In the Australian Infantry about September 1970, laying up at night on the Border of Phouc Tuy and Bien Hoa provinces in South Vietnam, at the bottom left hand corner on the map, on the part that runs due north south.

Around twenty clicks south west of US Fire Support Base Black Horse, on a raised roadway, overgrown and inaccessible by wheeled vehicles, that could be as old as the ancient Vietnamese Kingdom.

9:30 pm it had been raining, the Moon was disappearing between the rainclouds causing shine and shadow, there were troop movements about two hundred meters down, by 04:30 the following morning, about two and a half thousand enemy had passed across our front.

Around 11:00 pm that night, first the squeal of worn out bearings then the screech of un greased tracks, beside Corporal Kevin Poulson, I said "that's a effin tank," he grunted, I said come on man we gotta get after it, I turned inwards and spoke to the other groups, that we must be quick..

No one moved a muscle .. the tank climbed up on to the raised section, crossed over and went down the other side, the next night another one did the same thing going the same way, the troops were going left to right, the tanks were rollin' right to left, toward Saigon.

On the second night, when the tank's engine was roaring about two hundred meters away, I told Lieutenant Matthew Faulkner, he turned the fire hose on one of our ppl in cells at Vung Tau weeks before, that we must deploy our M 72 light anti tank weapons, and blow the tank to pieces!

That they were chicken the night before, and they have a perfect opportunity to redeem themselves .. he grunted the same way Paulson had, who had gone forth in December the previous year, and killed a wounded enemy soldier I had wished to save!

"Firehose" Faulkner, Corporals Kevin Poulson and Malcolm Edwards, should have been put against a wall and shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy!