Collected+stories

 A big thank you to all who have contributed!

 * For the project background click HERE, to tell a personal story about the time of the Vietnam War click [|HERE].**




First, stories of people who wrote to us directly by letter, email or blog post
 I was a kid at a one teacher school in Northern NSW in the early sixties as we went ‘All the Way with LBJ’. Children of small mixed farmers, on lands of drought and flooding rains, and varying degrees of love for this sunburnt country on the rim of Dorothea’s time in Gunnedah.

One of the boys of a local farm family was a real character, often appearing shoeless, bright Hawaiian shirt and smile hanging loosely from a personality which was as expansive as the plains just to the west of us. As was the custom in small rural communities, we all celebrated landmark birthdays. I can’t recall whether we’d had Phil’s 21st.

Phil went away to Vietnam: as every young guy did. How could this generation of young men shirk the same sense of duty as shown by their fathers and grandfathers? Flowers in the spouts of guns may have been nice to imagine as the heralds of a new beginning, but the reality was a headlong rush to muster to the same clarion calls which had brought the men marching from the mid west to join up: ‘for King and country.’

Phil came home with no sight and no ability to walk.

A number of years ago his Vietnam legacy claimed his life.

All of us, farmers kids, spread to other places. All of us would have reflected on the need for that loosely hanging smile to fall, collapsing at our feet.

To what extent has Australia’s development since Federation been periodically handicapped by losses to other causes? Imagine if we had seen, instead, the sustained and innovative growth of a young nation?

**Roger, Newcastle, Australia** 


 * VUNG TAU FOR R & C**

It was raining that afternoon in June 1967 which made the sticky balmy heat a little more intolerable. It seemed that the smell of rot and sewerage lingered longer in the wet. But I was pleased to be free and sporting civvies and on the final days of my five day R & C.

The rain was bucketing down that afternoon in Vung Tau and I was looking for somewhere to shelter. Then from this bar I was passing came a blaring “Ring of Fire” or was it “The Battle of New Orleans” – either one! But it got me in!

“You buy me Saigon Tea?” she said as she sleeked down along side just as soon as I put my bottom down on the comfortable lounge sofa. Seemed like a fair request! Especially considering I’d never spoken to a lady in the 6 weeks I’d been in country - stuck with just guys at Nui Dat army base the entire time.

Now this was a very well developed lady for a Vietnamese who are not known for being well endowed. She was no older than 17 at the most and very pretty. I was only 21 and was my first encounter with a local. Her name was Twee and she was truly either Miss Saigon – or Miss Vung Tau. Twee wasn’t playing me for my good looks, I knew. We had been warned about the old ‘Saigon Tea’ business. But, who cares! I’ve got money and I could be dead tomorrow (and that was our general line of thinking) so why not whoop it up.

I forgot how many ‘Saigon Teas’ I bought for Miss Saigon that night before she grabbed the last of my money. It was midnight and closing time so I really had spent a full working day there. Twee had done an excellent job with the tea and the teasing.

“You come home with me now.” she said. So what was I to do? It was way past curfew but I was past bullet proof and invincible at that stage.

She steered me through the back blocks of ‘Vungers’. I was oblivious to the danger that lurked in those dark alleys. Being arrested for breaking curfew or being mugged was of little concern as I had the fabulous Twee to look after me.

We arrived ‘home’ to her ‘quaint’ shanty made of Bud-Weiser beer cans. The smell of the neighbourhood was something I tried desperately to ignore. My top heavy girl friend had me firmly under her control. She took my hand and led inside.

“You wait here!” she said after we crept through about three partitioned areas of the humpy. I waited in the dark for a while. Suddenly she was back and took my hand again and led into this dark little room. We both collapsed onto a “bed” if you can call a hard bench-like thing covered in a blanket. It was still warm! I then realised that someone – possibly mum and dad, had been pushed out.

We settled in together and my mind was desperately trying to get over the stench of the air. I nestled in naked with the beautiful Twee.

Suddenly there was the loud crashing sound and screaming! It was close by and it was continuous. I could tell there was serious commotion which one would not expect at 1pm in the morning.

“You come quickly” she said and I gathered from the tone of her voice that I was not to read any sexual connotation in that!

It was panic time and I had no idea as to what was happening and where she was leading me.

I managed to get my trousers (un buckled) while bundling my shirt and boots under my arm as she led me through a maze of dark passageways before coming to a room somewhere (I suspected) in the heart of the cluster. I frantically adjusted my undone my trousers. She pushed me under a bed and then threw my shirt and boots in after me.

She then took off herself!

So I’m now lying on the floor under this bed when all of a sudden I realise that I’m not alone. ‘How you going, Man?” whispers this bloke alongside me. Christ! I thought – it’s a yank. From the twang in his voice he had to be an Afro-American cos I could make the eyes but not a face.

“What the hell’s going on?” I said. He then told me that this was a regular occurrence and be prepared for a long night together. It’s the ‘White Mice’ (police) rounding up recruits for the South Vietnamese army.

Now the South didn’t have any silly marble system like ours. No need! If you want recruits for the army the police merely bashed down doors in the middle of the night and collected your teenage ‘volunteers’. Simple and easy conscription! In the same process, any girl found sleeping with a soldier would be thrown into gaol and the soldier handed over to the MPs who would then have the culprit court marshalled, or hung, drawn and quartered.

So the midnight roundups were an effective means of recruiting and certainly saved on stationery. It may well explain as to why the hearts and minds were not attuned to winning any war.

The press gangs bashed on into the night for some considerable time. As the noise declined it became apparent that the recruiting grounds were moving further afield. Fortunately our ‘home’ wasn’t in their path or this story would have been vastly different to the one I’m telling.

My under-the-bed mate had me in fits of laughter and I had him in raptures as well. Our cultures so similar yet so different created that our comparison of terminology just kept us both in hysterical laughter.

Dawn broke and we were still nattering as we crawled out from under the bed. We then made our way through the maze of humpies and finally onto a street I recognised.

I don’t remember his name although we did swap details but we never kept in touch which is unfortunate.

I was very pleased he knew his way around the back streets of Vungers otherwise I may never have made it safely out. When I reached my hotel I immediately hit the roof bar and began relating my story of breaking curfew to the guys. It was then that the seasoned diggers sternly told me, “You’re bloody lucky you weren’t caught”. Whew! I though. This place is dangerous even to have a holiday in.


 * EPISODE 2**

I couldn’t help myself. I just had to go back to the bar the next night. She was there waiting for me. She was overly nice to me but this time merely pretended to take my money (to keep the boss happy) this allowing me free drinks – all night. But I paced myself this time because I had a feeling, from her sincere actions, this girl was something special.

“You come home with me tonight – you no pay.” She said.

How can you refuse an offer like that?

It was about 6pm and she said “We leave now and you come home with me for dinner - we have chicken tonight”. So I gathered that having chicken was a real treat.

Just as before, she leads me home. We proceed through the maze again and then suddenly we out into a big enclosure to which a number of shanties backed onto and shared. The enclosure was roofed with simple beams with a metal roof over it. In the centre of the enclosure was this a long table. Around it were approximately 20 people which Twee referred to as her ‘family’. I met mum and dad and then suddenly realised who warmed the bed the night previous.

“Uc de Loi” (that spelling may be wrong) means ‘Australian’. They all kept saying. “Uc de Loi number one!” which is as pleasant a compliment as one can pay a young Aussie when you don’t speak any English yourself.

So after many Uc de Loi Number One’s, introductions, bowing and shaking hands, the meal suddenly arrives. So we all sat and I’m firmly in their gaze. A small bowl of rice was put in front of each of us. Fortunately I could handle the chopsticks given to me and I graciously declined a fork when offered it.

Several larger bowls then appeared onto the table. They were bowls of cooked pork fat. And I mean fat! And it stunk as being off!

So where’s my fucking chicken I was promised, I’m thinking. Bloody hell this is going to be a tough fight to get out of this meal. There was no getting out of it!

Twee put a few pieces of pork fat into my bowl. I tried hard to ignore the smell, trying to look appreciative, arduous putting it into my mouth and quickly gulping it down. Will I manage this or am I going to just throw up, I thought.

I had nearly finished the last of the slimy putrid fat pieces when Twee placed a few more into my bowl. “No more - me not hungry” I pleaded. But neither she no the ‘family’ were going to be put off by that! Uc de Loi No 10 was going to be looked after properly.

The entire table watched my every move, smiling and beckoning me to eat up.

Christ, what a bloody awful meal. Fortunately I have never had worse. But the people were so humble and so pleasant and I knew this was a ‘lavish’ meal by their standards. They were just so friendly to me – a foreigner and a stranger. I felt they really did appreciate an Uc de Loi by showing such hospitality.

Twee’s ‘bedroom’ was dank, mouldy, and the bed smelt of tropical both rot and sweat. Apart from that, the atmosphere reeked of raw sewerage. But I can tell you now, with Twee along side me, I never gave any of that any consideration whatsoever. Nor did it put me off!

Fortunately no white mice raided and we remained undisturbed. And I did wonder at some stage during the night as to whether my Yanky mate was somewhere in the complex shanty maze with his girlfriend – but I really didn’t care.

I slept reasonably well considering, despite heavy rain belting down on the thin tin roof. At the time I knew this was going to be one hell of a story for the boys - if I ever I survived Vietnam.

Twee had disappeared by the time I awoke so I high-tailed it out of there into the bright morning sun. It must have been near 8am when I made my way through all the narrow back alleys. I was delighted too that ’d beaten the curfew again. And this time I could find my own way back too.

Later that day I was on the truck for Nui Dat. My R & C was over. I never saw Twee again nor my American friend but I hope that one day this story may find them.

Richard Adams (7RAR A coy admin 1967 (first tour) Mob 0411 737 723)

**Richard, Perth, Australia**


 * THE VOLUNTEER**

“Adams” screams the sergeant. “Sarrr!” I hollered back “You’re wanted at the CO’s office – on the DOUBLE!

Oh Shit! I thought as I broke ranks and doubled off up the hill to face my fate. Some bastard must have blabbed that I was AWOL the day before. So I hurried up the hill while frustratingly bashing flies from my face and madly thinking of excuses. It’s 1966 - Woodside Army Camp about 40 km north-east of Adelaide. 3RAR are only rumoured to be going to Vietnam and the guys are treating every furphy as being a glimmer of hope. There’s something to be said about conscripting 20 year olds to fight a war. They’re gullible, stupid, bullet proof and ready to tackle anything with a fist or a gun.

At the 6.30am reveille on this bright, sunny, summer day we are called to attention. The flies are taking the opportunity to test the mettle. Every man is surreptitiously making ‘whews’and ‘hisses’ in an effort to keep them from the mouth, nose and eyes.

The Barossa Valley the day before had been a great day. My mate and I took off straight after morning reveille – directly to my FJ Holden sitting in the car park. In fact, there was still a carton of sparkling white wine sitting in the boot as stark evidence.

By the time I reached the CO’s office I had already kissed good bye the idea of meeting up with the little blonde from Glenelg that I met at the Norwood Town Hall dance the previous Saturday night. This is going to be a 21 day CB for sure.

“Adams, Sir! I was told to report here.” The duty officer looks me up and down. “The CO wants to talk to you!” he snaps back. “Left right, left right, left right, halt!” And I’m in front of the CO. He glares at me from behind his large desk. Oh shit! I hope this is a quick shooting!

“Adams, you have completed your clerical course and you seemed to have done quite well in the exam.” Now I’m beginning to relax. This is not the way one faces a firing squad. What’s going on?

“Thank you sir.” I replied, “Anything I may be able to do for you?” I’m thinking that maybe he’s is going to offer me a job in HQ. “A volunteer clerk is needed in Vietnam to assist with 7RAR’s arrival next April” he blurts, “Do you want to go?”

My mind is racing and before I could open my mouth he followed with. “Now you don’t have to give me an immediate answer right here and now because I have a few other clerks in the waiting room to pose the same question to.”

“I’ll do it!” And I can’t believe I actually said it. Christ! Now I’ve done it! I think I was more excited at not being charged than the gravity of my decision. I now realise that I’m the only one in the whole of 3RAR that will see service in Vietnam.

When I marched out I couldn’t help but notice there was not a soul in reception – let alone a clerk. I think I’ve been conned, I thought. Oh well, it’s done now. So I’m off to Vietnam! Aren’t the folks back home going to be deliriously excited!

Kanungra, what a mongrel place! Everyone doing duty overseas has to front the tough jungle training in a mosquito and leach infested Queensland rain forest. After three weeks of gruelling physical hell I’m fit and dangerous. I’m sent home to Perth for seven days leave to party and say goodbye. I just got that feeling that my brother, some seven years older than me and who always watched over me, was sure he’d never see me again.

Family and friends watched and waved as the diesel train pulled out of Perth Station. My orders now were to report to South Head Army camp in Sydney.

From South Head it was a civilian plane to Manilla in the Philippines. There was an overnight stay at Clark Airbase. Wow! What an eye opener this US base was. I’d never seen a base the size of four suburbs before. It was the largest US base in the world. The OR’s mess was mind boggling with a choice of food you’d expect at a good restaurant. It was a bit different to just getting the standard meal as everyone else.

That night a few Yanks took me around to see the nightlife on the base. The nightclubs, the girls, rock n roll – it was all there. No need to go to town. How well I remember that the stage held a 13 piece orchestra playing all the top tunes of the day. And there were pretty Philippino girls in their droves to be danced with but they came at a cost. The Aussie dollar was not on a par with the Yankie dollar so I abstained. Besides – I had a 5am flight on my mind.

I was staggered by the number of huge ‘Yank tanks’ on the Clark base. There were big long 60’s Buicks, Chevies and Cadillacs everywhere. It was explained to me that after a year, a serviceman can request his car be brought over from the US – at the taxpayers’ expense. The Hercules lifts off from Clark at 5am full of troops and one Aussie clerk. There’s no civilian comforts this time and reality hits: We are off to war!

The hot tropical air nearly knocked me over as we alighted at Tan Son Nhut air base. At that stage, Tan Son Nhut was the busiest airport in the world with a plane reportedly landing and taking off every three minutes. That was mind boggling stuff back then.

I bought a Coke from a little Vietnamese kid selling from a bucket strapped to his bike. Then I was issued with an SLR rifle before boarding the waiting Caribou. This time the plane is full of Aussies and hell only knows where they came from?

“Nui Dat!” screams the sergeant as the tail gate drops down and we get another burst of fierce hot air which quickly dispenses the cool air in the aircraft. I get up - but no one else does.

“OK, that’s it – the rest are for Vung Tau!” yells the sergeant!

I’m thrown out clutching my kit bag and the rear door closes. What the f....! Why would all our troops, I thought, be going anywhere but this base? I was of the understanding that Nui Dat was our front line.

(As it turned out, they were all back the next day. Apparently no one told them they also were supposed to get out at Nui Dat not Vung Tau.)

The Caribou wheels around in its own length and accelerates off down the enormous air strip. I looked around. There’s no one and I’m in the middle of nowhere. I watched the big bird disappear over the distant mountains. So here I am sitting on my kit bag on a desolate airstrip with no sign of life or habitation anywhere in sight.

Then it suddenly dawned on me that this is a war zone. So I’m off my bottom and darting around so no imaginary sniper could pick me off.

After 15 minutes a jeep appears. The driver tells me to jump in and takes me to HQ. Only then did I realise that the base was obscured from the airstrip by the dense growth of the rubber tree plantation.

“Adams 5713759 reporting for duty Sir!” I snapped as I came to attention.

“Who the fuck are you?” says the duty officer.

“A reinforcement clerk, sir, to handle the demob from 5RAR to 7RAR!”

“A fucking clerk!” he says. “We need another fucking clerk like a hole in the head”

“Fine”! I said “there’s obviously been a mistake. Can you tell me when the next plane leaves?”

“LEAVES?” he screams. “Oh no sunny boy! Now you’re here, you are here to stay.” Isn’t that funny! That’s just what mother said the devil would say to me one day.

I’m cursing to myself, typical army - great coats on, great coats off and no one knows what is going on. So here I am, a bloody volunteer to a war zone for a job that doesn’t exist. That mongrel CO back in 3RAR set me up – the bastard!





//Richard was finally given a job once 7RAR arrived three weeks later. (See photos left, the first of 5RAR making haste to move out, and the Chinook bringing in the first of the 7RAR personnel)

His job was riding ‘shotgun’ on the laundry truck. Richard was also typist for A company admin under commander Ken Bladen AM. These days he and Ken are close mates at Highgate RSL sub- branch where Richard is treasurer.//

**Richard, Perth, Australia**


 * WHAT IS A VETERAN**

Each year at this time we gather to remember the baptism of fire and the first blood letting of this wonderful nation of ours. We have a public holiday for this day for us to remember, and for all veterans to march, and the public to acknowledge us who have served our country. Yet on November 11, we or some of us stop for one minute to remember. On 18th August we younger veterans remember our conflict. No time is given for veterans of Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan Somalia, Cambodia and other countries where Australians have served. We always remember those who died. We never think of those who returned home suffering from mustard gas, Shell Shock, Flash Backs, missing limbs, loss of mates. If you went and asked any member of the public what is a veteran, the answer you would get is somebody who served overseas. WRONG. I would like to take this opportunity to let the community know what I think a veteran is.

We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted. We grew from our experiences or we were destroyed by then or we struggled to find some place in between. We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure. We were Army, Navy, Air Force, Red Cross, Salvo’s and civilians of all sorts. Some of us enlisted to fight for God, Queen and Country, and some were drafted. Some were gung-ho, and some went kicking and screaming.

Like veterans of all wars, we lived a tad bit - or a great bit- closer to death than most people like to think about. If Vets differ from others perhaps it is primarily in the fact that many of us never saw the enemy or recognized him or her. We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes. Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, those sounds, those electric fears that ran between ourselves, our enemy, and the likelihood of death for one of us. Or we get hard, calloused, and tough. It’s all in the days work. Life's a bitch when you die. But most of us remember and get twitchy, worried and sad.

We are crazies dressed in baggy greens, wide eyed, wary, homeless and drunk. We are Freedman Brothers suit wearers, doing deals down town. We are college professors engaged in the rational pursuit of the truth about the history or politics or culture of the war experience. We are sleepless. Often sleepless.

We pushed paper; we pushed shovels. We drove land rovers, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we carried machine guns through dense scrub, deep paddy, and thorn bush. We lived on ration packs on patrol. Back in camp we had more normal meals like fish, chicken, steaks, XXXX and Tooheys. We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the

Desert plains or in freezing snow, or at the most beautiful beaches in the world.

We wore berets, bandanas, floppy hats or steel pots. Flack jackets, canvas, rash and rot. We ate cloroquine and got malaria anyway. We got shots constantly but have diseases nobody can diagnose. We spent our nights on cold wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade. We slept in hotel beds in Baghdad or tents in Nui Dat, barracks at Soul or in the cramped ships berths at sea.

We feared we would die or we feared we would kill. We simply feared, and often we still do. We hate the war or believe it was the best thing ever happened to us. We blame the Government or Uncle Ho, and their minions and secretaries and apologize for every wart cough or tic of an eye. We wonder if Agent Orange got us.

Mostly, and this I believe with all my heart, mostly, we wish we had not been so alone. Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, jerked up out of 'the world', shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks. We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world. But now we smoke dope, shoot shit, or drink heavily. Our wives or husbands seem distant and strange. Our friends want to know if we shot anybody.

Veterans are people just like you. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently. What makes us different - what makes us Veterans - is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will. But we appreciate your asking.

Veterans are white, black, beige and shades of grey. We had names like Smith, Johnston, Jones, Stein, Beasley and Kowalski. We were Australians, Kiwis, Americans, Canadians and Koreans, and English.

We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait. We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, hippies and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor but mostly poor. We were educated or not, mostly not. We grew up in the back blocks, in city shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and hooches and sheep and cattle stations. We were cowards and heroes. Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.

When we came home and marched though people protesting the Vietnam War, some told our anger and horror for all to hear. Or we sat alone in small rooms, in repat hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go. We are Labor, Liberal, National Party Socialists, and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists C though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.

We are hungry, and we are sated, full of life or clinging to death. We are injured, and are curers, despairing and hopeful, loved or lost. We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up. We want, desperately, to go back, to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror. Or we want never to see that bloody place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning. We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.

Despite our differences, we have so much in common. There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask "what's wrong?". We're afraid we might have to answer.

So Australians, if you want to know what a War Veteran is, get in your car or get a friend with a car to drive you. Go to an ANZAC DAY on the 25th April. There will be hundreds there ....no, thousands. Watch them. Listen to them. Talk to them. I'll be there. Rejoice a bit. Cry a bit. No, cry a lot. I will. I'm a proud Veteran; and, after 40 years, I think I am beginning to understand what that means. 
 * Robert, Perth, Australia**

**Then a few stories we received via our form, asking for a positive and negative experience of the time of Vietnam War**
Over all the most positive experience was the relationship I developed with other soldiers, it was a personal support in a difficult situation and built lifelong friendships. Secondly would be on a number of occassions in Saigon during 1968 being able to witness the resilience of the Vietnamese people and the way they handled difficult situations.
 * A positive...**

Fire Suport Base CORAL, May 1968 A feeling of total isolation, I was away from my normal unit, in an unfamiliar situation and felt I did not have any control of my situation or how long that situation would last.
 * A negative...**

**Ken, Sydney, Australia**

I am 36 and I travelled in Vietnam in 1995. My dad was drafted for the Vietnam war (his birth date was pulled out of a barrel), but said he wouldn't go. Last year in Canberra I saw a museum display of the wooden balls that they used when drawing out the birth dates of people who would be drafted. One night, on a train trip from Hue to Hanoi, March 1995, I was looking across the rice paddies and in amongst the patchwork of emerald green squares were these amazing circular fields. "Isn't it strange that the farmers take the time to construct those beautiful decorative rice circles," I said to another passenger. "Those are old bomb craters," he replied.

**Josh, Fremantle, Australia**

I was able to participate in my first public expression of my views. I protested against war outside the US Embassy in London in 1966. As a result of this activity it gave me the courage to publicly express my views on other issues as did many others.
 * A positive...**

In a move to get more service people into the Armed Services so that we could go "All The Way With LBJ", the Australian Government "drew marbles". If your date of birth was on that day, you got called up. Many of my peers, boys only, were called up. Some of whom never returned.
 * A negative...**

The basis of our involvement in the Vietnam War as we were told, was to ensure that the "Yellow Peril & Communists didn't get to Australia via the "domino effect".

**Helen, Fremantle, Australia**

I was part of the Vietnam Moratorium protest movement in Perth during the late 1960's and early 1970's. I became involved after I heard the Labor politician Jim Cairns speak at a public meeting in Perth in early 1970.
 * A positive...**

After that I was part of the big public street demonstrations protesting against the Liberal/Country Party Government's support for the American involvement in the affairs of Vietnam and the sending of Australian defence personnel (soldiers, sailors and airmen) to support the Americans.

The positive for me was that, the protests were a factor in the defeat of the Liberal Government in the 1972 elections which brought in the new Whitlam Labor government: its first act on taking government was to withdraw all Australian troops from Vietnam.

A negative experience has been the awareness over the years since the end of the Vietnam war of the terrible on-going that the war has caused for those who participated, on both sides. The long term effects of the spraying of the chemical Agent Orange has led to the most horrific birth defects in many children born since the end of the war: not only in Vietnam but also in Australia.
 * A negative...**

As well the effects of post traumatic stress disorder on the troops involved on both sides has had a saddening impact on their mental health and family and social life.

**John, Swanbourne, Australia**

<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">**And the stories we have received from the USA so far (via our form)**
I was a teenager. My brother wanted to film (this was WAY before videotape) National Guard soldiers who were being deployed to respond to demonstrations at the local university, University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin, USA). He wasn't old enough to drive so I drove him.
 * A positive...**

As he filmed, we were noticed, and a jeep filled with uniformed men swooped down on us. I had visions of being arrested, but they were courteous and pleasant. Just asked us to leave, because the area was restricted. As we drove away, there was a truck filled with soldiers, none of them much older than us. Certainly little different from us. And as we drove behind them, they smiled and flashed us the "Peace Sign". It left me feeling that those against the war and those keeping the protests under control (and were they against the war?) had a lot in common.

I was going to school in Oberlin, Ohio (US) during the war. Some time between 1970 and 1972 in the US, college was no longer going to provide a deferrment - if a boy's birthday was high on the "list" he could still be drafted. The night the birthdates were to be announced, all the boys gathered together to listen to the broadcast. We girls were shut out, left to wonder what would happen to our boyfriends until later. There were already Vietnam veterans on campus, and we knew their bitterness and anger - we didn't want that to happen to anybody else.
 * A negative...**

The thought that people we loved and cared about could soon be risking their lives a continent away in a dangerous war we watched unfold every night on TV was unbelievably frightening. It was bad enough that they were to be put at risk, but when it was for a war we thought was foolish and just plain wrong - I felt helpless and frightened.

<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(64, 64, 64);">**Fran Old Lyme, CT USA**

As a freshman in High School in 1970-71 I remember how college students banded together to protest the war. To me it was positive to see how people could band together to bring about change much like the Civil Rights Movement. I was a student at North Branford High School in North Branford, CT. During this time we got our news manily from the nightly news broadcasts on TV and we often discussed in school how we thought the war should be brought to an end.
 * A positive...**

Wearing bracelets of Missing in Action US Soldiers made you realize that someone's son, brother, husband or father was missing and in many cases presumed dead. These bracelets were made of a silver steel like material and you weren't supposed to take it off until the whereabouts of the person named on it were known. Many of my high school classmates wore these.
 * A negative...**

<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(64, 64, 64);">**Karen, Hopewell Jct., NY USA**

<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(0, 128, 0);">**THANK YOU!**


 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WITH A STORY TO TELL - WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM! **