Going Back by Gary McKay Read Free Book Online Page A

that is probably why we never finished digging in at Nui Dat.’ 37
    Aviator Peter Rogers was also interested in visiting the village because he had been involved in the Battle at Binh Ba as part of Operation Hammer from 6 to 8 June 1969. ‘It was a colossal stoush while I was there,’ he reflected. 38 The road heading north up from the old Task Force base at Nui Dat was once an arterial road between isolated villages, right up to the next province capital of Bien Hoa. But since the war, the growth of the populated areas has been staggering. As Peter observed, ‘I couldn’t recognise the place. It is all ribbon development now.’ Peter was saddened that he couldn’t identify where the former airstrip had been located, north-west of Binh Ba, because two aviator friends were shot down and killed near there just after he finished his tour of duty. 39
    The tour group travelled from Binh Ba west across the area that was formerly known to Australians as the Hat Dich region. During the war it was a large tract of primary and secondary jungle; now a highway runs through it, supporting ribbon development, small towns, coffee and pepper plantations and market gardens. Fred Pfitzner said he couldn’t believe it: ‘I was gobsmacked at the development—it is bloody good to see it.’ 40
    Xuyen Moc
    Twenty kilometres due east of the Nui Dat base, but some 35 kilometres by gravel road, was the town of Xuyen Moc (pronounced ‘Swen Mok’). It was a settlement that swelled from a rapid influx of Catholics who left North Viet Nam once the country had been divided in 1954. 41
    During the American War, the isolated town was subjected to constant harassment by the Viet Cong, who felt secure in attacking the local populace given the long reaction time required to deploy a large combat force to restore order and repel their forays. The road leading out to the town via the provincial capital of Ba Ria and the district capital of Long Dien was often mined, and subject to frequent motor vehicle ambushes. In 1966, 5 RAR was given the task of clearing the road and establishing a presence in Xuyen Moc. As Fred Pfitzner observed on the logistics of even getting there, ‘To actually have got out to Xuyen Moc required a special operation every time it was ever done.’ 42 After the war, the resettled North Vietnamese Catholics paid the price for not buckling to Viet Cong pressure: the town was the very last in the province to receive electricity.
    Dr Ted Heffernan conducted Medcaps at Xuyen Moc, and when he returned in 2005 he was absolutely thrilled to see the town and the people again. When the group alighted from their bus near a large Catholic school at Binh Gia they were mobbed by young children in bright blue school uniforms. Chaos reigned as the school kids gathered around, and some were rather bemused when staring at the heavily scarred, one-legged and black-eye-patched Peter Isaacs, who replied rather earnestly to an enquiry from an inquisitive child that he was in fact a pirate. Show and tell would have been something to eavesdrop on the next day.
    Wendy Greenhalgh participated in a romp with several tour members and dozens of school kids and said later, ‘Everybody was so happy—and I thought, God, why couldn’t it always have been like that?’ 43

APPENDIX: POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
    Reproduced with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 4th edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC, 2000, pp. 463–6. This text is used as the basis for Australian psychiatry in the examination, diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.
    Diagnostic features
    There are several reasons why people become affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These causes are clinically referred to as diagnostic features. The essential feature of PTSD is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme