ANZAC Day
The following article was published in the illawarra Mercury on 6th May 1996;
TO THE EDITOR

Honoured to March with Men of Substance

Sir - While Anzac continues to be celebrated as a day of immense national importance and symbolism, its more profound significance to its veterans can never be overstated. Never have I been more aware of this fact than this year.

Last year, I wrote an extensive article about the personal consequences of having fought in the Vie War myself, as an infantryman. Titled The Long Distant Vietnam Veteran, it was produced specifically for use in schools and public libraries as an historical resource, and has been critically acclaimed.

Veterans across Australia have found it expresses those very sentiments many have tried in vain to put into words. It was, in essence, a story of isolation, of alienation, and of overpowering bitterness, and it underpinned Chris Simmons' wonderful story on Channel 7's Today Tonight program shown on Anzac Day.

But now I need to add a footnote to that document. It concerns the reaction of the NSW members of the 9th Battalion to my marching with them in Sydney for the first time since I was wounded in action with them back in 1969. How can I express how it felt to be so warmly welcomed into the battalion by men like General "Albie" Morrison and ex-platoon commander Brian Vickery? And after so long in the wilderness, so long wandering in a world of lesser men, how wonderfiil did it feel to stand alongside men of substance once again. Men like Noel Gibson, the medic who dragged me and three others out of a Viet Cong killing field at great personal risk to lmnself, and who would never get a medal for it.

And men like Greg "Sharkey" Salmon, the only man in our platoon's first two sections still left standing in that ambush, whose true grit and skilled machine gun fire kept us all ftom being overrun and who did get a medal for it.

As I marched alongside these men for the first time in over a quarter of a century, being accepted unconditionally by them, it struck me that this was what Anzac Day was really all about. To be among men whose courage and manhood need never be questioned again because they had fought for their country and risked their lives for it in time of war.
Anzac Day is the one day when real men walk the streets, where true manhood is on display, and when the world seems a better place for it. And when a man can feel proud of his part in history once again.

Don Tate Albion Park Rail 9RAR

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