Norm Coleman and Charlie Mifsud discuss the difficulties faced by our veterans as we honour the fallen on Remembrance Day

Veterans Norm Coleman and Charlie Mifsud discuss some of the “home truths” endured by our vets “that went unspoken for years”, as the nation gathers to remember the fallen.

Norm Coleman OAM has seen many friends die – in war, of old age, and from suicide.

For the 78-year-old Vietnam War veteran, Remembrance Day is a chance to remember that though the places change – Gallipoli, Normandy, Hanoi, Kabul – the battles remain the same.

“For me, it’s about the fact we shared this part of our lives, and we want to honour that – and honour those who didn’t come back or left us since,” Mr Coleman said.

The Walkerville RSL president and friend Charlie Mifsud, 73, will be at one of hundreds of memorial services running across the country on Monday, marking the anniversary of World War I ending.

Veteran Charlie Mifsud with Walkerville RSL president Norm Coleman OAM at the Vietnam War Memorial at Torrens Parade Ground. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Conscripted in 1968, Mr Coleman spent 12 months in Vietnam before returning home to a restaurant job.He noticed, like the lyrics of Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh, that cars and carparks were making him jumpy.

“Whenever a car went past and backfired, I would drop whatever plates I was carrying,” Mr Coleman said.

“It’s like I was ready to stand to attention and get into action, and that went on for a long time.”

Mr Coleman returned to an Australia where PTSD was still a medical curiosity, and a physical exam was followed by being “thrown back on to the street”.

Mr Mifsud, a Corporal in the logistics corps who enlisted at 18, tried to join his RSL and was knocked back because Vietnam was thought by some to be a “police action” – not a “real war”.

Though the memories linger, Mr Coleman, who was in the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, said he was proud to serve as his father did in World War II.

But he also said the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide delivered a lot of home truths that went unspoken for years.

“We all took a walk on the bad side of life … We got too close to it and touched it, and that changes you,” Mr Coleman said.

“The way I see it, I think a lot of these veterans took their lives because they were so close to death already, it’s like they were already half there.”

With many World War II veterans dying, and RSL attendance dwindling, Mr Coleman said it was up to his generation and those that followed to carry the torch.

“I don’t look at it from the point of view of which war you were in,” he said.

“All of us who come in are the continuation of a common cause – to look after our service people wherever they came from.”

Mr Mifsud agreed.

“What we have today is freedom … You just have to look at what happens in other parts of the world. Remembrance Day is about remembering the fallen and thanking them for their sacrifice.”