These are the angry words of Bruce Spring-steen about the Vietnam War in his misunderstood song “Born in the USA.”

These sentiments would be shared by many of the Vietnam War veterans who gathered in Bate-mans Bay yesterday for the Vietnam Veterans Day commemorative service.

Vietnam War veteran and Eurobodalla Shire resident Jim Gault told those gathered that the reason the US and eventually Australia entered the war, the so-called Tonkin Gulf incident, was basically a big fib.

Regardless, hundreds of Australians, tens of thousands of Americans and  millions of Vietnamese subsequently lost their lives.  

Jim Gault didn’t mince his words when he described the deceit surrounding the war, but he also condemned those who took out their disdain for it on those who were sent to fight in it, rather than those who sent them.

Yesterday marked the 49th anniversary of one of the proudest and yet most sombre moments in Australian history, the battle of Long Tan.

Put something like “great military victories against all odds” into Google and it will come up.

The Australians were outnumbered about 26 to one by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, and won.

To have fought like this and then to come home to a public which not only perceived they had lost, but also that they were war criminals would have been bitter in the extreme.

The Americans have gone back and won the war in countless movies and television shows since, but the Australians never got the chance.

Many former South Vietnamese servicemen and other residents who were at yesterday’s service could have ended up in “re-education” camps had our country decided to “stop the boats” after the war, so this was another victory for Australia.

Regardless of whether you think Vietnam was a just war, raise a glass to our Vietnam veterans this week.

– Josh Gidney