“What the hell are we doing here, these people are shooting at us.’’
Vietnam veteran Kerry Chisholm recalls that was the talk among Australian soldiers after they’d been involved in their first fire fight.
Mr Chisholm, 78, of Bargo, was among the first group of Australian soldiers who were sent to Vietnam in 1965.
Tomorrow, Friday, August 18, he will be the keynote speaker at the Picton-Thirlmere-Bargo RSL Sub Branch 2017 Vietnam Veterans Day commemoration service.
When he sat down with the South West Voice for an interview, Mr Chisholm said he wasn’t sure what he would be saying at the commemoration service.
But talking to him it was evident that despite the passage of time the scars of that war have not fully healed.
Twenty years earlier soldiers returning from World War II duty had received a hero’s welcome from a grateful nation.
But when Kerry Chisholm and his mates came home in 1966 it was to find a nation divided over its involvement in Vietnam.
“When we got home after the first tour it was almost as though we didn’t exist,’’ he says.
“I don’t think any of us had any expectations as we headed home after the first tour.
“What we didn’t expect was what we bloody got.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“No one wanted to know when we came back.[/social_quote]
“And that included half our politicians.
“They just didn’t want to know,’’ he says.
Kerry Chisholm was born and bred in the Hunter region.
He ended up in our neck of the woods because he enlisted with the army at the age of 22 and he was posted to Ingleburn and Holsworthy as part of his training in the early 1960s.
He is one of just six or seven Vietnam veterans who are members of the Picton-Thirlmere-Bargo RSL Sub Branch – out of a total membership of 81.
“We have lost a few Vietnam veterans in their late 60s,’’ says Tim Bennett-Smith, president of the sub-branch.
Kerry Chisholm, who is vice president, agrees.
“With a few exceptions, all the ones I knew who went over to Vietnam at the same time as me have died, and all have been younger than me,’’ he says.
“I remember after joining the army and going through the usual peace time training when and all of a sudden we’re going to Vietnam.
“And I can honestly say 95 per cent of us said, where the bloody hell is Vietnam?
“The first tour we went over full of enthusiasm – we went to Vietnam with a reputation as the greatest jungle fighters in the world and that was because of the World War II blokes, they were good.
“But my personal view always has been that we should never have been involved in the first place, because, initially it was supposed to be a civil war between north and south.
“Then the Americans moved in to prop up the South Vietnamese government, and from there it just got bigger and bigger,’’ Mr Chisholm said.
Despite being shot in the back and seeing five of his mates die in a grenade explosion, Kerry Chisholm survived two 12 month tours of the Vietnam war in 1965-66 and 1968-69.
Others weren’t so lucky.
“Fifteen blokes didn’t come back from the first tour, and between 30 and 40 had returned after being wounded in battle,’’ he says.
Twenty years after he returned from his second tour, a doctor found a piece of shrapnel embedded in Kerry Chisholm.
Maybe he will talk about that and other experiences at tomorrow’s Vietnam Veterans Day at Thirlmere, which will start from 11.30am.
As well as the commemoration service there will be a minute’s silence.
Lest We Forget.
Very proud of all our veterans. We owe our freedom to them. ??
Great article on a legend??