General News
15 August, 2025
Vietnam veterans reflect
Veterans, their families, and the community will reflect on the sacrifice of all those who served this Sunday ahead of Vietnam Veterans’ Day.
The service of all Vietnam veterans will be remembered, those who lived to see grey hair and those who never made it home, for Vietnam Veterans’ Day on Monday.
This year marks a half-century since the end of the Vietnam War with living veterans, their loved ones, and the community gathering later this week to remember a decade of service.
Local remembrance will begin on Sunday, August 17, with a service at the memorial in Phillips Gardens.
Maryborough RSL’s Danny McIver said the anniversary is a reminder, even when he would rather forget, of all those who didn’t make it home.
“You think to yourself well, I’m 78 now and I haven’t had a bad life, but those poor buggers didn’t have a chance to have a crack at all,” he said.
Mr McIver, like veterans of any conflict, has carried its legacy with him every day since.
Through tears he explained seeing the face of a man he knew, who lived in his base camp tent and was just one number away from his, who died in the war.
“It just really upset me for the whole day. It’s little things like that, you know, you do remember. It never goes away,” he said.
President of Maryborough’s Vietnam Veterans Association Lee Turton explained you live the war 24/7, even when you’re home.
“You’ll just be walking along and something will trigger you and you’re bloody back there,” he said.
Their service on Sunday, as well as Monday’s dawn service where poppies will be laid on known veteran graves, is the small part they play in the conflict’s legacy.
“It doesn’t matter what war, what conflict they were involved in, they paid the supreme sacrifice. That’s what hits you in the heart,” Mr Turton said.
But it was a divisive conflict, one which has left its mark on both men, even after all these years.
Mr Turton explained the ships, carrying them to a war they might not return from, had to be tugged out of port by the landing barges. The tug operators had refused.
His return wasn’t much better. As they marched down the street in Adelaide they were met with being called murderers and baby killers.
“[Past veterans] were all welcomed home but we were just thrown back on the street,” he said.
Fifty years on, Mr McIver said the community’s support means a lot to them.
His hope is that in another five decades their sacrifice, and those who never made it home, is still remembered.
“The memorial will be here forever, but we won’t,” he said.
“We thought we were doing the right thing.”