Posted on 05/24/2015 5:20:01 PM PDT by naturalman1975
The remains of 25 Australian servicemen killed in Vietnam will be brought home four decades after the conflict ended.
Tony Abbott and Veterans’ Affairs Minister Michael Ronaldson will announce today that the government will offer the families of Australian servicemen killed in Vietnam War and buried overseas the chance to repatriate their remains.
More than 60,000 men and women served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1973 and 521 died. In line with earlier Australian policy, those killed were buried in the nearest Commonwealth war cemetery.
After January 1966, a change of policy meant those killed were brought home.
However, 24 remained buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia and one in the Singapore’s Kranji War Cemetery.
The decision to repatriate the final 25 was made in response to requests from families and veterans’ groups over many years.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
Until Vietnam, it was the general policy of Australian governments that Australians who fell in war were buried as close as was practical to where they fell. That policy changed midway through the Vietnam War, largely because it had become practical to repatriate the deceased at that point. Somewhere close to 100,000 Australians killed in war are buried overseas, and the question is asked as to why these 25 should be repatriated, when others will not be.
The reason for that is threefold - one, again, is practicality. This can reasonably be done. The numbers are manageable - we could not do it with the tens of thousands buried overseas from the two World Wars, and even the hundreds from Korea would be difficult. Secondly, in a significant number of these cases, close relatives of the men killed are still alive, which is not true of earlier wars. Thirdly, of these 25, 24 are buried in a cemetery which is very difficult to visit, because it is located on an active Malaysian Army base, and while the Malaysians are very good at allowing as much access as they can, they have valid security concerns. It's hard for family members to visit graves.
There are also Australian casualties from the Malayan Emergency, and the Indonesian Confrontation buried in the same cemetery (small, almost unknown wars of the 1950s and 1960s) and their remains will be repatriated as well if their family members desire.
New Zealand also has to deal with the same issues, but I have not heard of any similar decision from there.
Welcome Home to your grateful Nation.
AMEN and rest in peace.
In all seriousness. I am not a combat soldier. Just a lowly coastie and never faced anything more than a run aground fishing boat in Morro Bay. (And I absolutely detest Obama’s address to Coasties in Cape May. Ech. vomited on my sneakers listening to that asshat.)
For any combat veterans here. If, God forbid, you were ever killed in combat would you want to be buried on the ground you fought upon, or would you like your remains to be brought back to your home soil?
Myself, I think I would want to be laid to rest where I fell. Of course I assume we had honorable enemies that would treat our bodies with proper respect.
Thank you, Australia.
I was only in the Guard, never saw combat or long tours but was in a combat MOS, went through a 13-week one-station unit initial training, did many fire team drills, other hazardous duty drills, carried and fired several different weapons and slept in fire positions with the bugs many times. There were alerts, mobilization briefings and so on.
The body of any soldier, Marine, sailor or anyone in our military forces should be brought home whenever possible at all, in my opinion. It helps to continue our practice of resolving not to intentionally leave anyone behind, alive or dead, especially MIAs and PWs.
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