Going Back (5 page)

Delta Company had a mixed bag of platoon commanders: Dennis Rainer (later to win a Military Cross), a Portsea graduate; Greg Negus, a full-time Citizen Military Forces (CMF) officer;
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and Finnie Rowe, a senior graduate from the Officer Training Unit at Scheyville in the first intake of National Service.
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Half of the soldiers were Regular Army; the remainder were National Servicemen serving out their two-year conscription—but they were all infantrymen trained under the same system. As Paul remarked, ‘Obviously the older ones were Regulars but . . . there was no separation of class or anything at all, they were just all there together.'
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By the time Major Greenhalgh deployed he had a good understanding of what the war in South Viet Nam was all about, adding that the unit they were to replace, 1 RAR, were preparing 5 RAR with training notes: ‘We were definitely being fed the “dos and don'ts” and lessons learnt.'
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After securing the Nui Dat position through Operation Hardihood, it was six weeks before the Australian Task Force came in. As Paul stated, ‘In a sense we were on our own and extremely vulnerable all that time.' When describing the nature of their operations he added:

The intensity was incredible and I don't know how that compared later on in battalions, but I would say being the first in there we were in the front line and vulnerable the whole damned time. At no stage did you feel that you could let your guard down, maybe down at Vung Tau when you were sitting on R&C when you got away from the place. But you seemed to have a 360-degree personal perimeter the whole time.
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Delta Company was spared mine incidents, but lost four killed in action in two separate incidents. Paul recalled, ‘I remember having a service in the boozer on Nui Dat hill'. On discussing the enemy he faced, he thought their ‘ability to fight was unquestioned . . . But right at the beginning I wondered about the Allies' ability to win this war.'
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Primarily 5 RAR was continually running into local Viet Cong, and usually from
D 445 Provincial Mobile Force Battalion
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Paul looks back on his tour of duty ‘with incredible pride. My strongest legacy of the year in Viet Nam was the degree of professionalism that the soldiers attained, achieved—the National Servicemen particularly, because they were that youthful element.'
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Paul missed out on a second tour of duty as a commanding officer but did command 5/7 RAR in December 1973. His reaction to the fall of South Viet Nam was one of ‘shock and horror'. He remarked, ‘I was at Canungra [instructing] on Tactics Wing and I remember about ten majors and myself listening to this announcement and saying, “Good God, all that effort has gone to waste.” '
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Paul and his wife Wendy have been back to Viet Nam several times because their son has been living in Hanoi for eight years, running a motorbike touring company. When asked why he wanted to come on the 5 RAR pilgrimage, Paul replied:

It's down memory lane to physically see the terrain of Viet Nam where we were. Maybe things have changed so much we won't see any comparison to what we had before. I have got photos; my son has actually been there twice and has been to Long Tan and all over the place. It is just down memory lane for a few days and to go with a few friends and to relive that time. To see Vung Tau, Cap St Jacques as it was, and of course we will end up seeing my son up in Hanoi.
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Initially Paul was totally against returning to Viet Nam, but after a battalion reunion in Wagga, NSW, a few years ago, and after the funeral of battalion chaplain Father John Williams in Sydney, he was convinced by fellow officer and Association President Roger Wainwright to take the journey back with a group of the battalion's first tour officers. He admitted he was ‘just never really interested to come back to Viet Nam. It never really meant so much.' Even though Paul had been on many battle tours around the world, he said, ‘For some reason I saw no need to come back here. But thank God I did.'
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Wife Wendy was delighted that Paul agreed to return with the 5 RAR group and was keen to accompany him because she wanted to see the country where he had fought. She had no expectations before the tour, adding, ‘I wanted to see where he'd been to sort of fill in a jigsaw puzzle that wasn't quite complete.'
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Today Paul and Wendy live in busy retirement in Canberra, where Paul fills in his time as a top-notch picture framer.

Captain Ted Heffernan, RAAMC,
Medical Officer, Nui Dat

Ted Heffernan is a large, stocky man with an infectious sense of humour. He became a doctor in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC) after he had graduated from medical school via the Army's undergraduate program in 1964.
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He served for five years in the Regular Army and in 1966 was posted to South Viet Nam as a regimental medical officer (RMO) in a field ambulance and in an artillery field regiment. He survived ambush and the other dangers of service in a war zone and returned to Australia after being decorated by the Government of South Viet Nam. Today, Dr Heffernan, FRACS, FRCS (England), FACS, is a general surgeon, and has a practice in Geelong, Victoria, where he lives with his wife Joy.

Ted wanted to return to Viet Nam to renew acquaintances, visit places where he deployed on Medcaps (medical civil aid programs) and share memories with his fellow officers:

It was probably the only chance I was going to get to get back to Viet Nam and see any of the spots I've served in with people of the same era, which is significant. And it probably wasn't a bad time in life. As you get older you haven't got much chance to do these things now.
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Ted's wife of 43 years wanted to return with him because ‘it was a good time to come back with Ted and experience a number of places he's talked about for the last 40 years'. On reflection Joy added, ‘I wanted to support him, and also to see the areas that Ted actually visited while he was in the Army here in 1966. And for myself to have some peace of mind.'
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Dr Heffernan treated Allies and enemy alike, and saw the physical and emotional damage that war can inflict on the human body and spirit. When he left South Viet Nam in 1967 he was ‘pleased to leave unharmed'. He was dismayed at the result of the conflict, which carried a terrible loss of life on all sides, and deplored the withdrawal of the Allies in 1972, saying ‘a core of loyal South Vietnamese were just left to their fate'.

Ted was unsure what he would see on his return to Viet Nam. ‘I thought I would recognise nothing in our battlefields, and I didn't know how I'd feel about going to them.' But as he discovered later, ‘there are certain landmarks that are still there. I think the best times for me on this trip were finding places like the RMO's tent in the field regiment and returning to Xuyen Moc and Hoa Long.' Joy also wasn't sure what to expect, remarking, ‘I didn't expect it to be as pretty a country as it is. For some unknown reason I didn't expect it to be as green, quite as beautiful as I found it.'
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Ted is still practising surgery (to pay for Joy's extravagances, he says), while Joy undertakes retail therapy with relish.

Captain Peter Isaacs, Adjutant, 5 RAR

I first met Peter Isaacs—a captain instructor at the Officer Training Unit, Scheyville—in mid-1968 when I was an officer cadet. Peter fell into the stereotypical mould of the British Army officer, who spoke correctly, dressed immaculately and was never fazed. He wore a ‘Herbie Johnson' forage cap with a steep visor that meant that you could never see where he was looking and if he was watching you. He taught infantry minor tactics and several other subjects and was regarded by most cadets I served with as a ‘pretty good sort of bloke'. After serving as a platoon commander in the British Army in the United Kingdom, he joined the Australian Army on a five-year short-service commission and served with 5 RAR on its first tour of duty in 1966–67 as an intelligence officer and adjutant. For his service in South Viet Nam he was Mentioned in Despatches. After his time was up he returned to the United Kingdom and served with the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces between 1975 and 1978 as a company commander and then battalion second-in-command on counter-insurgency operations in Dhofar Province. It was during this tour of duty in Oman that Peter was nearly killed in a landmine incident that took his right leg off at the hip, and severely chewed into his right arm and left leg. He also lost the sight in his left eye and was extremely lucky to survive.

Peter has been returning to Australia from the United Kingdom for decades to attend the five-year battalion reunions and events such as the Dedication of the Vietnam Memorial in Canberra in 1998. When asked why he travels halfway around the world to attend such events he simply replied, ‘It's family. That's why.' Peter said he wanted to return to Viet Nam ‘as a sort of “pilgrimage” to remember those fine young men with whom it was my privilege to serve in 5 RAR, and who did not return'.
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His reservations were similar to those of many veterans who are contemplating a return visit:

I had anticipated that much of the scenery would have changed—‘development' in what used to be called the Third World usually means unplanned urban sprawl. I was not disappointed; travelling from Vung Tau to Ba Ria and Hoa Long is now a continual ribbon of buildings.
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This was to be Peter's first trip back to Viet Nam since the war. He expressed his expectations as being mainly:

Comradeship—being among those men who I know better than any other group I have ever worked with—apart from another campaign I took part in, that is [Oman]. Thankfulness—to remember those fine fellows of our 5 RAR family who were killed in South Viet Nam.
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Peter was always frustrated in South Viet Nam because he felt that the Australian effort should have ‘been more “belligerent” '. He favoured a more aggressive operational approach. When the South finally fell in 1975, Peter was heavily involved in operations in Oman. He described how he felt when he heard the news:

I was involved in another war in '75; had little contact with the outside world and loving it. When I eventually saw a film clip of the tank rolling into the Presidential Palace, I was sad for the people we had tried to help, and angry that public opinion in the US had brought about the situation. Even more so when Henry Kissinger and his North Vietnamese counterpart got the Nobel Peace Prize!
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Peter (married in 1964 but now divorced) was not in favour of wives or partners being included in the trip, but added ruefully: ‘I realised it was inevitable (some would not have been allowed to make the trip alone!).' It is testament to his grit and determination that he made the trip because Viet Nam is not a country that caters well to disabled people. However, he remarked that in his current job with the United Nations managing landmine clearance operations in Tajikistan he wasn't too worried about a lack of facilities, and so he was sure he would manage ‘just fine'.
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Peter resides in England when not lifting mines in farflung outposts around the globe.

Lieutenant Ben Morris, Platoon Commander,
5 RAR, 2 RAR and 1 ATF Civil Affairs Detachment

Ben Morris graduated from RMC Duntroon in 1965 and served initially with the 1st Battalion, Pacific Islands Regiment (1 PIR), before being sent to South Viet Nam as a reinforcement officer. He knew something of the war, having received lectures from the staff and from Colonel Ted Serong, who led the initial deployment of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV). Another visiting lecturer in 1964 was Captain Peter Young, who Ben recalled ‘giving us an extremely good briefing on Viet Nam'.
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Deploying as a reinforcement—commonly, but not disparagingly, referred to as a ‘reo'—is probably the hardest and most demanding way to go to war. The reo often doesn't know the people he is about to serve and fight with, and he hasn't had the benefit of work-up training back in Australia where everyone becomes familiar with the standard operating procedures of the unit. Ben Morris described how he felt about his posting as a reinforcement officer:

I wasn't happy about going to the Reinforcement Wing because I wanted to go and join a battalion . . . We were asked whether or not we wanted to go to Canungra and because I had been in the tropics for the last twelve months they were prepared to give us an exemption, which both Paul Mench and myself took, and I ended up arriving in country about 17 January 1967.
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Ben described the training and preparation at the Reinforcement Wing in Ingleburn, Sydney, as ‘ad hoc', adding, ‘There didn't seem to be a real plan; there just seemed to be a lot of turmoil. So the training was fairly disjointed.'
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However, he thought that he was reasonably well prepared for active service:

I was, due to the fact that I had just spent twelve months in Papua New Guinea, and I think there were also parts of the RMC syllabus that stood us in good stead. In Second Class we did a first aid course and I used that to save men in Viet Nam.
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Ben's first appointment after arriving in the 1st Australian Reinforcement Unit in Nui Dat was in the Civil Affairs Unit, which he discovered hadn't had an administration officer since its inception. His duties revolved around providing assistance and liaison to the local ARVN posts where the Australian Task Force had regional advisers, and as Ben explained, ‘we helped them with their civil affairs'. Ben detailed some of the jobs he had:

If a cordon and search was on, Civil Affairs turned up with the Psyops equipment and ready to set up to supplement the doctors or had their own doctors; it was very much an ad hoc thing and if problems were identified during the Medcaps and Dentcaps [dental civil aid projects], part of our job was to follow up and get the people into Ba Ria for medical and dental treatment.
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