so often.' They lift our mines & plant them somewhere else, in the path of our troops. The mines were freshly laid, & they think they may have been old Australian mines. I won't go into details but when it was all over, & the casualties evacuated by helicopter, only one man was left standing. Again another platoon walked into a mine field. Neil Smith, 8 RAR, during Operation Atherton, December 1969, letter to family I've had me share of rubber treesĪnonymous 'Last night was another disastrous night for 5 Battalion.
FELT POEM OF THE RIVER RAR FULL
The poor sods in this area at the moment are nearly starving, though full of fight - mainly North Vietnamese regulars too.'
FELT POEM OF THE RIVER RAR FREE
Only gives the Nogs a free hand to reorganise themselves. it's a cease-fire here tomorrow, which is a load of crap, doesn't make any difference to us. I thought "just a body we say! Once a life, a Man".'ĭavid Clifton, A Squadron, 3 Cavalry Regiment (national serviceman), February 1967, letter to family '. A bad taste to this note today we found a body of a man and we left him there. Peter Gates, 7 RAR, December 1967, letter to family 'Today is my special day of the year, today I am 22, another year older and perhaps wiser and probably a little more tolerant. Peter Gates, 7 RAR, July 1967, letter to family 'The only Vietnamese that anyone really likes over here are the little kids. They always say "You guys don't get many cong", but we tell them, that they are such a pushover that Charlie goes for them and that he's scared of us, lets hope it stays that way.' Lachlan Irvine, 1968, in Stuart Rintoul, Ashes of Vietnam: Australian voices, William Heinemann, Richmond, 1987, p.44 'It's getting a bit embarrassing over here now, we have a hard time convincing the Yanks that we are still the best thing since canned beer. I was just aware that there were live grenades in my pockets.'
I didn't give a thought to the Viet Cong. I'd thrown them in basic training, but I went out on this first patrol carrying a live grenade in each of my shirt pockets and that was all I thought about the whole patrol. Gary McKay, 4 RAR, in his book In good company: One man's war in Vietnam, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987, p.90 'We started patrolling pretty much straight away and I can remember my first patrol very well because I was carrying live grenades for the first time.
Some men had woken up in the morning with a leech under their eyelids or in their mouths.' Being so close to the river didn't help, and it became a constant battle to keep the buggers off you.
The leeches were in epidemic proportions. When the scorpions had been disposed of there were always the leeches to keep one amused. The rest of us were kept busy killing six inch long scorpions, probably the original landlords of the camp. It's the only place in the world where you can be bogged down in mud up to your neck and get dust in your eyes.'ĭouglas Bishop, October 1966, Nui Dat, 5 RAR, letter to family 'So we used the camp as a base and sent section strength patrols out to look for the enemy. Well, bugger me, we landed on the HMAS Sydney a couple of miles off Vung Tau and we went in by American landing barge with weapons, ammunition, the whole thing, and every mother's son standing there was dressed in black pyjamas and a panama hat, selling Coca-Cola and pineapples.'īarry Kelly, 1966, in Stuart Rintoul, Ashes of Vietnam: Australian voices, William Heinemann, Richmond, 1987, p.35 'The soil in our area is Red Mud, RED-BLOODY-MUD. 'The thing that was so ironical was that all through our training we were taught that the Cong wears black pyjamas and a panama hat and that's your enemy.
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