Today is a special remembrance day for Australian defence Force personnel who were conscripted into d3efence service and then sent to Vietnam. Australia committed to supporting America during the Vietnam War.

For so many who went to Vietnam, death awaited. Many others from both Australia and America, lost limbs and in other ways were hideously injured by the atrocities of war.

For Australian returned servicepeople, one of the awful underpinnings ws theway in which they were spurned and reviled by the general poploation. The war was horrible, accomplished little, and hurt many with terrible physical and mental scars.

PTSD was a major affliction while others succumbed to cancer. Many – indeed scores of returnees – lost mariages, families and their lives through suicide.

I am 78 and consider myself ever so lucky that the birthday ballot, by which those conscripted to training and war, did not include my date of birth.

So much sacrifice, so many deaths, and so much loss of access to an everyday and decent life – and for what?

In the Sunday Territorian today, August 18 2024