Bring Them Home: Families of 25 Vietnam War veterans buried overseas launch campaign...

Daily Mail (Australia/UK) ^ | 26th February 2015 | Freya Noble

[naturalman1975]

The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia has launched a campaign to bring 25 of their fellow soldiers killed in action home to Australian soil.

With the majority of them buried in Malaysia, and just one soldier laid to rest in Singapore, Vietnam veterans say their mates deserve a proper war grave in the country they died for.

Among those buried is Reginald Hillier, and his nephew Neil Bond said his family have been trying to get his uncle home for almost 50 years.

'My mother she pushed tirelessly... She never gave up and she never stopped grieving,' Mr Bond told Daily Mail Australia.

'For a lot of the people, and I'm a Vietnam veteran, a lot of the people I talk to didn't even know they weren't bought home', Mr Shewring told Daily Mail Australia, speaking of the 25 men who were left behind.

'For me personally, because I'm very passionate about bringing them home, it would just bring closure to that sorry saga of a thing called the Veitnam war,' he added.

'(It would) give those next of kins, relatives, descendants and the whole Vietnam veteran community closure.'

The reason many of the men were not brought back to Australia was simply because their parents couldn't afford it. It would have cost them £500, which was half of the average yearly wage in 1965.

[naturalman1975]

Full headline:

Bring Them Home: Families of 25 Vietnam War veterans buried overseas launch campaign to have their loved ones laid to rest in Australia

[SandRat]

You tellthem MATE!

[doorgunner69]

What a crock of shiite that the Australian government would not lift a finger to pay for this. They should never have been left there to begin with.

Not like they did not know what happened to them.

[naturalman1975]

Until Vietnam, it was normal for Australian servicemen who fell overseas to be buried near the place they fell, and the bodies were only repatriated at the expense of families.

To modern sensibilities that may seem harsh - but it had only been twenty years since World War II, and the expense during that war would have been ruinous to the war effort. So it was accepted.

[Redcitizen]

Send them home to Australia. They should get at least that much. Owed more? Yes.

[naturalman1975]

I do want them brought home - but I think the government's concern is that - especially this year (which is the 100th Anniversary of the Gallipoli landings) it could cause people to make the same demand about the dead of the two World Wars. That would be tens of thousands and would likely cost billions.

There are also other issues to be addressed such as properly acknowledging the service of veterans and deceased of other wars Australia was fighting at the time of Vietnam, and where the same issue applies.

[RedMDer]

Only Four days to go until March!

FReepers, Let's GIT_R_DONE!


[jttpwalsh]

the government’s concern....

---

Understandable, given how you put it, in relation to all the other fallen. On the other hand, would it be feasible for the public to have a fundraiser to repatriate the Vietnam War dead ? It seems like 25 would be an attainable amount of expense for an entire nation to privately raise.

[naturalman1975]

25 could be done - and I think should be, especially because 24 of the 25 are in a cemetery that is difficult for families to access even if they travel to the area (it's on a Malaysian Army Base (Terendak), which for perfectly understandable security reasons cannot allow unrestricted access), which to me is the greater problem.

But there needs to be a decision as to where the line is drawn. I do not think it's feasible to repatriate the Australian dead from the First and Second World Wars - the numbers are just too great. But in addition to the twenty five buried overseas during Vietnam, a number of Australian servicemen who died in the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation between 1963 and 1966 are also buried overseas - buried in the same cemetery as the 24 Vietnam deceased (I'm going from memory, but I believe that's another fifteen). That war is almost unknown in Australia, as it was so overshadowed by Vietnam - sometimes it doesn't even appear on official war memorials (along with the Emergency that preceded it). I would want them repatriated for the same reason. And if you are going to repatriate the Australian dead from the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation, what about the twenty eight (again that number is from memory) from the Malayan Emergency which only ended three years earlier, who are buried at Taiping in Malaysian.

I'm not saying all this cannot be worked out - and I think it should be - just that it's not as simple as some people think it might be. At a minimum, personally, I would want those buried at Terendak repatriated, simply because it is so hard to visit there. But that's just my opinion.

[PAR35]

Send them home to Australia. They should get at least that much. Owed more? Yes.

What is your view on the 100,000 plus Americans buried in Europe? The 2 - 4,000 in the abandoned cemetery at the former Clark Airbase in the Philippines? The 17,000 plus at better maintained McKinley also in the country?

[PAR35]

Thanks for the additional information/context for the debate.

[jttpwalsh]

Thanks for your reply. I will keep our good Australian allies, both living, and deceased, in my thoughts, and prayers.

[Mears]

The WWII men that were killed weren’t brought home.

.