‘Today especially, I say to our Afghanistan sons ‘our hearts bleed for you’

On a day where Fraser Coast Vietnam veterans came together, one local leader couldn’t help but draw devastating comparisons to past and present.

Paul Coleman: Facts against myths with Vietnam War.

With scrambling chaos in Afghanistan in the air, Vietnam Veterans Day 2021 was tinged with anger in a speech by Maryborough RSL Sub-Branch president Paul Coleman.

As he forcefully dispelled myths about the Vietnam War, including “that the Allied military lost the war”, he accused the Australian Government of repeating the act of treachery perpetrated by the Whitlam Government in leaving former friends to their fate.

Mr Coleman debunked the myth that Gough Whitlam had withdrawn Australian troops from Vietnam.

Whitlam had been elected prime minister at the end of 1972, a year after the last Australian combat unit had been withdrawn. The guard at the embassy had been only unit remaining in Vietnam.

“What is not a myth is that our Vietnamese staff were left to their fate. To his lasting shame Prime Minister Whitlam’s one contribution to the war was to order that our Vietnamese staff and employees … were not be repatriated to Australia.

“The local staff at our embassy were literally left standing on the runway at Tan Son Nhat with the North Vietnamese army at the city gates.

“Unfortunately, it would appear, that this act of treachery is being repeated by our current Federal Government which has delayed in the withdrawal of our Afghanistan staff to the point at which it would appear it is now too late, in what can only be described as the triumph of prevarication over leadership.

A history of treachery repeated: Wreaths laid at the Maryborough RSL memorial garden for Vietnam Veterans Day in the shadow of Afghanistan.

“Sadly, what we learn from history, is that we learn nothing from history. I have no doubt, that in 50 years’ time, an Afghanistan veteran will be standing at this podium giving an address eerily similar to this one.

“Today especially, I say to our Afghanistan sons ‘our hearts bleed for you’.”

Mr Coleman said the myth that the allied military lost the war in Vietnam had its roots in the US media, led by Walter Conkrite, misreporting that America and its allies had been defeated in the 1968 Tet Offensive.

The media had been mesmerised by a few enemy troops entering the US embassy grounds and ignored the bigger picture of a resounding victory for the Allies that left the Viet Cong effectively destroyed as a fighting force and the North Vietnamese Army soundly defeated in open battle.

Allied forces had begun withdrawing in 1972 as it had been judged that the South Vietnamese army could hold its own. In January 1973 the Paris peace accords had been signed.

“Our hard-won gains were squandered by Henry Kissinger who was skillfully deceived by Ho Chi Minh at the Paris conference table.

“In March 1975, three years after the allied withdrawal, the North Vietnamese regular army invaded the south and US President Gerald Ford failed to meet the US promise to come to (South Vietnam’s) aid. Except for the crowing of the media the world was silent.”

Mr Coleman said Singapore statesman for former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew had seen the Vietnam War as buffer that gave the nations of South-East Asia time to organise themselves and resist communism in the post-war, post-colonial period.

“The wisdom of his observation may well be that, other than China, Vietnam is the only communist nation in South-East Asia.”