Honour the dead, fight like hell for the living”.

If one central thing can be drawn from reflecting on Anzac Day, it is this: In war, the best offer their own lives, the worst offer the
lives of others. Andy Alcock continues.

Graham Cornes should be congratulated for his story in SAWeekend Magazine on 25.4.2009 about returning to Vietnam.

It reminded me of a discussion that I heard between a group of tourists that my wife and I were members of in Vietnam and their Vietnamese tour guide in 1992.

I was too old to be called up for Vietnam, and when Australia got involved, I was a very conservative young person who believed the prevailing propaganda that the evil North Vietnamese needed to be
stopped somewhere. My position was to change, however. Geoff Harcourt, a former professor of economics at the University of Adelaide and a spokesperson for the Campaign for Peace in Vietnam encouraged me to read two books about the war.

One of those books was called “The Lotus in the Sea of Fire”. It was the Buddhist story of the war and was by the Student
Christian Movement Press in London. The book had a very confronting photograph of a burning Buddhist monk in front of an
old Austin car on the front cover. This dire action was the monk’s protest against the war.

At about that time, I also read an article in the US magazine, Ramparts. It showed graphic photographs of Vietnamese children
who had been badly burnt by napalm dropped on their villages by the US Air Force. I came to believe that the US war in Vietnam was morally wrong and I became very involved in the peace movement.

Now you might think that I would say that Graham Cornes should be ashamed of his role in Vietnam, but when I visited Vietnam in 1992, I too was surprised by the very civilised and humane attitude that the Vietnamese have towards Australian and US soldiers who fought there.

One day, we were travelling on a bus towards Vung Tau, a town that Graham mentioned in his article. We crossed a long causeway and noticed in the distance the last section of what must have been a very
long bridge. The obvious question to Dung, our guide, was “who took it out”, to which his reply was “the Viet Cong”. Despite what happened there, I found the Vietnamese were very diplomatic about the history of the war.

Anyway, this led to a discussion about the war. Dung told us that many US and Australian veterans had visited Vietnam.

One of our party asked, what the Vietnamese thought about that considering what had transpired and all were very surprised by his answer.

“We treat them like long lost brothers”.

“But why would you do that? Surely, they were the enemy,” we asked.

Dung’s answer went like this:

“We never considered them as the enemy. Yes, we fought them, but we had to defend our country. We did not blame the veterans.
We blamed the politicians who sent them.”

“In fact,” he said, “We consider that they were victims like us. They have suffered from the effects of Agent Orange and post traumatic stress like we have”.

The he said something that greatly surprised all the Australians in the goup:

“And in the case of the Australian conscripts who were sent here, they were sent here before they were eligible to vote”.

A fellow traveller commented that it was obvious that our hosts knew more about us that we knew about them.

The veterans should not be made to feel guilty about what happened in Vietnam. They were sent there by our politicians.

As a nation, I think that we should be ashamed that our leaders sent young
Australians to this totally unnecessary war. I also think
that our government should have done more to help with the reconstruction of Vietnam. Richard Nixon promised reparations, but US
governments gave Vietnam nothing.

However, there are many NGOs doing great work to assist the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia who all suffered. Sadly, many lives are still lost because of the presence of land mines.

Yesterday, in Sydney Lieutenant Lance Collins gave a speech entitled “Reflections of Anzac Day” at a function organised by the Australia East Timor Association. In his speech, he raised questions about the wars Australians have been sent to , who has sent them, why were they sent?

I think his closing comments are very apt in the context of this discussion:

“If one central thing can be drawn from reflecting on Anzac Day, it is this: In war, the best offer their own lives, the worst offer the
lives of others. Anzac Day would, in my view, be more important, more meaningful and ultimately more valuable if Australians take
the opportunity to scratch beneath the legends to where courage was matched by cowardice and fortitude by folly.

I think the Vietnam veterans have said it best: Honour the dead, fight like hell for the living”.

It is interesting to note that International Workers’ Memorial Day (28.4.09) has a very similar slogan.

I agree with Lance Collins that this day is a very appropriate time to reflect where we have been as a nation and where we ought to
be going in the future.

It should lead us to seeking peaceful ways of coexisting with other nations and not getting involved in other
people’s wars like Vietnam or Iraq.

Andy Alcock