Vietnam: the vets’ point of view
As the tide of public opinion at home turned against the Vietnam War many New Zealanders were away fighting it.
Rather than returning as homecoming heroes, many were surprised to be greeted with protests and paint bombs.
Public attention since has focused on the controversy surrounding New Zealand’s participation and the opposition to it.
No Front Line tells some of the stories of the day-to-day lives of the professional soldiers, doctors nurses and pilots in the field.
Oral historian Claire Hall spent four years interviewing 150 veterans and their families to produce an oral history.
The project was run by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage as part of a settlement agreement after it was shown that many of the soldiers had been exposed to toxic herbicides during their deployment.
When the archive was done, Hall began to write No Front Line as a more widely available account of the time.
She found one man’s stories particularly moving and informative.
SAS trooper George Babbington was among the first she interviewed and his memories are interwoven throughout the book.
‘‘ He was a man who had never talked about his experiences, not to his wife, not to his mates – but he knew this was something that he wanted to tell,’’ Hall said.
Babbington not only told her of his Vietnam experience, but also of life.
He came from a Ngati Porou family with a strong military tradition and it was felt someone from his generation needed to serve to continue the tradition.
He was initially cautious about being interviewed for the project, but eventually agreed, and later thanked Hall for her work.
Father John Carde, of Porirua had a reputation as a ‘‘hard case’’ soldiers’ padre, who put on a pack and went on patrol like the rest of the troops.
He told Hall his motto when he became a priest was, ‘‘ Wherever His people gather, I would like to join in praising the name of the Lord’’.
Hall touches on some of the more outrageous stories to come from the war.
Some men began cutting the ears off enemy casualties to prove kills until a platoon sergeant stopped them, at gunpoint.
A ‘‘fragging’’ incident, where a fragmentation grenade was thrown into the officers’ mess, gets a passing mention because it was viewed as an expression of workplace dissatisfaction, albeit an emphatic one.
In the aftermath the stressed and overworked men were given more rest and recreation opportunities, including the use of a brothel.
A lot of those incidents had been well-documented and Hall’s focus was on putting them into the context of how the men responded.
‘‘ Stories like that take their place in the stories about where they slept and where they showered,’’ she said.
Hall relays stories of jungle patrols, operating in field hospitals, casualty evacuations – dust-offs – and also the stories of families left at home.
She said the men had no idea of the public feeling against the war while they were away and were shocked by the reaction on their return.
‘‘ They were all professional soldiers who joined up to do their jobs. My observation is that a lot of them are really hurt and really pissed off.’’
As veterans they had views on the protesters and their motivations.
The protesters came from a spectrum of the community, religious movements and teachers, she said, ‘‘not just the Progressive Youth Movement throwing paint’’.
Hall asked
the
veterans whether they felt they had a place in the book and was told they did not. Accordingly there is only very limited mention of them.
‘‘Very few of them have softened their position,’’ Hall said. ‘‘That hurt continues to this day.’’
Hall said she considered herself to be a pacifist, and the men were aware of that and respected it.
No Front Line