Groundhog Day

M109 at the Horseshoe

Back in May 1970, I was a reluctant member of 5 platoon, B Coy, 7 RAR, and about one third into my sojourn in South Vietnam which lasted two hundred and ninety eight days.

I had been told that I was there to support a commitment to achieving freedom for the people of South Vietnam.  The fact that back home people were preparing for the Moratorium marches which were about to be the largest turnout of demonstrators in Australian history was a complication to that simple notion.

Another complication was that the people shooting at us, and routinely laying landmines to kill us, were actually Vietnamese. They apparently had a different idea of freedom from ours, and had dug up the mines the task force had deployed from Dat Do to the sea to use them against us.

I was bothered less by these complications than the media commentators. My focus was on keeping myself and my section mates alive, and I worked very diligently at that. Obviously, I was successful.  

The closest I went to being killed or wounded  during my tour was by our own people, in two different "friendly fire" incidents. I think the Americans coined the phrase. It has a similar ring to it as does "collateral damage". We're hearing plenty of US coined rationalised euphemisms at the moment, many of them coming from their president. 

The first friendly fire incident occurred during Operation Finschhafen on Friday 13th March. The second was a bit later, in May, although I can't recall the exact date.

By May, we had been doing heaps of ambushing. On this particular occasion, we set up an ambush on a track junction. It was within artillery range of the Horseshoe where there was a detachment of US mobile M109 howitzers.  These things had a bore of 155mm and a range of 20 kms depending on what they were firing.

We radioed our position (Locstat) back to ATF headquarters who would have notified all friendlies in the area of the grid reference of our location, and set about standing to just as the sun was setting.

We heard primaries at the Horseshoe going off in the distance. This was routine, as the Yanks used what they called Harassment and Interdiction (H & I) to annoy the VC. They would pick what they thought was a likely location for the presence of the enemy, and fire off a salvo or two in the off chance that they might kill someone. Their view of a "likely location", the track junction, coincided with ours. 

What was not routine was the incredible noise these things made as they tumbled over our heads and landed just forward of our position. Next morning we found that the distance they landed from our harbour perimeter was about 75 metres. Given that they were advertised as having a lethal killing effect within 50 metres, that was far too close.  

Our platoon Sig got on the radio without reference from our platoon commander, and called "checkfire all locations". We heard an acknowledgement simultaneous with the sound of a second set of primaries, and understood with terrifying clarity that a second salvo was on the way. The next 45 seconds or so was a very long time.

The second salvo was, if anything, closer than the first, but as the rounds were coming from behind, the shrapnel mostly went forward. We had not dug shell scrapes. The ground at that time of the year was not conducive to quick digging, and the soil rocky with a mixture of clay and granite.

On returning to the Horseshoe at the end of the operation, we would notice the sweet smell of marijuana wafting across from the lines of A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 35th Field Artillery, the unit in question, on many humid evenings. The gunners were obviously seeking solace from time to time. Perhaps there was a distraction which had prevented them from checking for friendlies.

Fifty six years later, the Yanks are still firing off ordnance without, apparently, any clear understanding of the consequences.

In my lifetime, not a lot has changed.

 

Quo Vadis Cuba

 

Havana in happier times.

Back in 2018, gentle reader, I spent a couple of weeks in Cuba.

I blogged about it at the time, and have been observing from a distance since.

Back then I noted that Obama's visit to Cuba in 2016 had a positive effect on the country, encouraged as it was by Pope Francis. Obama was the first sitting US President to visit the country in eighty-eight years, as the previous visit from Calvin Coolidge was in 1928.

When I was there, the optimism generated by the thawing of relations was rapidly beginning to fade, as Trump had been in the White House for a year and a half.

There were still plenty of tourists around, and cruise liners were visiting Havana. These days, since US restrictions introduced in 2019, all US-based cruise ships are banned from calling on Cuban ports.

In addition, the supply of oil from Venezuela which had pretty much kept the Cuban economy afloat has dried up since the US kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro.

Now we have Trump announcing that he would be taking over Cuba. His exact words were - 

"I do believe I’ll be having the honour of taking Cuba. It’s a big honour, I ​mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it."

Apart from the stark arrogance of this statement, it ignores the fact that the country is in trouble because of sixty-eight years of spiteful US embargoes. What I recall of my visit is the laid back happiness of the Cubans I encountered, which contrasted so strongly with what I had encountered in the Americans I met back then.

It appears that exporting misery has become fashionable across the Pacific.

A Yippee Shoot

Pic courtesy AWM

Back in another life, gentle reader, when we returned from to Nui Dat from an operation in Vietnam, we used to have "yippee shoots".

This was what we called the exercise of firing off all the unexpended ammunition we had carried during the operation, because (we were told by those who apparently knew) that the oppressive humidity would have a very negative effect on the performance of said ammunition if we needed it in a contact.

I don't know how realistic this concern was. AI indicates that it would take years, not weeks for degradation to occur, and our longest operation (Finschhafen) lasted from March 12th until April 10th which is about a month.

Nevertheless, one of the first things we did once back at Nui Dat was to head for the range as a company, and fire off all the 7.62 rounds we had brought back with us at the end of the operation. From memory, we carried between 150 and 200 rounds each, so with about 25 of us per platoon shooting it down range, that was a very noisy exercise. I can't remember what happened to M26 grenades, M72 rocket launchers and M79 grenade launchers, but I'm pretty sure at least some of this ordnance was also expended. 

No wonder I'm deaf.

We called this process having a "yippee shoot" which meant that there wasn't much discipline involved. The more gung ho amongst us enjoyed the experience. I regarded it as a necessary chore, amongst many other bizarre activities that were par for the course in that crazy conflict.

We were pretty careful with ammunition, unlike the Americans who seemed to take great delight in brassing up anything that moved, and making as much noise as possible. This characteristic applied to all their weapons, including napalm delivered by ground attack aircraft, which on one occasion landed closer to us than the enemy.

Now, in the year of Our Lord 2026, the Yanks are at it again. This follows a long tradition of aerial bombing as a cure for everything that ails their sense of dominance.

They did it in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we can recall how that worked out.

This time, however, it's accompanied by macho posturing from the likes of Trump and Hegseth, sounding a lot like Yanks I encountered in Vietnam all those years ago who demonstrated a level of arrogance and ignorance that was breathtaking.

The fact that my platoon was on the receiving end of a misdirected US fire mission from the Horseshoe in May 1970 simply brings it home. We were lucky and escaped that incident with no serious harm. One hundred and fifty Iranian schoolgirls weren't so lucky last week.

It seems that they haven't learned anything of consequence in fifty six years, and they still enjoy a yippee shoot.

Meanwhile, we pay a Trump tax every time we fill up at the bowser, and Iranians and Lebanese are dying daily. 

Regime Change?

Mass gatherings of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran and other major cities - Image courtesy newsgram 

Given the current US intervention in the Middle East, gentle reader, maybe it's time to  conduct a quick and dirty review of American previous attempts to create regime change.

Let’s go back over fifty years to the war in Vietnam.

The 1956 Geneva Accords provided for elections to unify Vietnam. 

The Americans dismissed this agreement and no elections were held. If they had been, Ho Chi Minh would have won in a landslide, which the Americans understood, and was the reason they welched on the agreement.

The war ground on for another twenty years, killing millions of Vietnamese, fifty seven thousand Americans and over five hundred Australians before the country was unified in 1975.

The regime that landed there was not what the Americans wanted.

Then we could look at Iraq.

The 2003 American shock and awe exercise ended in an ISIS caliphate which lasted until 2019, the lead up to which killed hundreds of thousands of  Iraqi casualties, killed 4492 Americans and left Iraq in a divided mess from which it is slowly emerging.

Then there was Afghanistan. The Americans came and went (and we lost 47 Australian diggers in the process) and the country is now run by a thuggish quasi theocracy which has returned it to the Middle Ages.

So forgive me if I am unimpressed by Trump telling anyone who will listen that he is going to save the Iranian people and deliver them democracy.

I’ve heard it all before….

Names on the Wall

Wall of remembrance

On a recent trip to Canberra to participate in the 75th Anniversary of National Service, I took the opportunity to attend the daily last post ceremony held at the pool of reflection at the Australian War Memorial.

It was a moving ceremony, attended as it was by a lot of Vietnam veterans. There was a sea of grey hair and the setting sun glinted on Vietnamese campaign medals.

Pool of reflection

The soldier remembered was signalman Alexander Henry Young, a Nasho killed at the Battle of Coral Balmoral on 16th May 1968.

The wall of remembrance reminded me of the Vietnam veterans' memorial in Washington which I visited in 2018. There are 57000 plus names on that wall. There are 521 Australian names on the Canberra wall.

Washington memorial

The first two names from 7RAR on the right hand column are from B Coy, and record the deaths of two diggers who died in April 1970 when we hit a bunker system. I remember it well.

One died of heat exhaustion after our overnight company insertion on foot into the AO, and the other was killed by shrapnel from a rocket propelled grenade when 4 platoon assaulted the bunkers.

The third name down from top right was a soldier who initially transferred out of 7RAR when his father complained to the local federal member that his son's thick glasses would be a major problem in a rifle section in Vietnam. This soldier was put before the Eastern Command Medical Board and declared fit to serve. He was reposted to C Company on 14th May and killed on 6th June in a mine incident, the day after my twenty-third birthday.

May they rest in peace.

Gum Free Capital

 

I had a reason to be in Canberra for a few days, gentle reader, in connection with speaking gig at the 75th Anniversary of National Service Commemoration.

Canberra is different.

It's like another country. There are small things.

For example, I wanted to freshen my mouth after a long flight, so I asked for chewing gum at an airport newsagent. I was told, quite sternly, that there was no gum available. Asking "why", I was informed that it is "unhygienic".

Now I thought that Singapore was the only place where you couldn't buy gum, but not so.

Then there's driving in Canberra. It's also different. Apart from the extensive network of ring roads and roundabouts, there's also a limitation on the word "street" I kid you not. There are few streets in Canberra.

There are Drives, Crescents, Closes, Avenues, Circuits and Places. The streets are there, but generally only residential areas contain them. There obviously was a need for a posher term, when it came to titling the roads in the national capital.

The setup of traffic lanes is also unique. Apparently the connecting roads are designed to allow higher speeds than is typical in most cities. It works if you know your way around. I didn't, and even with the benefit of a navigation system in my hired car, got lost frequently.

The fact that the car I was given was not what I'd selected didn't help. It was European (Volkswagen Tiguan T-Roc) and I was told it was an "upgrade". The indicators were on the wrong side of the steering column, which meant much windscreen wiping when cornering, and the connections for my phone cable incompatible.

Those issues, accompanied with the start-stop fuel saving engine feature, and the dual clutch automatic transmission made it a pig of a machine to drive, and I eventually parked it in my hotel car park and used taxi vouchers.

Finding eating places is also a challenge. The familiar commercial strips were absent, and if there are supermarkets I couldn't find them. Apparently there are five altogether (Coles and Woolworths) but They proved elusive.

Canberra is different....

 

Fitout Finished

Sunrise at Miles

The fitout of my Hace is completed, and I've taken a couple of trips in it. 

These are my conclusions -

It's comfortable, both to drive and to sleep in.

It cruises well on the highway, the only exception being its performance in high winds. It feels more like a yacht than a van under those conditions, and the options, and options are to stop and wait until the wind drops, or keep the speed below 80km/h.

The system I bought to allow for off grid camping works well. It consists of a Bluetti AC70P together with an inverter connected to the alternator. This powers a Kings 45L fridge.

Bribie Island

It's good for three days when parked, but you only need to drive it for half an hour to charge the unit up to 100%. You can do road trips, stay somewhere overnight off grid, and live in it without having to use the installed 240V connection.

I use a portable gas stove with pressure cans and it does the job well. Washing up is a bit of a pain, but the collapsible bucket I found at BCF does the trick. I bought a camping sink online which has proved less useful, although it's OK for quick ablutions.

There's also a portable toilet, but for emergencies only. Storage in plastic boxes which are housed under the bed and slide out on demand are pretty cheap and convenient. 

Camping sink - really a vanity only.

I use occy straps to keep everything located, and haven't had any problems with this method so far, but always wear eye protection when working with them. 

The purchased items are the power unit and the refrigerator. Everything else is material repurposed or found in my disorganised garage. 

The van is surprisingly economical on a trip, using between 11 and 12 litres per 100km, which is OK for a fully equipped camper. 

Columboola veterans' retreat.

Items that need improving include the Japanese head unit (it's buggy, and the radio tuned for urban Japan is pretty useless) and the interior appearance. At the moment it looks a bit like a jumble sale.

Still, my daughter has given it her seal of approval after attending a music festival in it.