Reposted from Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association -
Some stories are written in the quiet ink of ordinary life. Others are cut short by the fire of history.
Private Ian William Kingston’s story belongs to the latter.
He was just twenty years old when he was killed in action in South Vietnam on 3 September 1969. A soldier of the 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR). A son of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. A young man whose life was taken before it had truly begun.
Before the Army gave him a number, Ian had a home. Born in Nambour on 27 April 1949, he grew up under the sun of the southeast coast. He worked as a bank officer, his future shaped by routine, community, and the ordinary promise of a young life.
But like more than 63,000 others, his future was decided by chance. The birthday ballot called his number. The Army called his name. And the quiet order of his life was replaced by the chaos of a jungle war.
In May 1969 he joined 6RAR. Within weeks he was thrust into Operation Lavarack, where the battalion fought 85 separate contacts in just over a month. For a young conscript, it was a brutal baptism of fire.
On 3 September 1969, three months into his tour, Ian Kingston was killed in action in Bien Hoa.
He never returned to Nambour. He never finished the life he had only just begun.
Ian’s story is not just that of a soldier. It is the story of a son, a friend, a young man taken too soon. A life redirected by the lottery of marbles, ended on foreign soil, and remembered still.
Because some stories remind us that the true cost of war is not measured in battles won or lost, but in futures that never had the chance to be lived.
Lest we forget.
Rod Hutchings
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association
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