Long Tan Remembered. 'Thank the Jesus it's over there ...'

The battle of Long Tan was remembered last week. The battle, fifty years ago last Thursday 18 August, saw a little over 100 Australian infantrymen fight a North Vietnamese force at least ten times that size. With the aid of artillery support and helicopter resupply the Australians survived the enemy's onslaught and inflicted hundreds of casualties. It was a kind of victory.

'It'd scare the fuck out of yer flying ducks,' said Harry.

There is no better way to appreciate the bravery of Australians at war and the terrible cost of battle than to read the accounts of those who were there.

In Good Company by Gary McKay and All Guts and No Glory by Bob Buick (with Gary McKay) are fine memoirs. They are gritty, honest and moving accounts of battle by men in the thick of things.

And don't forget The Odd Angry Shot which is a fictionalised account of Australian soldiers fighting in Viet Nam. This novella won the 1975 National Book Council Award for Australian Literature.

The novel was William Nagle's first published work and it remains one of the best descriptions of Australian soldiers at war. Importantly, it captures the confusion and senslessles of our war in Vietnam, that sad and sorry conflict.

But it also captures something else: the irrepressible and irreverent character of professional soldiers doing a job of work not of their choosing. It makes for compelling reading.

The following description, as the boys huddle in the rain at Richmond airfield, waiting to fly to war, says it all.

Harry arrived with two cups of cocoa made on milk.
'You know we're getting armalites when we get there.'
'What. Straight away?'
'No. When we get to Nui Dat.'
'Shit, we'll stir the indigenous populations up with them, eh?'
'Remember what the man said: "You are visitors in South Vietnam",' said Harry.
'Thank the Jesus it's over there and not over here.'
'What d'you mean?'
'That we're visitors.'
Remember Smokie Dawson on the other side of the forty-four gallon drum and the way his face seemed distorted by the heat haze.
'I can just see my old lady's face if the old moll next door came in for a natter and sprayed the lounge with 7.62 tracer.'
'It'd scare the fuck out of yer flying ducks,' said Harry.
Remember when he said that I laughed. The plastic cup warmed my hands. Harry and I were mates.

And so their war began.

The Odd Angry Shot was also made into a movie. It was one of the first and one of the best movies depicting Australians fighting in Vietnam.