RE-INFORCEMENTS SOLDIERS WITHOUT IDENTITY
The following is an extract of a an article written by Don Tate for the Australian War Memorial. It was requested of Don Tate by the President of 9RAR (NSW) and is published to highlight the difficuulty that re-inforcements faced in establishing identity within units. The article makes it obvious that even today the problem still has not been resolved.
Recently, I took my wife, my mother, and an aunt to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In the shopping annexe, we browsed through the various publications about Vietnam - including 9RAR's 'official' record of its tour of duty in 1969.

I had seen this publication before, on the day the Vietnam Memorial was dedicated. It devastated me then and it devastated me again when I looked through it with the elderly mother who had sent me off to war, and the wife who has stood by my side since I came home permanently disabled as a result of it.

Why 'devastated'? Because my name was missing from both the official roll-call of members, and missing from the account of that terrible ambush on the 19th July when I was badly wounded.

How does one express the disbelief, the frustration, the disappointment at such an error.? How do I hold back the sheer anger at such an omission which denies me my historical role in that war, and which therefore invalidates my contribution, and the twenty-six years I have carried the war wounds?

I guess it was because I was only a 'reo' - a reinforcement to the battalion, and like so many other 'reo's' I was just an expendable statistic. But I am more thin a statistic. This is part of my story.

When I joined 9RAR in June 1969, I had already been 'in country' for six months. After flying in on Christmas Eve 1968, I was posted to 'D' Coy of 4RAR in January, one of the most professional battalions to serve in that war.

With the 4th, I experienced the full range of infantry experiences, from small contacts to ambushes and bunker assaults. On one of those bunker assaults, launched against an aggressive, entrenched Viet Cong unit, we were ordered in at dusk in a chaotic assault that still chills me to the bone. It was my first taste of the stupidity of some leadership, and would begin a common theme for me over the next quarter of a century. Watching the 'Peter' Principle in operation!

When 4RAR went home, I was posted to a maverick-type of unit called D and E Platoon, made up entirely (as I understand) of regulars from 4RAR. For six weeks we lairised around on APC's, recording significant clashes with various enemy elements. At one stage, this platoon boasted a higher kill ratio then any other individual platoon. But I don't know about that. AlI know is that the splintered nature of its operations means there is little or no record of its activities.

When that platoon was disbanded, I received a third posting - to 9RAR. I spent my last six weeks in Vietnam with 'C' Coy, and it was with them that I was eventually so badly wounded.

After a contact on a river when two Viet Cong were killed, 7 Platoon followed a blood trail into a hilly area of Long Khanh, and straight into a company-sized ambush with (what I heard later) was the battle-hardened 275th VC Regiment. It was about 5.2Spm, 19th July, 1969.

For over two hours we had struggled our way up the side of a muddy hill, and in closing darkness and with a thunderstorm raging around us, the viet cong sprung the ambush.

To this day, the horror of that ambush will wake me at night. Sometimes I wake with a sense of guilt, perhaps not deserved, because I feel I had had enough experience in 4RAR to have realised we were walking into a trap. Sometimes I still see leaves tied together, and tree markings, and exposed fire lanes, and wake up in a sweat wondering why I hadn't said something.

At the same time, we were all dog tired. Switched off. Careless. And suddenly, with an unbelievable roar, the enemy machine guns opened up on us from the front and side.

The first section of 7 Platoon were cut to ribbons. Ray Kermode, probably the finest man I ever met in Vietnam, died immediately. It is with a certain irony I remember, because that section had volunteered to stay in front of the platoon after the earlier contact. This was highly unusual. And if they hadn't, I would have been the rifleman in Ray Kermodes position. Such is life.

I recall only fragments of what happened. I remember letting off a burst to the left, then running towards a fallen tree. My last act was to throw a grenade I had carried since 4RAR days, then as I started to run again, a machine gun bullet smashed into my right hip.

To this very day, I recall the impact of that bullet as it shattered my bones, and thinking my head had been blown off. I recall the agony and horror of undoing my pants and finding the extent of the wound. I recall also that beautiflil thought that flashed through my mind - a homer!. My last contact. Never again would I have to fight. How wrong I was!

I never fired another shot in that ambush. I had lost my rifle in the mud, and like many others, was in shock. I saw Greg Salmon standing, firing his M60, keeping us from being over-run. I remember the mud and the falling leaves and the noise which only those who have experienced it can appreciate. Two hours of sheer hell.

My last images of war are as vivid today as they were then. The broken bodies, the circling gunships pouring their orange wrath into the bunkers; the crashing of allied artillery thudding the earth around us; the screams of where the hell were our other two platoons and why weren't they relieving us; being carried out on the back of one heroic man who got us all to safety; the spinning stretcher winching me to safety through the pelting rain and jungle canopy towards the light of the chopper; the chopper ride to a field hospital at Vung Tau. And finally, laying naked on a casualty table, shivering in shock and with cold, being debriefed by officers from intelligence about enemy size, weapons and the like. As if I cared anyhow!

Two days later, I awoke from surgery to a scene of jubilation. Americans had just landed on the moon. And I was told I would never walk properly again, if at all.

I was twenty years old and I had served in three units. Because of that movements, I belonged to none and therefore was denied that emotional and psychological sense of 'belonging' so necessary for future health.

On the day I was wounded I should have been in Bankok on R and R. But a sense of duty to 'C' Coy who were a little undermanned at the time, and knowing contact with the enemy was imminent, meant I stayed in the field instead. In retrospect, perhaps it was foolish decision, but a patriotic youth can be forgiven such foolishness.

Later, I spent two and a half years in hospital. The best years of my life spent on hospital beds. I even missed out on the special weeks holiday the Rotary Club gave wounded veterans. That sums up my life.

I never got a visit from anyone in 9RAR. Hadn't really got to know anyone in my six weeks with them. My memories are confined to that ambush and to reels of Super 8 movies I took whenever I could.

But I belonged to 9RAR!!! And not to be so acknowledged in the 'official' record is an emotional atrocity to me. My mother, my wife and my five children need to know that my place in history can't be denied me!"

Don Tate is right. He deserves his place in history just as he deserves the right to be called a member or 9RAR. Publishing this article simply serves to acknowledge those rights - I hope he feels 'at home' enough to join us for next Aaaac Day.

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