Posted on 01/03/2014 4:14:13 PM PST by naturalman1975
THE battle-hardened Australian jihadis coming home from Syria's civil war are not the first cohort of returning Middle Eastern freelance fighters to stump policymakers in Canberra.
The war in Oman's Dhofar region that raged between 1962 and 1976 lured dozens of the nation's most seasoned Vietnam-era soldiers and airmen, who opted to keep fighting Marxist guerillas rather than readjust to civilian life.
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Vietnam War hero Keith Payne still recalls publicly lashing the Whitlam government's soft stance on communism in April 1975 before leaving for Dhofar, where he served as an Omani captain for nine months. Payne now admits he was traumatised by his service in Vietnam, which included orchestrating the rescue of 37 wounded soldiers following an enemy ambush in Kon Tum province in May 1969. That feat earned him the Victoria Cross.
"I can say this in retrospect - it's always easier in retrospect - that I was starting to get a bit run-down. I know there was a lot of anger in me," Payne tells Inquirer. "My real active service days were over, but another part of it was how the Australian public felt about us (Vietnam veterans) at the time. Of course, I'm sure that would be different (for veterans coming home from deployment) now."
Payne stresses there was nothing disloyal about serving the Sultan, who was a close ally of London and a major recipient of British aid, including a secret cohort of Special Air Service "advisers".
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
Hey, haven’t you heard that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
The fact that these Islamist Freedom Fighters are fighting for the freedom to murder their wives and daughters if they offend their sense of honor and they fight for the freedom to kill people that don’t share their religious beliefs should not bother you.
If it does you are just intolerant.
Exactly the case.
God Bless him. When men were MEN, sigh.
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