Second Tour (4)

The second part of our trip to the places of significance took us back to the Long Hais and Vung Tau.

The Long Hais were important in that the Australians (specifically 8 RAR) took heavy casualties in that area and the majority of the veterans in our group were from that battalion.

We took the Hydrofoil from Saigon to Vung Tau. These vessels were gifts from the Russians (back in the eighties) and despite the fact that they’re beginning to succumb rather spectacularly to rust, continue to provide daily services. The Vietnamese maintain them in the time-honoured manner in that when some component breaks down; it isn’t replaced or repaired unless it is absolutely essential to maintain function.

There is no parts supply available for these things, so improvisation is the way to go They used to do this back in the sixties with their taxis, particularly the Renault 750s which were ubiquitous. They couldn’t care less about their appearance.

As we got off the hydrofoil in Vung Tau we were greeted by the locals with calls of “Uc Da Loi”.

I hadn’t been addressed like that since 1970. I wondered how they knew who we were, because we weren’t wearing anything to identify us. It probably had much to do with the fact that most visitors who came this way were Australians.

Vung Tau has been transformed, mainly as a consequence of the petrodollars being earned principally through the French company Total. The Vietnamese have been very canny in terms of how they handle foreign investment. They make sure that they get at least their pound of flesh, and perhaps more so. We could learn something from them in this country.

Along the beach front, which reminded me of so many seaside resorts in Queensland, there are zillions being spent on beautification. Part of this project involves laying kilometres of marble- faced walkway along what would be called the strand in Queensland. It drizzled rain on one morning that we were there, and this walkway became very slippery. I asked our guide about the risk of falls presented by the smooth (if attractive) surface.

He said – “No problem – we don’t have plaintive lawyers in Vietnam”.

Maybe there’s something else we could learn from the Viets.

We were heading off to the Long Hais on the second day, so first up I walked the few blocks from our hotel to the nearest Bank of Vietnam to cash some traveller’s cheques. There were long queues at the bank, and I had to queue twice – once to have the cheques verified, and again to actually get my Dong. The South Vietnamese abhor red tape, except in government run agencies (like the Bank of Vietnam), and it these places they rival the Indians.

I’d wasted so much time queuing that I was running late to get on the bus for the drive to the Long Hais, so I hailed a taxi. I showed my driver the card for the hotel, but he headed in precisely the wrong direction at high speed, which completely disoriented me. After a bit of yelling at him, he finally stopped, and a couple of things became clear.

This driver didn’t have a word of English – I had no idea where my hotel was, and my pidgin Vietnamese wasn’t up the task. This was a problem. Vung Tau is not good place in which to get lost (that much hasn’t changed in 40 years) and I was going to be very unpopular because the group was looking forward to getting away on time.

Suddenly the radio in the cab sprang to life, and part of what the female operator said was in English. I grabbed the microphone from the driver, pressed the transmit button, and asked “Can anyone speak English?” An old digger always relies on good comms in times of stress.

The same operator came on the air in dulcet tones saying “Can I help you”?

I carefully gave her the name and address of the hotel in English and she let forth with some rapid-fire Vietnamese at the driver who fairly soon delivered me to my hotel. He charged me half-fare, which was a nice gesture. I was given a hard time when I got on the bus – they’d been waiting about ten minutes. There were accusations that I’d been visiting a house of ill-repute up the road, which greatly amused my two sons.

The Long Hais are a coastal range rich in rock outcrops which would remind any Queenslander of Magnetic Island off Townsville. The area is very significant to anyone who served in an Infantry battalion, because in our time it was a stronghold of D445 battalion and there were many efforts to clean it out. The VC called it the "Minh Dam Secret Zone", and it had been a guerilla stronghold since the time of the war against the French. It was a very dangerous place. On 28th February, 8 Battalion took 9 KIA and 12 WIA in this area from mines dug up from the barrier minefield.

I was in country at the time, and remember the reports of the incident vividly. Fortunately, we operated mostly at this time in the North West of Phuoc Tuy, well away from this area. I believe that the press reports of the incident upset my parents somewhat.

As close as we could get to the site of the incident, we remembered these blokes (many of them well-known to the vets I was travelling with) with a simple service, and the placement of some flowers. One of my sons read the service. There were a few tears.

We explored the area thoroughly and discovered much evidence of the conflict, including bullet marks in the rocks and evidence of B52 strikes which occurred from time to time. It was an excellent defensive position with great cover and extensive (and spectacular) views of the surrounding countryside.

There is a Buddhist monastery at the top of the feature, and we met the monks and drank tea with them. Right at the highest point is a big brass prayer bell (See pic).

There was also a veteran of D445 laid on just for us. He demonstrated a strong tremor. Whether this was as a result of the Vodka that he was quaffing at regular intervals, or some other disorder, I’m not sure. His demeanor brought back childhood memories of an alcoholic First World War veteran I’d met in the small town in North Queensland where we’d lived for a while. The Vodka probably helped quell whatever demons his memories of the “American” war created.

The Vodka (which we’d taken with us on good advice) was the price of his reminiscences.

Conversations with ex-enemy are, to me, fascinating.

I always asked two questions – mostly through an interpreter, although there were a few who spoke some English. My questions were –

“How are you treated as ex-soldiers by your government?” and “What did you think of the Australians as soldiers?”

Sometimes the answers were surprising. This grizzled looking veteran at Long Hai disclosed that he was not able to support himself, and relied on charity, and gifts from friends and tourists to survive.

The answers to my second question were always that the Australians were seen as much more effective soldiers than the Americans. Allowing for the obvious human tendency to tell us what we wanted to hear, I believe that this was a generally held belief.

One response was very interesting. One nuggety-looking character I’d met earlier outside Ba Ria near the old tunnel complex said –

“You Australians were fighting on the wrong side. If you had been with us, we would have had the Americans out of here ten years earlier.”

Second Tour (3)

I love Saigon.

Having travelled through Asia and Europe, and visited over the years all the major centres in Great Britain and the Continent, I’ve not seen anything like the blend of excitement, atmosphere, and zest for life reflected in the streets of Saigon.

To start this reflection at the wrong end – I remember my last night in Saigon on my first trip back. My two sons were exhausted, so had taken to their room in the old section of the Grand Hotel where we were staying. I decided (at about 9pm) to go for a walk, so I’d have some strong impressions in my head when we boarded the plane for the flight home next morning.

I headed along Le Loi Street, and turned left into Pasteur Street towards the river. The usual street vendors were everywhere, and I lost myself in the sounds, sights and smells of the city. I had no intention of spending any money; rather I adopted a kind of window-shopping demeanour, much to the disappointment of the assembly of touts up and down the street.

After walking for ten minutes I began to notice something strange happening. Everywhere, and almost as if someone had given a signal, all the vendors began to pack up, and the touts disappeared. The process took only about five minutes, but soon there were no vendors and no touts. The place had undergone a rapid transformation.

Soon I understood the reason. Slowly along the street came an olive drab GAZ jeep, with two uniformed youngish blokes aboard. One was toting an AK47, and the other, the driver, had his in a rack by the side of his seat. They were wearing peaked caps, and my mind took a 40 year leap backwards remembering the “White Mice” I’d seen on the streets of Vung Tau when on R & C. I don’t know whether this new generation of gendarmes had the same modus operandi as those around in 1970. Back then, they blew a whistle (worn on a lanyard around the neck) once, and if you didn’t stop, they simply opened fire. Mind you – back then they used revolvers, not assault rifles. I also couldn’t see any whistles.

It took a minute or two for them to disappear from sight – they were driving very slowly, but once they had, the vendors and touts began to reappear. In about ten minutes, everything was back to normal.

This was a metaphor for modern Saigon. Despite the name change (Ho Chi Minh City), the dead hand of Marxism, and the appropriation of the administration of the city of five and a half million people by apparatchiks, largely from the North, the spirit of the populace has not been repressed. The entrepreneurial soul of old Saigon remains, and if anything, has risen like a phoenix, especially in the last ten years. This is a robust community. I love it.

A few days before this, I had the amazing experience of finding the room I occupied in the Cholon billet used by diggers providing what was called a Saigon Guard. To explain:
There was a large contingent of what we called “Saigon Warriors” during the Australian involvement. These blokes did all sorts of jobs around the Australian operation in Saigon and had all sorts of postings.

What they had in common, was that they were all POGOS (personnel on garrison operations) and weren’t trained in Infantry tactics. There was a need to maintain security in front of the Australian billets, and this was traditionally provided on rotation by diggers from Infantry battalions in Phuoc Tuy, some 50km to the South East. I guess this must have been a recognition of the familiarity of the Infantry with the weapon used – the M60 belt-fed machine gun. It was a rare opportunity for us to spend time in Saigon, even if it was only for a week. What was really galling was that the Saigon warriors got a considerable allowance for the privilege of sleeping in beds behind walls.

Anyhow, in November of my tour, I was lucky enough to score a Saigon guard. I had a ball, because we worked day on – day off, and made the most of the Saigon nightlife that was mind-blowing back then, at the peak of the US involvement. Unfortunately, the duty lasted about ten days only, and we returned to our respective companies when it was over.

We stayed in a three storied billet, called I think, the “Canberra”. I have no idea why it was called this – to make the diggers feel at home, perhaps. It was certainly very different from your average Hotel Canberra, featuring bedbugs and dodgy French plumbing. I remembered that the room I stayed in had a Kangaroo stencilled on the door.

I felt the need to try to revisit this place, out of nostalgia, I guess, but I was also curious to see what had become of it in the last 40 years. I told our Sino-Vietnamese guide. This bloke is a font of knowledge on the history of the Australian involvement, and in one day flat, he turned up with a blurry photo, and showed it to me.

“This is, I think, the place” he said.

It certainly looked familiar, but had four floors. I remembered three.

To remove all doubt, my sons and I took a cab to the address provided. It was indeed the billet, and it had grown a floor. I found the room I stayed in, and the stencilled macropod. It looked and smelled much the same as it had 40 years ago.

We met the manager, a Chinese guy, who spoke English well. He was quite chuffed to hear my story, and provided a bit of history.

When I stayed in the hotel back in 1970, the building was owned and managed by his Grandmother. Saigon fell in 1975, the new administration requisitioned the hotel, and she was booted out, being left only with a receipt. The family fell on hard times for a while, and eventually the Grandmother died, and the documentation about the hotel was passed to her son.

With the advent of “Doi Moi” came in during the late eighties, the son wrote to the authorities, and after a bit of negotiation (and no doubt a bribe or two) the ownership of the hotel was passed back to the family.

It was run-down, so they refurbished it, and added another storey. It now provides budget accommodation in Cholon for people visiting Saigon from the provinces. The son became ill, and the management duties had been passed on to the grandson, the bloke I was talking to.

Again – an allegory for Saigon.

I’ve got to go back soon.

Second Tour (2)

As I’ve mentioned before, my first trip back was with a bunch of veterans and their families.

This was a mixed blessing in the sense that whilst they were great people, and we all had a common interest, there was always a risk that we’d revert to the attitudes and behaviours we learned 40 years ago.

To a large extent, this didn’t happen, although one of our number didn’t endear himself to some of the young Vietnamese women we encountered, treating them as he had bar-girls back in the war.

The fact that these girls were too young to have any understanding of the culture operating back then didn’t seem to faze him. He had to be drawn aside at one point to have a few home truths explained. Not insignificantly, he was one of our number most visibly affected when we held a memorial service in the Long Hais. Perhaps there was a connection.

I remembered the Horseshoe (because I spent about two months there late in my tour), Nui Dat (obviously), Vung Tau (where we went on R & C) and Saigon (where I was lucky enough to spend a week on Saigon Guard in November). Unfortunately, there was no way we could visit places where we had seen contacts. In the first place, despite the fact that we all had old maps, some of these areas had changed so much as to be unrecognizable. In addition, these areas were simply isolated pieces of scrub, significant only in our now fading memories. My sons grumbled from time to time about my tendency to show them some nondescript piece of scenery which was of great significance to me, but just another piece of landscape to them.

We returned to all these places, but we weren’t able to explore the Horseshoe. This was once an old volcanic formation which made a very good fortified base, both because of its position and configuration. It stood at the Northern end of the infamous barrier minefield, and was used as a patrol base to try to prevent infiltration between the sea (to the south) and Dat Do, and further north and west to bases in the mountains.

We couldn't explore it, because it was almost entirely quarried away. (See Pic)

The water tower at Ba Ria was still there, but now a strange shade of pink (See Pic).

On the few occasions I drove past it in a truck convoy back in 1970, it reminded me of home because of the resemblance to water towers in bush townships in Queensland.



The Dat (Nui Dat) was recognisable, although it has changed a great deal. The area around it has been developed and there are houses where once there were free fire zones and old rubber. The tarmac of the old airstrip (Luscombe Field) is now the main street of a small settlement, in which the AVVRG has built a kindergarten.

There is almost no signage left, although we did come across a few overgrown white painted rocks. We climbed what used to be SAS hill, something I never accomplished in the time I was there, and with the aid of GPS and some old maps, where our old tent lines were.

The rubber plantation seemed entirely the same, although it was pointed out to us that these weren’t the same trees that were growing there back in 1970. Apparently they have a finite productive life, and the originals were dug up years ago, and new trees planted.

The orderly rows, shady relief from the tropical son, and the smells were, however, entirely familiar. I felt comfortable and secure back here – much as I had 40 years ago. Although rudimentary, Nui Dat back then meant comparative safety, the chance to “switch off”, and a level of physical comfort which was a massive improvement on weeks of patrolling.

After we’d finished exploring we sat down in the shade of the rubber to have lunch washed down with a cold beer (VB from memory). As we were lunching, a Honda step-through came down the track. There were literally hundreds of these things coming and going routinely, but this one was different, being ridden by a European. He turned out to be an Aussie – and a veteran – who had set up house with a Vietnamese woman about 500 metres up the road.

He was a TPI pensioner diagnosed with PTSD and spent most of his time in Vietnam, because (he said) he couldn’t settle down in Australia. He’d been a triage medic and was eventually affected by the never-ending flow of casualties that he’d been exposed to all those years ago.

We returned to Saigon that same evening, to board a Hydrofoil to take us to Vung Tau. Saigon, incidentally, is still Saigon, despite strenuous efforts on the part of the post 1975 administration to rename it “Ho Chi Minh City”. It’s only ever called that officially, and the people who live in Coconut Country (South Vietnam) have a largely dismissive attitude to officialdom.

I’ll talk more about Vung Tau and Saigon in my next post.

Second Tour - (1)

I’ve returned to Vietnam twice in the last three years.

Most of what I saw, heard and felt on these return journeys is probably worth sharing. Apart from anything else, the act of returning lifted a monkey from my back.

Until going back in 2006 I’d always harbored a vague guilt about Vietnam – there were two reasons for this.

One was that I never believed in the "cause" - the notion that we were preventing a Communist takeover of SE Asia which would eventually lead to this heinous ideology gradually descending (through gravity I guess) from the North upon defenseless Australia.

If I'd had the courage of my convictions, I've have failed to report for my medical - and what followed would have been a matter for the courts. All the advice I was getting at the time was that I'd best go along with it, as any criminal conviction would not be a good result in terms of my future career.

I had just started teaching, was successful at the job and enjoying it, and didn't want to put any of this is jeopardy. So I knuckled under - probably the first and last time in my life that I ever participated in something that I didn't believe in.

Another regret that developed during my tour was that I was also pretty typical of my fellow diggers in that I didn't really see the Vietnamese as individuals. Everything I learned since my return in 1970 indicated to me that this was a lost opportunity - not that my posting in an Infantry battalion gave me much opportunity to get to know well these people we were supposed tyo be fighting for.

There is a story going around that if I had made my feelings known to the army, I would have been posted to a unit not “warned” for active service. According to this yarn, in every unit a parade was held prior to embarking for South Vietnam. At this parade, any digger not keen on saving the free world from Communism was asked to step forward. These miscreants would then be reposted to a unit not heading for active service – or so the story goes.

Whether this was the case or not (and establishing the historical fact would be fascinating) I have no recollection of the mythical parade. Paul Ham certainly writes about it in his book, Vietnam - The Australian War. If it had happened, I can’t imagine any other outcome than that of the bulk of the Nashos present taking one step forward. Anyway, it didn’t happen to me.

The other reason is that I’ve always found my experience hard to reconcile was that I’d treated the Vietnamese I’d encountered pretty badly back then. Not that we had much contact with civilians except on R & C in Vung Tau, or occasionally when we encountered unarmed civilians (not VC) on patrol.

I was on a TAOR patrol in March when we came across a group of civvies out collecting wood. They were somewhere they shouldn’t have been, so we rounded them up and shepherded them into a clearing. We then stood over them until the ARVN arrived and took them off somewhere.

One old woman caught my eye. She must have been eighty if she was a day. Despite the fact that I was standing over her and carrying an SLR, she was obviously sorry for me, sweating copiously as I was, and burdened with pack, water and ammunition.

She moved towards me (not threatening because she was diminutive and only came up to my armpit) and mopped my face with a clean rag she was carrying. This amazed me – in the first place that she could feel compassion for someone waving a weapon in her face, and also because she was game enough to make this gesture.

I remember thinking bizarrely about my grandmother and what she would have thought of me if she could see what I was doing.

But back to my return visit.

I travelled back with a bunch of veterans, most of them, like me, ex-infantry. There was no-one from my unit, but there were half a dozen from 8 RAR who were in country the same time as I was back in 1970. My two sons (aged 21 and 23), also came along.

One of the events arranged for us was an encounter with three Vietnamese who had been members of D445 battalion, the same mob that we’d spent months thrashing around the scrub in an attempt (mostly unsuccessful) to eliminate.

We met these blokes outside a war memorial near Ba Ria. Vietnam is a bit like Australia in that there are war memorials everywhere. Generally though, there are a lot more names posted on theirs than ours. They paid dearly for forty years of war.

On the whole, they had aged better than we had. There was plenty of grey hair, but no beer guts evident. They greeted us enthusiastically, with the words – “War is over – we are friends now”. There was much shaking of hands, slapping of backs, and a man-hug or two.

The deal was that we’d be introduced, interpreters would be laid on, and we’d have an outdoor lunch and a Ba-Mi-Ba (beer) or three together. Many of the ex-diggers were carrying laminated army maps marked up as the battlefield had been back in 1970. It didn’t take long for the grog to start flowing, and the war stories soon followed. What was unique about this was that we were sharing stories with our ex-enemy – a strange experience.

During an animated conversation over a map rolled out on a picnic table, one of the Vietnamese blokes started laughing loudly. When we asked, through the interpreter, what was funny, he explained that he was very familiar with a patrol route that was showing on the map. It showed a range of paths used for TAOR patrols – the patrols that moved out a couple of Klics from the Nui Dat base to ensure that we weren’t mortared. The idea was that if the VC knew that they could encounter an Aussie patrol any old time, they’d think twice before setting of a base plate and making a “shoot and scoot” attack on the base. Whilst the routes followed were deliberately random, there were a set of paths followed more or less routinely.

What had caused all the merriment was that the map indicated that patrols regularly passed through an area under which an extensive tunnel system had been set up by the VC. (Later, we were shown the remnants of this system). This ex-VC was laughing as he recalled watching us pass by from the safety of a hidden tunnel opening. When he was asked why he didn’t ambush us, he said – “Too much trouble – we knew you were leaving in the future, and it was better to wait”.

He saw much more humour in it than we did, but I suppose it had its funny side.

For me, it fairly neatly encapsulated the absurdity of the situation that we found ourselves in, back in 1970.

The country is thriving, with a great deal of foreign investment (very carefully controlled by the Vietnamese) creating massive and rapid development. The breed of Communism (called “Doi Moi” – liberal economic reforms introduced in 1986) is far removed from the Marxist dogma promoted by Ho Chi Minh. In fact, I’m sure the old man would be spinning in his grave if he could see what was going down in the name of the People’s Republic at the moment.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship is everywhere, and a lot of people are getting very rich very quickly. The Vietnamese pay lip service to Marxism, but they have, in reality shrugged it off much in the same way as they shrugged off American intervention in the sixties and seventies.

The bulk of the population have no memory of the war, and to them it is irrelevant.

I came home with a weight lifted from my shoulders. I really hadn’t done much harm to the country, and my involvement was a footnote, rendered irrelevant by the energy and optimism of contemporary Vietnam. And there were no hard feelings.

Jungle Liturgy

Given that yesterday was Vietnam Veterans day, it's probably a good time to post this recollection.

Enjoy -

Jungle Liturgy

Infantry battalions were supported in country by a range of people and structures. One important element of this support was the padre. He rejoiced in a variety of nicknames, including “sky-pilot”, “god-botherer” or “bible-basher”, but these nicknames, like the attitude of most soldiers, were generally benign.

There was a grudging respect on the part of most diggers for anyone who was prepared to share the privations and dangers that were central to the daily life of patrolling as an infantry soldier. I encountered a few padres during my service, and was generally impressed. I don’t know if there were any poor quality padres in Vietnam, but if there were, I didn’t come into contact with them. I guess anyone who wasn’t genuine would have been given short shrift by the diggers.

We were fortunate as a unit to have a Father Keith Teefey as our padre, and he was well respected by most of us. I got to know him during April on our second battalion operation, when he traveled with B Company.

During the operation I did a stint as LOB (which meant I was back in base for a week – a job that was rotated through the rifle sections) and I traveled with Keith Teefey back to Nui Dat on an APC. There wasn’t much opportunity for conversation on the APC – they’re much too noisy, but we moved on to a truck at FSB Anne, and I was able to talk to him then.

He had worked in the Darling Downs and this gave us something in common, as I knew the area.


He talked about some of the civil affairs work that he was involved in, and this raised my interest straight away, as it sounded preferable to tromping around the scrub in a rifle platoon. Most things sounded better than what I was doing at this time.

Besides, I was a teacher, and would have given my eyeteeth to be working in Civil Aid, where my expertise was. I began to harbour thoughts that I would get myself – somehow – into civil affairs, and when I got back to the Dat, penned a letter to the CO requesting a transfer to a unit involved in this work. (It was this letter that was partly responsible for my posting to Q platoon later). The response to this was predictable. The company commander made a point of letting me know that he thought this was my way of escaping operational duty, by calling the letter “a load of bullshit”.

He was right about me wanting to get out of a rifle platoon, but wrong in calling what I’d written “bullshit”. I really did have altruistic motives. Incidentally, my platoon commander was supportive. On reflection, it may have been simply that he wanted to get rid of me.

Earlier in this operation, we had moved into FSB Anne after what seemed like months of patrolling. In reality, we had been “bush” for about five weeks. The best part of getting back behind the wire, in a slightly more secure situation, was enjoying a field shower, which removed several layers of sweat and filth, and made us feel human again. When you haven’t had a proper cleanup for five weeks, you become very appreciative of this kind of opportunity.

We set up positions within the relative safety of the base, and began to clean our gear and deal with what the army called “personal administration”. This was code for getting all our paraphernalia back into best possible nick, trying to repair or replace lost or damaged items, and getting stuck into weapons maintenance.

This last aspect was treated with almost religious fervour, because apart from the fact that we had been drilled since the first day of recruit training into looking after our weapons, we knew that in a real sense, our lives depended on weapon reliability. Generally, the SLR was reliable under the worst of field conditions, but the M-16 and M-60 were less so, not tolerating sand or grit. The belts for the M-60s had to be kept clean, or the result was a stoppage, possibly at a very inconvenient moment when the rest of the section was relying on the gun.

There was also time for a different and more conventional variety of religious observance – that of a “church” service. Easter was coming up, but this was to be a simple communion service for all ranks. The place chosen was in the open to one side of the FSB. It was made clear that religious denomination wasn’t an issue and everyone was welcome.

I went along, as did the bulk of the platoon, and was amazed to hear Keith Teefey announce at the beginning of the service, that communion would be taken, and everyone, irrespective of denomination, was welcome to join in, providing they did so in the right spirit. Quite a few of my non-Catholic mates did so, and whilst we didn’t discuss it (soldiers generally don’t comment on liturgical matters in the field), seemed to show due reverence in the situation.

As a Catholic brought up in a fairly conservative tradition, I was impressed by what I regarded as a rational and ecumenical approach to pastoral care in the field. A letter to my parents, written that afternoon after the morning service, explained what I had seen. I knew my father would be interested, as he was something of an amateur theologian, and had a keen interest in liturgical reform, originating about the time of Vatican II.

My dad told the Parish Priest in Texas at the time, and all hell broke loose.

This priest, a very conservative Irishman, reported Keith Teefey to the Bishop of the Diocese, much to my father’s dismay, which began a long-running feud. (The bishop, who didn’t have any jurisdiction in this case, had enough common sense to ignore the report, but it made my father very angry.) This feud culminated in a denouncement of my family from the pulpit. This made dad even more upset, because the priest cast aspersions on one of my sisters who was obliquely accused of giving bad example, because she was enjoying a busy social life in Warwick. My father refused to have anything more to do with the priest.

This was a local issue, as dad was principal of the state primary school, and had at this time two children (my youngest brother and sister) attending the convent school. Looking back, the situation was a good example of the power of ignorance.

To some extent, it was also indicative of the attitude of some Australians to the conflict, an attitude born of ignorance. I remember thinking that the whole episode had elements of farce. I never told Keith Teefey about it. Later in my tour, in Admin Company, I had the chance to travel with Keith Teefey to the Baria orphanage, which had been adopted by our unit. I enjoyed the contact with the children immensely, some of whom had obviously been fathered by American servicemen. The conditions in the orphanage weren’t wonderful, as it was overcrowded and understaffed, but the kids seemed full of life, bright, and very pleased to see us.

We would scrounge all sorts of useful items and give them to the staff, who were very grateful. The diggers were very generous, and would scout around for useful items if they knew they were going to a good cause. It was pretty clear to me that there was an enormous amount of goodwill between the average digger and the ordinary Vietnamese, and I’m sure that we would have spent our time much more profitably in South Vietnam if we had been engaged in civil affairs work, and left the fighting to the Yanks.

There may have been a better long-term political outcome if we had done so. Mind you, one of the reasons for the relative security enjoyed in Phouc Tuy was the superior tactics and field craft exhibited by 1ATF. If the security had been managed by the Yanks, it would probably have been a very different story.

There were a number of diggers who professed to despise the Vietnamese people, but I’m sure this developed out of fear, and was not a typical reaction. The major issue was always that of being unable to trust anyone, as there was no front line, and security was never guaranteed.

Despite this, Phouc Tuy was more secure during my time in country (1970) than most other provinces, and this was certainly due to the superior tactics adopted by the Australian units, as it had been a VC stronghold. As far as I can see, we were light years ahead of the Yanks in this aspect of the conduct of the war.

I was very pleased (and surprised) at the end of June to be posted to Q platoon, Admin Company. Some vacancies had occurred there as a result of Nashos completing their time in country, and I’d always been honest with my superiors about my discontent at my posting, so the recommendation was made, and my transfer came through. This meant that I would live behind the wire in a tent, and would not be spending the rest of my tour (about six months) tromping through the jungle. I had made some great mates in B Company, and felt some guilt at moving into the relative safety of Admin Company, but in the end was relieved at the less dangerous posting. It sat well with my major goal of getting home in one piece.

As it turned out, in short order I was posted out to the Horseshoe to run the Q unit out there, so I didn't stay in the Dat for long. When the QM discovered I was a teacher in civvie street, and could operate a 16mm projector, I also took over showing late run films to the diggers.

I got to see a lot of movies.

Bush Kids

I've had a great week working in schools more than 300km west of here.

Generally, I traveled by road, but one day was fly-in, fly-out, which is a great time-saver. It also brings me into contact with people working for other agencies, which is always interesting.

In education, we work on a developmental model, whilst in health the diagnostic - therapeutic model is the norm. I believe that this is one reason why medicos (with notable exceptions) find dealing with people with disabilities very challenging. They're not - after all - ill.

It's strange, therefore, that the kids I work with are categorized using a medical description of specific disabilities. It's probably time for a change.

Being an aircraft tragic adds another dimension to fly-in, fly-out. This week there was a change of aircraft (from Piper PA-42 Cheyenne Turbo to Beechcraft Super Kingair).

Apparently the Piper was in Melbourne having maintenance when someone taxied it into a lighting stanchion. This did it no good at all.I don't know what it did for the person responsible.

The Kingair was a bit newer, and somewhat roomier, but is apparently not so much of a rocket ship as the Cheyenne. Either represent a big improvement on driving.

But I digress... this is supposed to be about kids, not planes.

Essentially, one of the main reasons I continue to do this work is the fantastic feedback I get from the kids. Bush kids are different. They're usually pragmatic, honest, and will have a go at anything. Two spring to mind...

One is a year five boy with hemiplegia in a very small school.The first time I met him he had a bruise on his face. When I asked him how he got it, he said simply "playing footy".

His teacher told me that he played second row in the school team. He has a wobbly gait, and his left arm is not all that functional. He tucks the ball under this arm, and fends with the other one (the right) which functions very well indeed. His unpredictable gait makes him very hard to tackle. He's a very popular player and has won "Best and fairest".

The other one is a year nine lad also with mild cerebral palsy in a slightly bigger (but quite isolated) school. A few months ago I helped his parents identify a notebook computer small enough for him to carry from class to class, which he links to a roll-up keyboard. This works well, as it boots up quickly, and he can keyboard his work at the same speed as the other kids write. What he produces is also legible.

Unfortunately, he locked himself out of this laptop, and for reasons not well understood, it stubbornly refused to let him log on. The school's IT teacher spent the best part of a day trying to get him in, but finally gave up in frustration.

On the day I turned up, he was getting desperate, as he couldn't access his work. I dug up the handbook, which gave directions on system retrieval. After he phoned his mum to check that it was OK for me to have a go at it, and after I phoned the manufacturer (ASUS) to check the procedure, we took our courage in both hands and ran the retrieval programme.

Fortunately, it worked, and he put in a new password. Now he wasn't going to let this happen again!

He insisted that I write down the password and put it in a sealed envelope which he gave to the support teacher to file safely. He also asked me to write down step-by-step the retrieval procedure in case it was necessary again in the future.

This setting up of a simple failsafe system was, to me, impressive, and an indication that he was demonstrating a sense of independence that is typical of bush kids.

I'm privileged to be able to work with these kids, their schools and parents. It's also great fun.

The Bleeding Obvious (Take Two)

Today the Courier Mail published a supplement with the statewide league tables of 2008 NAPLAN testing.

To read their editorial material over the years, you'd be excused for thinking that they had somehow opened up this data to scrutiny in the face of obdurate opposition from a education sector with something to hide. Apart from the fact that this information has been available for years on school websites, there hasn't been any political opposition from the current state government.

All that the supplement does is to make it easier to compare, although to my way of thinking, any parent too lazy to log on to the websites of the schools of interest to do his/her own research probably isn't going to make good decisions. I suppose there may be some parents without access to the internet, but then, the same material is available in hard copy on request from schools.

So the first myth busted is that of this information being hidden.

There is another myth being promoted by the Courier Mail.

This one is that private schools are a better bet when it comes to choosing schools if you want a high standard of literacy and numeracy. On the face of it, this may seem to hold water given the Courier's headline that "Private Schools Top the Class".

Looking at the data, it's clear that more private schools are positioned at the top of the league than state schools, although interestingly enough, many small state schools do very well - but can't be counted because of the sample size problem. Most of these are in the bush. These are the schools I support.

What becomes abundantly clear if you spend five minutes with the tables is that the clearest correlation is between high scores and socio-economic status of the feeder area. The private-public comparison is submerged in this, but the Courier pulls it out as a headline because it creates a political issue.

I suppose a headline reading "wealthy kids do better" doesn't create the controversy that the public-private debate does, and doesn't sell as many papers.

What is not measured and published for public scrutiny is the time lost in coaching students for the tests, the curriculum content (usually intrinsically interesting material such as music) abandoned, and the insidious effect that teaching to the test has on professional practice. What will become abundantly clear as the years roll by, will be a steady improvement in the results. This will have nothing to do with improving literacy and numeracy standards, and everything to do with schooling for the tests.

This is what has happened everywhere else in the world where standardised testing has been applied, and we're not going to be any different.

And it means nothing to the parents of the kids I work with, many of whom have absolutely no choice as to where they send their kids to school. These are students with disabilities, and in most parts (rural and metropolitan) of this state, the private schools simply won't enrol them.

These private schools are funded for the most part with taxpayers' money, and yet these parents can't enrol their kids in them.

Stinks a bit, doesn't it?

I wonder whether the Courier would run an editorial on that issue?