Mackay veteran John Jaques seals the truth on Vietnam War for almost 40 years

HUB FOR OUR HEROES: The breaking point came when his wife stood on their driveway and said: ‘Get help or I’m going with the two boys’

Sapper Eric Thompson of Yuina, NSW, as he moves through jungle south-east of the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) base at Nui Dat during Operation Atherton, January 17, 1969. The operation was aimed at clearing a Viet Cong controlled area. Sapper Thompson was one of several engineers attached to 2RAR /NZ (ANZAC). Picture: Australian War Memorial

Irene Jaques stood on their driveway, turned to her husband and said, "Get help or I'm going with the two boys."

Mackay veteran John Jaques' 27 years of service in the Defence Force including two deployments to Vietnam had finally reached breaking point.

"He got out of the army and started working for CSIRO; then after about 10 or 11 years, the dreams became more, he was more unsettled," Mrs Jaques said.

"He was on medication to sleep; it was mainly a lot of groaning, yelling, he used to cry out.

"The ladies he worked with … they realised something was wrong with him.

"One day I got a phone call and (they) said, 'Irene, we've just dropped him at the doctors.'"

Agreeing to his wife's insistence to get help, Mr Jaques went to a psychologist and was diagnosed with major depressive disorder with underlying post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The psychiatrist asked him to write everything down, that was part of the cure," Mrs Jaques said.

"I read it and I was dumbfounded.

"I said, 'Why didn't you tell me any of this?' Like most of them, he said, 'There was no real need to know'."

What Mrs Jaques, the Mackay representative of The Partners of Veterans Association of Australia, learned that day gave her an insight into her husband's peculiar behaviours.

"Our house in Canberra, we had a beautiful yard, all trees around the back," she said.

"Until one day, I was looking and he'd been out and cut down the trees around the back so he could see them coming, clearing the perimeter.

"Down in the bottom corner (of the yard), he'd built a weapon pit so he could really protect us."

And for years, every Saturday she would accompany her husband on a 10-hour drive, or rather, a spotting exercise.

"We were looking out for ambush sites," Mrs Jaques said.

"I was supposed to be looking for five things starting with 's': a shadow out of place, a silhouette out of place, a shimmering of a tree, a shine and if a shape was different."

 

Mrs Jaques said her husband was a sapper, a "gold plated pogo", in the Royal Australian Engineers Corps during the Vietnam War.

At 19 years old he was responsible for a station supplying power to the dentist room, kitchen and hospital.

"He went outside the wire - as they call it, a security fence," she said.

"He was shot at and got caught in an ambush.

"I didn't know about this until he was seeing a psychiatrist."

But Mrs Jaques said she was lucky compared to other veterans' wives with one woman needing to get the all clear for safety from her husband before she could walk down a grocery aisle.

She said Mr Jaques' service duration plus the regimented nature of the CSIRO had been their saving grace.

"The army just got these men, 20 year olds off the street, used them for two years then spat them out and said, 'Go and find your own life now'," Mrs Jaques said.

"(They) had the worst time. But we can't judge these men against other men."

Mrs Jaques said what got families through besides the medication were the workshops, seminars and support groups.

Mackay Daily Mercury has launched a campaign to find a Hub for Our Heroes.

It is why she was supporting the Daily Mercury's Hub for Our Heroes campaign to better support veterans and first responders through a revived RSL club and a wellness hub at Kinchant Dam which would extend vital support services to families as well.

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"I think it would be an absolutely marvellous idea," she said.

"I know most of the (veterans' wives) have been away on one of these PTSD courses or anger management courses."

Mr Jaques said the other project to relaunch the Mackay RSL Club would create a meeting place for veterans and the support services and guidance available to them.

The veteran said he had restlessly protected his family, often without realising, because of the ambush experience in Vietnam.

"When we were fired upon, I was absolutely terrified, I was scared out of my wits," Mr Jaques said.

"I guess that always stuck with me.

"My second tour (to Vietnam) was cut short because of my mental condition and that was mainly due to the separation from my family.

"I stood in the doorway of the airliner in Saigon and I thought, 'I shouldn't be here.'

"Six weeks later I was sent home.

"Our son was only two weeks old when I left.

"But a lot of them out there have had it much harder than me."

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Originally published as Mackay veteran John Jaques seals the truth on Vietnam War for almost 40 years