AROUND ANZAC DAY, a few vet mates marched. My guess would be that about 20 per cent of the local Vietnam veteran population was involved. Knackers and I marched together — it was my second time. We awkwardly talked about the few vets who’d started to have breakdowns over the last two years. They’d ended up in Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, the psychiatric wing commonly called the mental ward. We couldn’t think of anything more humiliating. I also attended a funeral of a bloke from my battalion, my intake, my age. I knew something of his sad story. It had been a suicide, and it wasn’t the first. Both veterans and their children were taking their own lives. What was happening to people?
The pattern of chest pains was repeated in early August. This time the same doctor sent me for a full cardiac evaluation, and I was given a clean bill of health. I must have been a good actor; the only person linking the pains to anxiety was my wife. My doctor diagnosed exhaustion, told me I looked dreadful, and said I needed a break. He gave me three weeks off work. I went back to work the next day.
The night of the sixth of August, I went out and saw Knackers. He wasn’t travelling at all well, and confided his fear of August. He was open about his failure in Vietnam and his inability to cope with the dark thoughts that swamped his poor old head. At last, I could relate to another individual who felt the same, although I said nothing to this good mate. He’d medicated himself for years with alcohol, and he was not alone. Two other mates, both grunts, were spinning out with violent outbursts and trouble with the police. The cops were good. They didn’t exactly forgive, but they were compassionate, contacting other vets to take a mate home, get him off the road, or tell us what had happened and see if we could help keep him in check.
I had met numerous vets in my area. Most were social misfits, only able to mix with other vets, and all of them struggled with holding down a job. But for all Knackers’ openness and honesty, I really struggled to talk candidly. It was enough that he knew what I had been through and understood what the life of a vet was like. I felt guilty because I believed I’d had it easy as a radio operator. Knackers had been a machine gunner, but he felt guilty that he hadn’t been a forward scout. It was obvious we both had a very deep guilt that we had survived while some of our mates had been killed and wounded.
If only the bloody thoughts and memories would go away. Surely, after nearly 30 years, they would start to fade or dissipate, or we could at least handle the memories? The advice or opinion that we should ‘just get on with it’ or ‘get over it’ was what greeted most veterans when we returned home. But now a lot of vets were getting sicker. Yet, for most of us, denial prevailed. The shared avoidance of the reality of our experience in Vietnam, and the associated emotional problems, reminded me of Stacka, a good mate and a forward scout. He was a typical example. I had bumped into him at Canberra. He felt unbearable guilt because he’d been totally exhausted in Vietnam, to the point that he’d been unable to sleep in the jungle and started to vomit after meals. His body reacted with severe headaches and ulcers, and appalling rashes all over that were very severe in his groin. After months as a forward scout, he was retired to base camp. Now, 30 years later, he told himself and his close mates that he’d been a wimp and couldn’t handle it, and was sure the other blokes thought he was a wimp, too. Yes, he’d become a drinker, unstable, and a loner. Anyway, he reckoned it wasn’t hard being a scout. The machine gun: that would have been too hard for him. And what about the poor bastards defusing mines?
The cycle of self-hate had no end. Knackers would tell me his problems, which was a start. I wouldn’t tell anyone. What was the point? It would bring about nothing but shame, guilt, and a release of something that scared the shit out of me. That wasn’t the male way. I had seen what happened to blokes who went for help. Their struggling seemed to get worse. Some of them ended up in Heidelberg Hospital, sometimes locked up. Bugger that! Furthermore, their life seemed to spiral down as the government put them through the wringer when they applied for assistance. Veterans had to prove they were incompetent, unemployable, and emotional misfits with few social skills. Many put in half-hearted claims and were rejected by a system that put the entire onus on the veteran. Now, how helpful was that? Then, as many were unsuccessful, they had to face the humiliation of an appeal, seek other help to put forward a more detailed, honest, and logical case, and try to remain sane. No bloody way. I’d work until I dropped. I bet most held that same philosophy.