FROM all theatres of conflict on land, air or sea, active and returned servicemen and women come home to a very different reality from scenes of stress and battle. Some local men who have been there, said all of them need recognition and support.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs pledge of $5 million into research to avoid the legacy of forgotten soldiers that dogged Vietnam is not a bad investment according to Vietnam vet-erans and Inverell RSL sub-branch president Rob Schieb, pensions officer Brian McClellan and secretary Graeme Clinch.
Having served in the front-line of war in 1971, Graeme empathised with the imm-ediate needs of all military personnel in current or past conflict.
“From my point of view, I would say they just need support, help, somebody to listen to them. When we came back we were pushed off the boat and discharged from the army completely and we went. They didn’t even know how we got home after that, I don’t think. They didn’t care,” he said.
The Vietnam vets waited up to two decades before the government came to their aid with support.
“Until the welcome home parade, and that’s when things started to change, in ’87,” Rod added.
Graeme said as a fairly fit man returned home, he was unaware of the burden he carried after his discharge. It wasn’t until he ended up in hospital battling the mem-ories of war, receiving help from the Department of Veterans Affairs, did he understand the repercuss-ions of Vietnam.
“Personally, I didn’t know that I had any problems at that stage, until I fell in a heap. Then I knew I had problems, but then I thought well, what do I bloody do? Where do I go? What happens?” he recalled.
“In hindsight, we probably should have got help the bloody day we got off the boat.”
Rod said after his tour in 1968, after a spell of leave, he went straight into training new men on guns without examination of his physical, psychological and emotional welfare, post-Vietnam.
“There was no rehab-ilitation. I had mates in Sydney, they got straight off the plane, got their pay and went straight back to work, and that was it.”
Acknowledgment of the physical effects of war, such as their own exposure to Agent Orange is also import-ant to the veterans. Brian served in 1966. When he son was diagnosed with a brain tumour at age 9, he was worried it stemmed from his own exposure to the herbicide. He said he went to the DVA with his concerns, but they were not validated for 25 years.
“(They) said it’s got noth-ing to do with Agent Orange. There’s orphanages over there full of little kids with deformities from Agent Orange with no arms and no legs, but our government, or the DVA wouldn’t recognise that until the Royal Commission in America,” he said.
Brian said as the RSL pensions officer, he’s already met with returning service-men recently discharged and seeking help.
“Medical assistance to start with and counselling,” he said.
He said with organisations like Defence Care who meet with families and vets in crisis, there is help readily available and issues are recognised.
“They’ve got it now, but we never had it,” Rod said.
“We’ve now got the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service, but it didn’t come into being until 1985 or ‘86,” Brian said.
“Twenty-five, 30 years after the event,” Graeme comm-ented.
“Everything’s easy in hindsight as you know, If we have some care, probably 10 or 15 years earlier than we actually got it, a lot of the blokes now, who are suffering reasonable badly, probably wouldn’t be in that situation now ‘cause they got care earlier,” Graeme said.
“We didn’t get that, so by the time most of us got crook or people who are on pensions got crook, it was probably too late.”
