Going Back (18 page)

Returning to Viet Nam will often reignite that need for grieving, and it will not be uncommon to have those emotions impact upon the veteran when those memories are stirred up again. It is part of the process and should be allowed to run its course. Laying of wreaths is a delicate issue in Viet Nam today, and veterans are urged to instead place a single flower at a place for remembrance to avoid upsetting local feelings.

Don't rush it

The returning veteran should avoid being pushed and hurried through the experience. Avoid the ‘Day 5, this must be Da Nang' syndrome, and make sure that there is time to see everything that you want to, and have enough time in the itinerary to simply stop, look and listen. As Ben explained:

I had a bit of trepidation in the fact that I'd seen some earlier tours go through Vung Tau when I was there and I felt sorry for the people because they were rushed into Vung Tau and rushed out. They really didn't have a chance to see anything. I think the design of this tour—having three days to be able to go over the ground reasonably slowly—is what was needed. There is this need to be able to stop, reflect and to relive.
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Ben explained, ‘The memories are vivid every day. Going back over the ground in some ways, it gave me a chance to demystify some of it and put it in perspective.' As his group walked around Nui Dat, Ben found value in ‘sitting at 5 RAR headquarters, and then standing on top of the hill . . . and just being able to stop, reflect and just enjoying it'.
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Tina Wainwright believed Roger had felt the impact of returning to his old lines and conducting a small memorial service at Tiger Pad in the rubber plantation. Such events can take time to digest. When being interviewed, she looked at her husband and said:

. . . that night you were pretty emotional if you remember, because you felt like you would have liked to have spent more time. But I remember you said to me, ‘That was my home for a year.' You know. ‘It's like that was where we pushed off from.'
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Time to look, reflect and ponder is important on a pilgrimage; after all it is why you are there. Roger understood that there were limitations to time and space on the tour, but simply added: ‘I would have liked no more than half an hour just to wander round and reflect. [Look at] not just my positions but some of the other platoon positions as well and where the company kitchen was.'
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Also, it takes time to retrace old steps—but carrying old maps and records can help. Roger claims he has a good memory (he still owes me $10 from a bet in 1985), but said he did some homework before returning with the 5 RAR pilgrims:

I think I've got a pretty vivid memory of everything that happened over that period of time. And I did refresh myself by perusing Bob O'Neill's book
Vietnam Task
again. And I had a marked map with me that I carried in 1966 . . . I showed it to Tina when we stopped on Route 15, and I could identify the exact spot where I was wounded and nine people in my platoon were also wounded. And down on Long Son Island, Gary [McKay] and I went round and I had the grid reference of LZ Dagwood where we landed, and Gary actually identified it from a distance through his binoculars. And I said, ‘Yep. There it is. There's that spur where the helicopter landed.'
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Tony White has had the advantage of having his old 8-mm home movie film to revisit over the years, so he had a pretty good idea of what it all looked like back in 1965. But touring around in an air-conditioned bus 40 years later brought an entirely new perspective to an old experience, as he explained:

If you could subtract all that horrible ribbon development, which is obviously a plague upon the face of the province, it's very much the same. But I tell you, when you were with the unit, distances were a lot greater. I mean, here we are whistling around and going up to Xuyen Moc in an hour. That was the sort of thing that you'd think, oh, that's a big chopper ride. So the distances then appeared to be big, much bigger than they really are. I mean, we had just this tiny area when you think of it, and that run up to Binh Ba, which was quite a safari back then. It was a dirt track. So it was that sort of elasticity of distance which was the most noticeable thing to me.
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Letting bygones be bygones

Staff Sergeant Bob Hann returned to Viet Nam in 1993 on an organised tour with mates from Delta Company, 4 RAR. Bob was in a pilgrimage group that was invited to socialise with former members of the
D 445 Battalion
at Long Phuoc Hai, but he was a bit uncertain how he and his fellow grunts would be received. The reception was not quite what he expected:

I came away with an immense respect for our former enemies. We were invited to share a meal and more than a few drinks with our former foes at what could best be described as a Viet Cong RSL. The hospitality shown to us by people so poor was incredible. Even now I pull out the photographs and ponder on what was a remarkable day. It was even more remarkable when you consider that their English was at least as fluent as our Vietnamese.
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Bob found his own pilgrimage highly worthwhile:

I recommend it to anyone prepared to listen. It is a beautiful country populated by hard working, cheerful people who could teach us a thing or two about making the best of what you have.
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Another veteran on that tour was Garry Heskett. I was also present, and we too were stunned by the total lack of animosity or angst from the ex-Viet Cong soldiers. It may sound like a cliché, but when the eighteen soldiers from Delta Company 4 RAR and the group of
D 445
men came together and sank a few—
quite
a few!—beers, and then shared a meal, we were indeed ‘brothers in arms'. The camaraderie was palpable. Stories were being told through interpreters, jokes were being shared and, in a few cases, bullet wounds were being shown. Garry said he came away from that meeting with:

a feeling of self-achievement that I was able to locate and identify areas that for various reasons one way or another had an impact on me, which provided some closure. And finally—being able to share those experiences with former brothers in arms . . . I was impressed by the warmth of our reception from the majority of the people.
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Peter Isaacs came halfway around the world from the United Kingdom to join his 5 RAR mates and found that the expectations and reservations he had quietly harboured did indeed manifest themselves after he arrived in country. He was glad he participated in the pilgrimage:

The apprehensions I had have turned out to be entirely predictable and true because I thought there would be considerable urban sprawl which has turned out to be the case, and I never like to see forest destroyed and ghastly advertisements put up all over the place. It happens all over the world and why should this be the exception? I was pleased that Nui Dat was pretty well as I remembered it when we got there. That remains as it was then, and I have to say it's been a moving experience.
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But this scarred, hardened infantryman with one leg and one eye and several campaigns under his belt articulated another emotion that can also be felt—especially on the first trip back:

I've actually felt a little detached somehow. On the one hand, over the last 39 years since we were here, it's all seemed to be like yesterday on many occasions. Then one thinks about all the things that have happened in the middle and it seems a long time ago. Wandering round the places that we knew before, it has seemed a very long time ago. And it's a bit like going back to school in a way. After all, we were—many of us—not that long out of school. I mean, I was 25 or so but, you know, young and impressionable. And now I'm not young and impressionable. So I've been detached and actually not as moved as I thought I would have been.
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When the 5 RAR tour group visited the Long Hai Hills and were introduced to a former enemy officer, Peter was the only one in the group who avoided shaking the man's hand. When later asked why, Peter explained his reaction:

I had no wish to shake him by the hand. My memory of the Viet Cong is they were a ruthless and murderous bunch. When I flew into the three villages that used to make up Binh Gia in 1966, I was told by one of the three Roman Catholic priests that had accompanied the inhabitants on their long journey from North Viet Nam after the 1953 Accords that the Viet Cong had abducted one of the [village] headmen, taken him across the paddy fields into the forest to the north and the next day, invited the villagers to come and see him. The Viet Cong had cut his legs off at the knees and put him in an ant heap as an ‘example' of what non-cooperation could result in. And whilst he may have been an ordinary soldier, I don't know. And I didn't shake his hand; I didn't want to be rude, but, no. That is why I didn't want to meet any former VC in the Long Hai Hills or anywhere else.
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Those memories and perceptions are something that the pilgrim will have to confront. Yes, war is a brutal and horrific event, but this does not of course condone some of the cold-blooded atrocities perpetrated by the Viet Cong as a deliberate policy within their revolutionary warfare doctrine. Personally I've found it best to put the past behind me and move forward and accept the former foe as being similar to myself: ‘just a soldier doing his job'.

Peter has reassessed how he looks upon his participation in the Second Indochina War.

My reservations now are, after seeing the development that has taken place under a Communist regime, had we not come here it would probably have ended up like this anyway, because oil and gas would have been found and that is undoubtedly the life blood of the economy at the moment. I thought at the time we were right to come and fight. With the benefit of almost 40 years' hindsight, I think maybe we shouldn't have come here. It hasn't made any difference. But at the same time I don't regret it.
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Another thing that upset Peter is that the government has apparently practically bulldozed into the ground many ARVN graveyards and cemeteries. It seems incredible that this would be done as a matter of policy, but it appears to be the case. As Peter noted: ‘I would like to have met some former ARVN soldiers, but they don't exist in today's Viet Nam. There are splendid memorials to the Viet Cong, but the graveyards of ARVN soldiers have been totally obliterated.'
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Infantryman Bill Kromwyk has embraced the Vietnamese people in more ways than one, marrying a Vietnamese lady he met on a pilgrimage there in 2001, several years after he was divorced. The strongest emotion he came away with on his first visit was:

The hospitality of the people, I think, and no sign of animosity. That really struck me. If you respect them they will be very hospitable and helpful to you, and okay watch out, because they are going to try and fleece you for every dollar that you have got.
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Bill would urge veterans to ‘show respect—that is a big one. I think a lot of Australians have not been doing that, just from reports that I have had from other people, and remember that you are in
their
country.'
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John Taske explained his own feelings after meeting a former Viet Cong soldier at Long Hai:

I don't know how the rest of the fellows think, but soldiers are soldiers—you've got a lot more in common sometimes with the enemy than you have with other people you meet, because they've been through the same things as you.
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Similarly to Bill Kromwyk's experience, described in Chapter 1, the fact that the enemy were ‘just blokes doing their jobs like us' was driven home when John looked at a wallet retrieved from a dead Viet Cong soldier not long after he arrived in country in 1966. He recalled thinking, ‘God, poor bugger. He was just like us and now he's gone. Some family's missing him.'
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Ron Shambrook met Lieutenant Hoang Ngan at Long Hai and reflected on his encounter:

That was fine. He had a job to do in war and I had a job to do in war. I don't have resentment against particular people. If I knew they were the ones who did the murdering and the torturing of civilians and people like that I would have a different view. But until I'm aware of that, he's a fellow human being just doing his job.
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To go or not to go?

After returning for the first time in 1993, I can honestly say that I found it a healing process that allowed me to mentally move on. I felt more at peace after going back, and every subsequent visit has been more enjoyable, despite several unsettling incidents and run-ins with the Vietnamese bureaucracy over bungled permits in 2002. After that visit I did have terrible nightmares for a fortnight or so, which resolved with the help of counselling. I returned again in 2005 and had no flashbacks, nightmares or anxiety. Everything was fine, and I can't wait to go back again.

Veterans who have made the journey back have been tremendously impressed by the genuine warmth and friendliness of the Vietnamese people. Without exception all will tell you that the decision to go back is a highly personal one.

Ian Ryan, a veteran from a former pilgrimage, put it rather colourfully:

I would highly recommend going back to anyone. It is like putting the lid on a garbage tin properly. If you do not put it on fully and tightly, the smell of the rotting garbage just permeates your whole mind and soul. You can never get rid of the stench! [Going back] just puts closure on your life.
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He added: ‘It was closure of a chapter in my life that had been conveniently tucked away in the back of my mind; [I was] hoping it would just go away with time. It never does.'
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Tour guide and leader Garry Adams believes going back with men from your own unit works well. After leading dozens of tour groups, he remarked: ‘Groups like the 5 RAR pilgrimage officer group are excellent because they all know each other; they have been bonded for a long time, they have kept in contact and there are no hassles.'
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