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Australian Vietnam Veterans Forgotten and Thrown Away

By Graham Bell

"The myth that Australia has the best repatriation system in the world is being shattered as more and more cases of injustices committed against Vietnam Veterans and their families are revealed.

"Widows are denied pensions. The widow of one young veteran was lucky, she managed to get a part-time job a month ago—she couldn't work while her husband was in the terminal stage of his illness and this is her first job since he died. Her husband was killed by a contaminated defoliant, not by a D-10 mine or an AK-47 bullet, so she does not get a war widow's pension. If he had been blown up or shot maybe she would have been better off, he just got in the way of some deadly chemicals so the government says his death was not 'war-caused.'

"...This unfortunate situation has arisen because of the laziness, the stupidity, and the political bootlicking of a handful of key officials in ex-service organizations who are too frightened to stand up for the interests of their own veterans. It is worth bearing in mind that these are the same few ratbags who went chasing imaginary Reds-under-the-beds while we were fighting against flesh and blood communist soldiers in the real world. The government knows it can rely on these clowns to stop veterans ' making trouble.'

"And what of the future? The government's mishandling of the whole issue of Vietnam Veterans—particularly in the Agent Orange controversy—has shown that Australian soldiers can no longer trust the government.

"Up until the Vietnam War every soldier knew that if he was injured on active service he and his family would be looked after. That vital trust, a morale factor worth far more than any high-technology weapons system, has now been destroyed by a few ruthless politicians and their bureaucratic hangers on. Let's hope we are not involved in another war."

From an article by Graham Bell,

President of the Queensland Branch of the Australian Vietnam Veterans Association