The infamous eleven kilometer barrier minefield built in 1967 from the Horseshoe to Long Phuoc containing 21,000 M16 Jumping Jack mines is believed to have been the source of mines which killed scores of diggers, wounded hundreds and had a huge impact on Australian Operations in the province.
The lunch with VC veterans from Long Phuoc Village was one highlight of a special day for a group of about a dozen returning Vietnam Veterans and their wives. Earleir they had attended a Dawn Service at the Long Tan Cross and a detailed three-hour visit to the former Australian base at Nui Dat.
The group of Australians included Stuart Dosseter from 110 Sgs Sqn in 1969-70, his brother John who served with 1Fd Sqn in 1971-72, Max Green a veteran of 87 Transport Platoon in 1966-67 and Noel Spencer who was in Saigon in 1972 with the last Australian unit in Vietnam, AAAGV.
The Australains heard the enemy's stories from a former Platoon and Company Commander from D445, Mr Duc Thu who survived taking a round through the head at the battle of Long Tan. He laughingly told how he was back on the job in only two months!
Mr Thu has been interviewed by four television crews and documentary makers, including one from the University of Queensland on the famous 1966 battle, he was a familiar to many in the group.
"With the mines, we used a program of emulation," the veterans said, "Once we had worked out how to lift the mines, we simply demonstrated to other comrades and they passed it on."
The veterans denied that any VC were killed learning how to lift the mines but they acknowledged that they were not directly involved in the mine-lifting operations.
"We had women and children from villages all around here lifting the mines," the veterans explained. "As members of D445 and local guerrilla forces we were occupied with other operations. We left the mine lifting operations to local comrades."
With Mr Thu was his comrade, a man who spent 40 years fighting the French and "the Americans." He is also a veteran of a local 1947 battle in which the Vietnamese and the French fought over several bridges in the area. There is a memorial to the battle on the Long Tan-Hoa Long Road.
Stuart Dosseter was interested in a Viet Minh attack he had read about. The attack took place during the French Indochina War and involved the Grand Palace Hotel in Vung Tau where nearly a hundred French Army officers were killed.
"Yes, I was involved in that," the group was told. "We knew the French officers would be having a rest at Vung Tau and decided to attack the Hotel."
"We just went from room to room cutting their throats and shooting them," he said in a matter-of-fact manner.
After their war ended in 1975, both men held positions in the local administration as village and district leaders. They are now on monthly pensions of 1 million Dong, about $A100. Like all Vietnamese, they receive free health services.
At first, they rejectd the idea that any of their comrades were experiencing psychological after-effects of their war experiences. However, after some probing they revealed that they had friends in a special ward at Ben Hoa Hospital.
Later in the tour, on the train from Hanoi to the port city of Haiphong, the group was approached by an old man inquiring whether anyone spoke French. The man was travelling with his very stylish wife. Fluent in French from growing up in the Congo, Carl Robinson quickly engaged the man in conversation.
He was a veteran too. His Army name was just "Nguyen", he told the group. He was a retired Artillery Brigadier, had fought at Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh and had entered Saigon on April 30, 1975. In all, he spent 40 years in the Army and thirty years fighting.
"I am a friend of Vo Nguyen Giap (the former Commander of the People's Army)," he told the group, "If you want to meet him, I can arrange it."
Now, he is 86 and his wife 80. They live on Cotton Street in the old quarter of Hanoi. His pension is one and a half million dong a month. His wife also receives a pension of a million dong a month. She previously worked in the Department of Defence Personnel Office during the war.
His five children now live in Germany. He rents out the lower floor of his house as a high class boutique - for ten million dong a month. With money from his children, he owns four houses which he rents out.
"Ah, you're a Red Capitalist," Robinson told the old General in French. He gave it a mighty laugh and quickly translated the expression to his wife who thought it equally hilarious. "Red Capitalist" is a term in vogue in Vietnam to describe the people who have grown rich since "Doi Moi," or the new economic life, was introduced in the mid- 1980s. It is one of the ironies of this once doctrinaire communist country.
On its return to Hanoi, the group was invited to drop by for a visit. On the crockery cabinet is the Artillery regimental plaque. Over a wonderfully aromatic tea, photographs were soon handed around showing the old Brigadier at a reunion with his old regimental mates on April 30. The same evening, he would attend another reunion to mark the anniversary of the famous victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu.
But he was clearly most proud of his children and grand-children in Germany whose poster-sized photographs decorated the walls. But when we asked to see old photographs from his time in the war, he said they'd been put away.
"That was war," he says. "This is now peace."
Perhaps on our next visit.
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