45th anniversary of Long Tan
 

Battle of Long Tan will be commemorated today with the servicemen of the units involved receiving long awaited gallantry awards. http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http:...Z_gOiRrArLzVmA

Finally the men who fought there are getting the recognition they deserve. I don't understand why Korean/Vietnam vets are overlooked in favor of the older vets of WW1 & 2. I guess its just the fact that WW1 & 2 sound bigger and better than wars that were isolated to just one country.

Slightly off topic but do any aussie members here know if there are any surviving WW1 vets left?

A lot of people don't know that Vietnam was really an international war on both sides. :yep:

Thank you Australia for backing us up over there. :salute:

I think that Vietnam and Korea get ignored because they where different wars than the likes of WWI and WWII Korea went poorly because China got involved and in the end no side made any gains at all in fact most of the Korean had combat much like WWI.

Vietnam was a real let down for guys who fought over there they did jobs well and in open battle the NVA Viet Cong never defeated us they managed to win the physiological war because we let them.Media made a big deal about TET in 1968 and it did show that we where not as successful up to that point but we soundly defeated the NVA and the Viet Cong sappers never even made it inside the US Embassy people back home just say that on TV and that was that.The North knew that they could take advantage of the general public and they did that combined with poor strategy is what cost us that war.You know that they never really openly bombed the North fully until 1972 and that got them to the table in days.People got upset about going into Cambodia in 1970 bust we had allowed that to happen for years how can you defeat an enemy when you allow him to evaporate to a safe haven when he so desires(a Group called the Taliban does the same thing today in a place called Pakistan history repeating)A tiger can kill an elephant.

My dad was a LRRP in Vietnam and sometimes the SAS regiment would send a few guys to see how the LRRPs did things he said that they carried FNFALs which fire 7.62x51mm which only was available in linked belts for the M-60 in most US Army units by that time so the Aussies either had to carry a Car-15 or M-16 or take apart M-60 belts by hand and then load their FAL mags the Aussies never carried M-16s(well some did you can see so in pictures but the SAS boys disliked them) so they would spend the hours after a mission drinking beer and de linking ammo belts.

Embarrassed, I must admit I never knew Australia had combat forces in Viet Nam. :oops:

So did South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Spain (medical personnel) and the Philippines. Thailand, Laos and Cambodia were also involved on the US/S. Vietnam side.

Believe it or not on the Communist side North Korea had forces fighting as well; some 200 or so fighter pilots.

Yep we were there from 1962 until 1973: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/vietnam.asp & http://www.vvaa.org.au/calendar.htm In all we had 60,000 service involved over that period with 521 KIA and about 3000 wounded.

As a kid I remember watching the nightly news reports telling us what was going on and though I didn't realise it at the time, I now recall a shift in the way the war and the protests against it were reported.

If you get the chance take a look at The Odd Angry Shot which is about the Australian SAS regiment in Vietman. Its good for a laugh in parts as well.

The reason recognition was much less in the 60's and 70's was that the Vietnam war was not actually a declared war and was seen at the time as a police action. This meant that awards for gallantry were not issued and even though some Victoria Crosses were handed out, unit citations for gallantry were few and far between for that conflict. It was more a government policy decision than anything else.

Thanks for the info. I've seen tons of Viet Nam docs, but none of them ever
mention the other countries that were involved. :doh:

Good on them...very well deserved :sunny:

~SALUTE~

I watched a good doco on Long Tan which hardly mentioned the yanks involvement.

IIRC we've been involved in almost all major and a lot of minor conflicts since WWII.

Didn't se ya in the Falklands :O:

I believe there were some Brits in Nam as well, although it's a murky area. I've heard rumours of SAS and Marine involvement, but it's a real murky bit, I think many of them were there unofficially and the official record was that they were no longer members of the SAS, or were on training with the Aussies.

Didn't the Australians and New Zealanders send some ships to release British warships from their patrol stations for Operation Corporate? :hmmm:

They did indeed. They covered us in the Indian Ocean while our usual ships went over to the Falklands. :yep:

I know NZ did but can't honestly recall whether Australia did or not but without researching the subject I suspect they would have also.