There are almost too many myths about Australia’s Vietnam War involvement to keep track. But one of them – that all National Service conscripts had the option of volunteering or not when about to be posted to Vietnam – is possibly the most persistent.
Unfortunately, the myth gets more attention than the very real mental health problems veterans suffer.
The author was recently reminded of the volunteer myth when someone authoritatively told him he must have volunteered to go to Vietnam and would have signed a paper agreeing to.
Despite protesting that no paper was ever signed the person persevered insisting that the document would be in the service records from the Australian War Memorial. So, after 51 years the application went in.
The only things that stuck out in the records were that the then recruit had been near the bottom of the class graduating from officer training and that commanding officers consistently seemed to think he wasn’t trying hard enough. There was no document volunteering for the war.
What was amazing though was the vehemence with which the volunteer myth was advanced and the extent to which it is widespread among veterans themselves. Although what is more revealing is how they got to believe it.
The authoritative demolition job on the myth was Dr Mark Dapin’s book Australia’s Vietnam Myth vs History. It followed on from his earlier book, The Nasho’s War, which was largely based on veteran’s memories of their service.
As he did further research for a PhD he realised that much of what he had been told by many veterans and included in the first book was wrong. The Myth vs History book was the result. His research has been complemented by that of Ben Morris, formerly of University of Wollongong and published in the International Journal of Civic, Political and Community Studies in 2015.
The myth seems to have originated from three sources: the 1990 book Duty First by David Horner; the fact that some units had asked conscripts to sign volunteer forms; and, the framing some Liberal politicians put on ‘volunteering’ in the form of not signing up for the Citizens Military Forces.
The unit ‘forms’ belief was true in one respect but was actually illegal. The practice was given the kibosh by then Army Minister, Malcolm Fraser, who said this had not been done at the direction of the government or the Army and that conscripts had no choice in the matter.
Fraser, as Dapin reports, made it clear in 1996 that national servicemen could not refuse service in Vietnam since they “were an integral part of the army and would not receive special treatment.”
The contemporary belief was clouded by some cunning framing when some Liberals followed the course of John Carrick who told the Senate in 1971: “Every person who has gone to Vietnam has elected to do so by leaving himself in the ballot and not opting for service in the CMF or registering as a conscientious objector.”
Bob Katter Jnr was prospectively in this situation although in retrospect, as Dapin shows, he has a very garbled memory of what happened.
Moreover, as the war was winding down in 1971 a new Army Minister, Andrew Peacock, said conscripts could refuse to go “from now on” making it clear that was not the position before his statement.
Dr Dapin and Morris suggest the myth may have been based on a number of factors. The inculcation of the Anzac army voluntary participation history; the unreliability of much oral history; and, the fact that a host of well-known authors have kept repeating it until it was deemed to be ‘true’.
Years after the original myth creation it got new legs when some argued there were documents that conscripts had signed which proved their case, only for archive research to demonstrate that the documents were a routine form signed before allocation to units. Morris concluded: “….rigorous research has failed to locate any form showing that volunteers volunteered for Vietnam.”
We are not the only ones, of course, who revel in myth – even about things which are real and demonstrable. One of the hallowed episodes in Australian military history is the Beersheba cavalry charge. In 1917 an Australian delegation went there for the centennial re-creation of the charge.
What they witnessed was mounted troops, many of them not carrying rifles or bayonets but flags – some of them Israeli flags – a country that didn’t exist back in 1917.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the crowd: “We saw here in Be’er Sheva (the Israeli occupiers name for Beersheba) 800 cavalry go against 4000 embedded Turks with machine guns, with bunkers. The few won against the many. That’s the spirit of the army of Israel. It stands today.”
Meanwhile something that is not mythical, but doesn’t get as much attention from the Anzackery obsessives, are the continuing problems of today’s veterans.
The DVA Mental Health Prevalence report is part of a comprehensive study on the impact of military service on the mental, physical and social health of ex-personnel – those it calls “transitioned [to civilian life] ADF [Australian Defence Force] personnel” between 2010 and 2014.
The study concluded. “An estimated 46% of ADF members who had transitioned from full-time service within the past five years met 12-month diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder … This level of 12-month disorder combined with the significantly greater severity of current self-reported symptoms of psychological distress, depression anxiety, anger, suicidality and alcohol use, particularly at subthreshold levels in the Transitioned ADF compared to the 2015 Regular ADF, places this population at significant risk of impairment and disability, highlighting the challenges of transitioning out of full-time military service.”
The report said: an estimated 75% of former ADF members met criteria for a mental health disorder prior to, during or after their military careers; a quarter were estimated to have met criteria for post-traumatic-stress disorder in their lifetime; more than 20% had suicidal ideation; 29% had felt life was not worth living; 8% had made a suicide plan; and, 2% said they had attempted suicide.
Lest we forget!
Noel Turnbull has had a 50-year-plus career in public relations, politics, journalism and academia. He blogs at http://noelturnbull.com/blog/
Comments
7 responses to “The myth and the veterans’ problems that will not die”
Our father objected to killing people and went to WWI as a stretcher-bearer in France, Collected shrapnel in his shoulder, Returned to be Presbytarian minister. With my mother ran a refuge for Conscientious Objectors in Fitzroy during WWII. Worked as Fitter and Turner in Vic Railways, collected donations fro Brotherhood of St Lawrence, MA in Philosophy from Melbourne University and died at 85. .
My brother was a musician, becoming a well regarded pipe organist as a JS Bach and church traditional music at South Yarra in Melbourne..
He was called up as a nasho for Vietnam.
He registered as a conscientious objector, went to court and somehow was required to work at Puckapunyal Army Camp in the kitchens.
I believe he was subject to abuse there. Gave up his music and emerged as an alcoholic. He died when in his 40s he had a drunken fall from his wheelchair in a “dosshouse” in Perth.
Thanks Noel for debunking that ‘furphy’.I was given my movement orders while with 2 Field Ambulance Townsville , serving with 8th Field Ambulance at Nui Dat from November 11th 1970 to October 23rd 1971. I was a “Nasho”.At no time was I given an option , I just went as ordered!
Seems a good idea to make overseas assignments voluntary, but compulsory only if an attack on Australian soil is imminent.
Very minor and thoroughly nit-picking minor point, regarding – “In 1917 an Australian delegation went there for the centennial re-creation of the charge.” That would have been in 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOM-ewwmuc
Thanks, Noel. My birthday did not come up for conscription – though the following year my younger brother’s did. And by then we were on the eve of Gough Whitlam as PM. This myth (and I have read both of Mark DAPIN’s thoroughly researched books – and sensitivity to those “volunteered” to wars by our political warmongers – most of whom have been no closer to war than waving off the khaki – or a secretive mid-night drop into a war zone for the hallowed photo opportunities) joins others like the US “saving” us from the Japanese invasion (which was never planned)!
Thanks Noel and Bruce. 1967. First Armoured Regiment was worked up for servce in Vietnam and then the army changed it’s mind only to reverse that decision 6 months later. Some of us were posted to 3 Cav; prepared for Vietnam, they discovered, as Nasho’s, we did not have enough time left to go unless we signed on for another 6 months. We didn’t sign on! At no stage were we given the option to ‘volunteer’.
Well argued Noel. I addressed this issue in my book (Canister! On! FIRE!: Australian tank Operations in Vietnam) and have copied an extract below:
“If there was an obligation under the National Service Act to serve overseas if called upon to do so, how did the all-volunteer ‘myth’ come about? Commanders going to Vietnam would not have wanted members in their units who were there against their will; some, therefore, arranged for those who did not want to go, to be transferred. As the majority of recruits were allocated to infantry, there was some flexibility available to battalions to do this. Most other Corps, of which the RAAC was one, did not have the luxury of being able to ‘tailor’ their units in this way. Postings within infantry were also influenced in another way.
In February 1967, Malcolm Fraser, the Minister for the Army, directed that infantry battalions in Vietnam were not to comprise more than 50 per cent national servicemen. The adjustments that had to be made by battalions preparing for Vietnam, meant that nearly all Regular Army recruits during 1967 were posted to Infantry. Other corps, such as the RAAC, had to manage the increased turnover associated with a higher proportion of conscripts. Apart from crew commanders, it was common for at least two of the three crewmen on tanks to be national servicemen. The length of training and experience required for a crew commander initially precluded national servicemen. This situation changed as the war progressed.”
Footnote: “One RAAC national serviceman stated: ‘I can tell you categorically … we were certainly not volunteers.’ Another former national serviceman (not RAAC) stated that: ‘At no time were we asked if we had any objections … I did not want to go and if I thought that I had a choice, then I would not have gone. I get quite wild when people tell me I had a choice, 40 years later’.”
There is another issue here: why weren’t the CMF (now Army Reserve) called up for service as happened during the bushfire and COVID-19 crises recently? Another extract:
“Having risen to the position of Deputy Chief of the General Staff, following his command of 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) in Vietnam in 1967, Major General Stuart Graham, considered it a great pity that the CMF were not involved. In his view, ‘this was one of the bad aspects of this insidious [i.e. undeclared] type of war – no Government wants to be able to present other than a business as usual approach and it’s hard to win wars that way’.”