Download PDF of this full issue: v12n3.pdf (8.4 MB)

Interview with Australian Nam Vet

By VVAW

Bob Gibson, an Australian Vietnam veteran from Harbord in New South Wales, served in Vietnam in 19667-68. He is one of the founders of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia and has been form some years a spokesman for the rights of Australian Vietnam vets. He has also, almost singlehandedly, kept the U.S. vets informed about the progress of the struggle in Australia, among other things allowing VVAW to use the material he sends for our regular "Up From Down Under" column in THE VETERAN.

Recently Gibson has spent a couple of months in the U.S., including a week in Chicago with members of VVAW. During that visit THE VETERAN did the following interview.

Bob Gibson: "you have to come talk and see in order to tell what's going on. I could have stayed in Australia and corresponded and really not got a feeling of what's happening in this country. We're a long way ahead, possibly because of the smaller number of troops (there were 44,000 Australian troops in Vietnam during the Vietnam War). But, we've just had a better policy within the system where we thought we were really badly off."

THE VET: "You seem to have a different relationship with your VA than we do here in the U.S. Here we always seem to be wrong until we can prove ourselves right."

Bob: "That's the opposite in our country. The veteran has the benefit of the doubt. The government has t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's nothing wrong with the veteran. And that's the way it really should be."

During the week there was a lot of discussion of the differences between the American VA and the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs. Because the Australian government has to prove that a particular problem faced by an Australian Department of Veterans Affairs. Because the Australian government has to prove that a particular problem faced by an Australian Vietnam vet is not the result of Agent Orange, some 6000 Australian vets are already receiving some sort of disability payment for Agent Orange-related problems. Since vets can sue the VA in the courts (unlike the U.S. VA which cannot be sued in state or federal court), the Australian VA is now under orders to contact all 44,000 Vietnam vets to inform them of the possibility of Agent Orange problems. There are a number of smaller differences, almost invariably in favor of Australian vets—Bob, for instance, goes to his own private doctor paid for by the Australian VA. But underlying all the differences is the simple fact that the Australian government deals with its vets as if they deserve their rights rather than the U.S. system which seems to assume that all vets, and especially Vietnam vets, are pure scum who are trying to steal something from the VA.

THE VET: Did the Australian government, like the U.S. government, do all it could to try to justify your participation in Vietnam?

Bob: After 1968 the Australian people didn't really take seriously what the government was saying; over half the people in Australia didn't even know why we were involved. As soldiers we were told that it was against communism, that sooner or later the Yellow Hoards would come into our country. It was coming home that changed things for many of us.

THE VET: The patriotic spirit that inspired you—is it still there?

Bob: I think it is with some of the young kids. But Vietnam will make them think before the situation comes up again. If we're not all going to be involved, a lot of them won't go. You can't take a guy off the corner of the street and the rest of the street doesn't go. We would have got enough volunteers to go to Vietnam without the draft (Bob was drafted, by the lottery system; it wasn't until two years later that another man from his small home town was drafted for Vietnam duty) ?I'm convinced of that—but when there's another war, and there will be, unless everyone goes a lot of people are going to have second thoughts.

THE VET: We were faced by a government which was more than happy to use us once and then throw us aside once they had gotten their use out of us; what was the attitude of the Australian government when you got back from Vietnam?

Bob: We faced the same sort of thing. By 1972 when the war was winding down for us, there was a lot the government wanted to forget about Vietnam. In the process, because they wanted to forget about Vietnam and get on with running the country as usual, the Vietnam vet was lost and the politicians wanted to forget us. Vietnam vets were asked—not in so many words—to remain invisible.

But now there are vets at home who aren't ashamed to say they're Vietnam vets and that's great: they're starting to get some self-esteem back. There are still many vets who will never forget and forgive, particularly their homecoming. If people wanted to fight against the war they should have directed their efforts against the government, not against the vets. But now more and more vets are coming to our ANZAC Day when the old regiments march together. They're buying a lot of books about Vietnam, while until 1979, you wouldn't see anything to do with Vietnam.

THE VET: What about post-traumatic stress?

Bob: It certainly exists, but the government hasn't taken it seriously up until about the last year. The divorce rate among Vietnam vets is tremendously high. Most of my Vietnam friends have divorced, some have remarried again; it seems to be like you need someone to depend on. But overall veterans are respected; we were expected to fit back into society and whatever problems there were they were supposed to be kept inside. But we were so badly treated by the VA, and they reckon the problems at home won't peak until 1985. If that's the case, there are going to be a lot of problems, especially nervous and psychological problems. There are problems with kids: one of my best friends, his boy has a rash all over his body. He's been seen by 30 dermatologists. Yet the same rash is on five Vietnam vets I know, the same rash, identical.

When the stuff began around the chemical issue in Vietnam the government was very smug about how they weren't involved in any of that in Vietnam; I knew different because I had the photographs and everything. They were saying it was the American government—that the American Army had done all of this, we didn't use 2,4,5-T or 2, 4-D. Then we dug a little further and got all the information on experiments with Australian soldiers at our base-camp.

THE VET: Even though we come from different cultures with differing views of the military, and though we may have served in entirely different areas in Vietnam, there is still a common bond—why is that?

Bob: When I came back one of the things I wanted to do was go and visit one of my mate's parents (he was killed during the war) but just couldn't bring myself to do it. When I talked with a rap group last week, there were five guys in the room who had wanted to do the same thing. They hadn't done it—I finally did it just last year—but they wanted to and just didn't know how to go about it. Another guy who had been going to rap sessions for a couple of years hadn't opened up at all and it was only because I was there (and he said that), he opened up and talked for about 25 minutes and it was because I was a veterans from 25,000 kilometers away that he wanted to tell what he thought. That was amazing.