AusGeoff wrote on Dec 9^th, 2023 at 4:17am:


I have known a few who maintained they did not volunteer for service in South Vietnam but were volunteered.  Apparently an officer would volunteer a subunit for service there without the members knowing about it.  As I have indicated, there were provisions for Nashos to be ordered to serve.

Jasin wrote on Dec 9^th, 2023 at 6:58am:


Menzies and Holt were responsible for that war, dear. They didn't just follow Uncle in, they actively hussled him to come on down.

Menzies, Fadden and Black Jack McEwen were Yellow Peril paranoiacs. The Libs, Country Party and Uncle's spooks in Australia saw Vietnam through that lens. The Domino Theory was influential in corporate/investment circles and spread through the print media. Back then, the media was devoutly pro-Liberal, especially broadsheets like the Herald and Age. They kept Menzies in power for a generation.

The ALP saw things differently. Arthur Calwell opposed conscription and Australian intervention. While his views represented a minority in the party, Jim Cairns organised and demonstrated against the war. Cairns brought many anti-war protesters into the ALP, the middle class "new left", who would be instrumental in bringing Whitlam to power in 1973. The Vietnam war was certainly unpopular in hard-left industrial union circles, but they were wedged by Soviet, Maoist and Trotskyist parties with conflicting positions.

China withdrew support for North Vietnam in 1968 during the Sino-Soviet split. Australian Maoists continued to demonstrate against Vietnam, but they saw the war as a symptom rather than a cause in itself.

After the Tet Offensive in 68, everything changed. In 1971, Gough was the first Western leader to visit Red China, beating Henry Kissenger by a whisker. When the Whitlam government came to power in 1972, Australia withdrew the few forces we had left in Vietnam.

After we pulled out, everything changed again. Gough got the sack, Fraser got in, and the Liberal Party went from being defenders of a White Australia to being liberal Cold War warriors, rescuing and settling thousands of Vietnamese refugees, then known as boat people.

There are no bones on this point. While the Whitlam government formally ended the White Australia Policy, loosening restrictions on non-European migrants to keep much-needed labour coming into Australia, the Fraser government introduced multiculturalism.

Imagine, in the space of ten years, the Libs went from inviting Uncle down to save Australia from Yellow Peril, just like they did with the Japs in WWII, to inviting Vietnamese boat people in to call Australia home.

How some things change, eh? That war ended the White Australia Policy for good. We went from being a dull British colonial backwater to becoming a vibrant, prosperous middle power in the Asia-Pacific and world stage. Australia was instrumental in both the creation of APEC and the rising influence of the G20. Our participation in these forums and in global affairs generally  has been pivotal to our sustained economic growth, our standard of living and our global reach.

Vietnam was a monumental foreign policy failure and an existential loss, not just of all those 19 year old kids, but our integrity, our commitment to our own values. After all, we weren't defending ourselves or our friends in Nam as we did in WWII, we were getting involved in the post-colonial affairs of a neighbour. This wasn't merely at the behest of our imperialist Uncle. We meddled, mobilised and got in ourselves, so do you know?

Next time someone complains about some foreign evil and says we need to go in, remember this. Next time the media kicks up a row, targets the Muselman, the tinted races, the Chows or Jigaboos, think and say ah. You remember now, didn't they say the same about Nam?

Think too, the next time our friends need our help, say in Ukraine or Gaza or maybe one day Taiwan, remember Nam. These are all totally different places with different problems, but they share a common theme: one side dropping bombs on another side, who hardly have any bombs at all, just people.

I do feel one should never underestimate the importance of good manners.

You?

Big Donger wrote on Dec 9^th, 2023 at 3:58pm:

No Nasho was nineteen - anyone nineteen was a volunteer pure and simple.

You are all barking up the wrong tree ....  I believe the original phrase came from a regular volunteer from D Coy, 6RAR after Long
Tan.... Nashos had to sign the paper for possible selection on their 20th birthday, so stop ranting about the unwillings in relation to this song ..... you are insulting them.

Maybe if we were Yanks.... they took 17 year olds ... they always draft the poor kids anyway...... no Senator's son served .... huge difference in your understanding from movies.....

"Nothing hits home more than the fact Mick Storen was 19 when he went to serve his country."

Nah - 6RAR 1969.

"Michael was 19 when he joined the Australian Army. He deployed to Vietnam in 1969 and served in 3 Platoon, A Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR)."

Big Donger wrote on Dec 9^th, 2023 at 3:58pm:

Bias_2012 wrote on Dec 10^th, 2023 at 12:34pm:

Hindsight is 20-20.

In the mid-60s there was nothing idiotic about believing communism would spread across Asia and threaten Australia.

The decade started with the Cuban Missile Crisis, China was an unknown and menacing quantity - the US-China detente had not occurred.

Australians had recently experienced the terror of an almost invasion during WW2 and Britain's abandonment of Australia in its defense.

Violent anti-colonial sentiment was rife throughout all of Southeast Asia's former French, Dutch and British colonies with Australia perceived by these nations as an aider and abetter of imperial powers.

In the '60s, communism's spread to Australia didn't just appear possible, it appeared inevitable.

Jasin wrote on Dec 10^th, 2023 at 12:59pm:

More revisionism.

The bombing of Darwin was proof enough that the Japanese could reach Australia and caused Curtin to prepare to abandon the defense of northern Australia in favour of defending the south.

MeisterEckhart wrote on Dec 10^th, 2023 at 12:52pm: