TERRY Cross’ Vietnam War began in 1967 when his birth date came up in the draft ballot, and he was on the list to join over 15,000 Australian National Servicemen in the sprawling conflict.
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The letter arrived, and the Delungra man caught the bus to Glen Innes and took an overnight train to Singleton where he embarked upon three months recruit training and another three of corps training with soldiers like himself, kitted out in leftover uniforms from the Second World War.
The choice to fight was taken from his hands by the government, but Terry accepted his conscription without argument.
“I considered the war in Vietnam was something I had to do,” he said.
“It was a chapter of my life as it was in my father’s case who had served overseas in the Second World War.”
I considered the war in Vietnam was something I had to do.
- Terry Cross
Once trained, the men spent time jungle training at Canungra, then shipped off to war on an aircraft carrier.
When Vietnam hove onto the horizon, Terry said the Australians were loaded onto barges similar to the landing at Gallipoli, and stepped out onto a dark beach, without a clue where they were or what would happen next.
“We walked up the beach, carrying two kit bags with belongings for the next 12 months,” he said.
They were taken to a set up base camp at Nui-Dat, where the troops dug gun pits, erected wire entanglements for a safe perimeter, and commenced operations. Terry was posted to 3rd Battalion RAR as a forward scout and machine gunner.
He saw out the 12-day conflict in the Long Hai hills where a resupply problem left men with only 3 litres of water to wash, cook and drink for each humid, hot day.
He also participated in what is considered the war’s largest conflicts, the weeks-long Battle of Coral/Balmoral.
Terry returned to Australia after 11 months. The man called up from the workforce came home to a baby son and picked up the pieces of the life he had left behind.
“I went back to life as if nothing had happened,” he said.