The Vietnam Veterans Day commemorative service conducted at the Lakes Entrance Cenotaph last Wednesday was reassuringly familiar.
Geoffrey Turner, president of the RSL’s local chapter, led the service, the Last Post sounded, The Ode was read, flags were raised, national anthems of Australia and New Zealand sung and wreaths were laid.
Just like ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, but there was a difference.
On August 18, 1966, 108 young ANZACs fought and defeated a force of 25,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers in a rubber plantation at Long Tan.
By any analysis this is statistically one of the greatest military feats in our nation’s short history, but it rarely registers in the national psyche. Long Tan is for exactly this reason an appropriate choice of date for Vietnam Veterans Day.
IMAGE: A group of Vietnam and World War II veterans who attended the Vietnam Veteran’s Day ceremony at the Lakes Entrance Cenotaph last Wednesday. K234-9287
