NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

Of Deceit, Deception And Tears

Back To Vietnam

"I sound angry and I am fucking angry. You know, this is... You've got to get angry, everybody's got to get angry about bloody wars. They're fucking horrible!"

Our politicians deluded us and I, along with so many other conscripts ended up here. Wasn't our choice, we didn't know why we were here.

Broadcast - 06/29/05

REPORTER: David Brill

RADIO DJ: It's a Monday morning in the Republic of Vietnam. You're listening to the Dawnbuster on the American Forces Vietnam Network. It's a sunny day in Saigon. Hope it's good where you are. This is O.C. Smith - 'Baby, I Need Your Loving.’

This was Vietnam in 1970. For five years I saw the war unfolding though the lens of my camera, from American Armed Forces Radio to the battles in the rice paddies, even the Americans on the Mekong trying to kill enemy frogmen. Of course, like everybody else, I was deeply affected by what I saw.
37 years later, I'm back on the Mekong... on a Russian-built hydrofoil with some Australian Vietnam veterans.

BRUCE FRASER, VIETNAM VETERAN: The canal's coming through...

BRUCE BURROW, VIETNAM VETERAN: I think it's fascinating. As I said, the first time I ever saw the Mekong Delta I was flying over it to and from Vietnam. It's just amazing to see it.

Bruce Burrow and Bruce Fraser are on a journey to mourn lost comrades and curse the futility of war.

BRUCE FRASER: I'm wondering why we ever came here in the first place, what we achieved, what we destroyed of the country.

They're part of a group of veterans and their wives. For many, like Tony Templeton, who's with his wife, June, it's their first time back since the end of the war. Over the next few days, the men will confront the trauma and memories that have haunted them for years. The tour is led by Walter Pearson, a vet with two tours of duty.

WALTER PEARSON, TOUR GUIDE: We're off to Vung Tau, which was the place where the Australian forces used to land, mainly the infantry forces and that, when they came across by boat.

These days, the boats riding in the bay at Vung Tau carry not soldiers but fishermen.

WALTER PEARSON: Come up and have a look at what they've done and from there I'll show you where the Australian Logistic Support Group were...
This is the equivalent of one of our cenotaphs, you know. It's the equivalent of one of our little war memorials you find in every town. So the words on it sort of render out as "The nation records your contribution." But really I suppose it's a bit like, you know, "Lest we forget."

BRUCE BURROW: 2 million Vietnamese people died here and it was a national struggle and America and Australia and Korea had absolutely no reason to be here whatsoever.

Here's Bruce Burrow 37 years ago as a young conscript. He was a gunner with an artillery battery. As they shelled the Vietnamese they were given the nickname the 'Nine Mile Snipers'. This is his film of the war.

BRUCE BURROW: Our politicians deluded us and I, along with so many other conscripts ended up here. Wasn't our choice, we didn't know why we were here.

I know why I was here. My footage was being shown regularly on Australian television and around the world but that didn't make it any easier. I was horrified to watch a nation and its people being torn apart.
Today we're on our way to Nui Dat. once the main base for Australian forces. It's hard to imagine that over 30 years ago Australians and Vietnamese were killing each other all around here, and to drive down this road was incredibly dangerous.
It's not an easy ride for some - including Tony Templeton. Like many vets, back in Australia he's been receiving counselling for his war trauma.

WALTER PEARSON: On the right there is Nui Dat and we'll take the road in up here a bit further on the right. All you've got to do is sort of imagine you're coming in on an APC and you're sitting on the top and you're being bounced around. And your 19 and you think you're bulletproof.
Some people call it Nui Dat, some call it Sass Hill, but that was the centre of the Australian base.

TONY TEMPLETON, VIETNAM VETERAN: When we came in was just a bamboo plantation and shit all around it. I mean, we didn't have running water for six months, we didn't have electricity for nine months.

WALTER PEARSON: When we got here in 1969, I took over the same position as you in 1969 and we had tents set up, we had outdoor cinemas, we had the boozer. It was wonderful. We had everything.

As the group gets a briefing in this rubber plantation, Bruce Burrow is also wrestling with his past and thinking about his mates who didn't return home.

BRUCE BURROW: Just thinking about Bluey Tregear who was in 108 battery, was killed, and Lieutenant Robert Berse who was murdered, the other mates who have been injured psychologically and the four fellas that have committed suicide. Just the smell of the place is quite unnerving really.

A counsellor has urged Bruce to return to Vietnam to try and address his feelings of guilt over his role in the war.

BRUCE BURROW: I cried on the plane coming over. I cried the first night when insomnia let me down and for no reason I cried. That relief one gets from crying is happening. And, yeah, there will probably be a hell of a lot more at the Anzac dawn service, I would imagine.

And Bruce isn't the only one shedding tears.

TONY TEMPLETON: For me anyway, for the last five years for me I've been crying on my own, late at night or whatever, or I hit the bottle, play the computer, whatever. But I don't normally go to bed until 1:30, 2:00 any morning.

So you decided to come back?

TONY TEMPLETON: I had to come back I've just started seeing a psychiatrist now for the last three months, four months. I'd already decided and paid for this trip before I saw him and he said it was the best thing I could ever do.

While the veterans’ wives are very supportive, there are some memories that just won't go away.

TONY TEMPLETON: I can remember distinctly seeing a trail of red ants going into a Vietcong's ear and coming out of his nose, taking his brains with them, and that scene has never left me.
I don't know what it is. I feel uptight my stomach's knotted, it's like fear. And don't let anybody tell you that fear doesn't hurt - it does. It's a pain right in your stomach. For the last three days I've had this constant headache, I don't know whether it's lack of water, I don't know whether it's tension, I don't know whether it's heat, I don't know what it is. I think this is half the problem with us blokes is we break down, we cry, and it's not accepted behaviour. But we don't know why and nobody can tell us why.

A moment later the two men are overcome.

TONY TEMPLETON: I cried all the way up here.

BRUCE BURROW: There's a beautiful little crippled girl...

Bruce wants Tony to visit a crippled girl in a nearby hut, but the memories of another young girl are hitting hard.

BRUCE BURROW: But the images of the classic photograph of the little girl crossing the bridge with her skin burned off with napalm. This little girl is not like that. But it's just, a crippled Vietnamese girl here in this environment, is just... Yeah, it brings the whole fucking horror of war and our involvement back.

I could understand what the men were going through. 34 years ago I filmed this girl. She'd lost half her leg in crossfire. Her piercing stare cut into me more than the death and destruction I was filming every day.
Even the simplest gesture here evokes memories of years past. Here's Bruce in 1968.

BRUCE BURROW: When I was in Vietnam I used to take sweets out on the village searches and give them out to the kids. Rather than the domino theory we were fed, I felt that our government had intellectually raped me personally - anyway that's how I felt - because I felt that I knew about warfare and all it entailed but I allowed myself to be conscripted and be involved in this goddamn American war in Vietnam.

WALTER PEARSON: That's where your battery was, down in there. Yeah, just in there.

BRUCE BURROW: On the other side of the rocks.

WALTER PEARSON: Yeah, on the flat there. On the flat just on the other side of those rocks.

Today is Anzac Day and we're at Long Tan. 18 Australians died here in 1966. The battle of Long Tan is now part of Australia's military history but the Vietnamese lost more than 200 soldiers and it's still a very sensitive issue. It seems the vets are not allowed to bring the wreath here.

REPORTER: Is it because they want to basically forget the war, or the sensitivity that we were the enemy?

WALTER PEARSON: No, I think it's just that Vietnamese society is very ordered, they have rules about what they do. And I think there is still a certain amount of sensitivity in the village over there about the Australian presence in Vietnam and the fact that we destroyed their village, they got no compensation and so on.

The memorial service proceeds without the wreath.

VETERAN WIFE: At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

ALL: We will remember them. Lest we forget.

BRUCE FRASER’S WIFE: We made the decision to come back, and I came as Bruce's support but I think he's been my support really.

REPORTER: What do you mean by that? Something you didn't expect...

BRUCE FRASER’S WIFE: I didn't expect to feel this emotional here. I thought it would be Bruce feeling like I am. He probably is inside, but I'm just a probably little more emotional than I thought I'd be.

While the journey is painful for the vets it's also turning into a very positive experience.

BRUCE FRASER’S WIFE: Through it we've just I think, grown. I think this is going to bring us even closer together than we were. Knowing that Bruce went, came back. We lost contact for over 20 years and then we found each other again. And for me to able to come here with Bruce as supposedly his support it's just for me the best thing, the best decision we could have made.

REPORTER: It will bring you closer together?

BRUCE FRASER’S WIFE: I believe so, yes. We're overlaying some of the memories that are coming back for Bruce, with hopefully good memories of Vietnam, and we can go away with a sense of, yes, the country has recovered. And it's a healing, I suppose, yes.

The vets have decided to lay the wreath at a Vietnamese cemetery. It's a very symbolic gesture, given its proximity to Long Tan.

TONY TEMPLETON: This was just something that needed to be done. They died, we died. They didn't have any say in the matter and neither did we. I think we can show our respects to them as well as to us. It's my way of saying I'm sorry.

REPORTER: How important was it for you to come on this trip?

TONY TEMPLETON’S WIFE: Very important for Tony, yeah, I'm a bit thingo because of what the Second World War did to our family. I feel a bit bad on that one. It destroyed us. My father, my mother, I lost a brother and a sister, and it's...

REPORTER: We don't learn, do we?

TONY TEMPLETON’S WIFE: No, we don't learn.

Do you think you'll understand Tony's concerns after being here?

TONY TEMPLETON’S WIFE: Oh, I've always understood them, but I keep it in here. I think once I start to cry, you'll never stop me. Because it will be going back for Dad. My grandfather was killed in the First World War. You know, when is it going to stop?
I really feel for him. I just hope this does it, because I couldn't do it again. I couldn't do it again. I think that's why I'm so tired. Keep going.

WALTER PEARSON: I suppose, you know, it's that these people here - and there's a row of them - all died on the same day, 18 August 1966, probably at the battle of Long Tan, the same battle that the Australians were involved in, and the most significantly remembered Australian battle.
If they're generous enough to give us a place to remember our dead and to remember theirs, it's fair that we should come here and pay some sort of respects to their dead as well.

BRUCE BURROW: Probably, as Walter said, this is the local Vietnamese soldiers that died in the war, and many of them killed by us. Any ordinary soldier does the biddings of the commanders and that's what we did, we did our commanders' biddings and our politicians' biddings.
But we, the ordinary soldiers, we're the ones that cop it. We either get our legs blown off or we get PTSD, brain-damaged, injured, whatever, you know? We're the ones who suffer for the country. The country sends us here. It's not only the politicians that are responsible It's actually the community that elects the politicians that allow this sort of thing to happen. It's like what's going on in Iraq at the moment.

REPORTER: How do you feel about the 400 going to Iraq the other day?

BRUCE BURROW: Tragic. Tragic.

REPORTER: Do you think it could be another Vietnam?

BRUCE BURROW: One soldier losing his life in Iraq is enough for me. I've seen it happen here with friends of mine and it's just one more Australian soldier dying in a useless war for some other country like America or the petrochemical dollar is just horrifying.
I sound angry and I am fucking angry. You know, this is... You've got to get angry, everybody's got to get angry about bloody wars. They're fucking horrible!

BRUCE FRASER: All these houses are new.

Down the road, there's another chilling reminder of Australia's role in the war and the sensitivities attached to this tour.

WALTER PEARSON: This is Bing Baa and it was a place where we had a big 3-day battle in 1969. It's considered one of the big battles of Vietnam along with Suoi Chau Pha and Long Tan.
This was the site of the schoolyard and school building and we killed a hundred people, roughly, in a day in a battle here, and we buried them a day later or a couple of days later in the schoolyard and they've turned it into this memorial. The memorial is to the 33rd Regiment.

REPORTER: After you killed them and you buried them, what about the rest of the people in the village, what did you do? Did you just pull out then, did you? Do you remember?

WALTER PEARSON: We'd shot through by then. I don't know what happened.

While most of the group has lunch, Bruce is working on Tony's recurring headaches.

BRUCE BURROW:...where the pain is, just take a little bit. We've got to get this blue button. Just take the index of that and press that blue button.

Many vets survived the war but not the trauma they were left with.

BRUCE BURROW: The number of veterans committing suicide is astronomical. In my unit, four of our blokes have committed suicide. Another bloke blew his head off with a handgun, another bloke has hung himself, another bloke went to visit a priest, the priest said, "I'll get you a cup of coffee," and while he was away, he hung himself with the priest's cassock rope he hangs around his belly.

In this small Vietcong museum, there's more reminders of Australia's involvement in the war.

BRUCE BURROW: Australian machine gun, I love the wording. "Australia-manufactured E-3 mine disassembled by our soldiers and used to wipe out the enemy vitality." Sure did that. Blew off our legs.

VETERAN: Is that a jumping jack? I've never seen one before.

Part of Bruce Fraser's job was to defuse landmines.

BRUCE FRASER: And very gently just pull the whole firing device out. And then snap the detonator. And she's right.
A little bit different.

WIFE: Yeah. So this is American?

BRUCE FRASER: Yeah, it's American. With the Australian one, the driver is in here.

The tour is coming to an end for Bruce Fraser, and decades of guilt over his role in the war are melting away.

BRUCE FRASER: I just feel so happy - the killing, the bloodshed is finished, on both sides, on all sides. The people of Vietnam can get on with their lives and live in peace.

REPORTER: Does it feel like it's a bit of a weight off your shoulders?

BRUCE FRASER: A huge weight, David. I just feel so happy...exhilarated. I just feel so happy, light. In fact, my soul feels good, if you can say such a thing. I just feel good inside that everything is finished.

REPORTER: For you?

BRUCE FRASER: For me and for the Vietnamese people, that it's over, they are getting on with their lives, they're living.

WIFE: He's actually singing in the motel unit. That's a scary thought. But to me that means he's lightened up, and that's good.

Back in Ho Chi Minh City, I take time out to soak up the atmosphere. This hotel was the setting for Graham Greene's book 'The Quiet American'. Again, the years fall away and I'm filming in Saigon in 1970. Like the vets, I'm glad to see the nation at peace and starting to prosper at last.
This tour has been good for me too. It's only recently that the sound of a helicopter doesn't bring back bad memories of the war. Seeing these dancers reminded me yet again of the grace and dignity of the Vietnamese.
As the tour is wrapping up, Bruce Burrow and I attend an official reception. It's a special occasion for Friends of Vietnam from around the world to mark the anniversary of the end of the war.
World War II veteran and peace campaigner Tom Uren is on hand. The dignitaries give their speeches and soon after, to my surprise, Bruce is at the microphone. He isn't listed as a speaker but is determined to publicly make amends over his role in the war.

BRUCE BURROW: Please forgive me for my involvement in the war. The tragedy to your people is beyond my comprehension. And to meet here with you, your wonderful, friendly, warm Vietnamese people is a major healing factor for the rest of my life. I thank you.

And a short time later his reconciliation is all but complete. Bruce has struck up a conversation with a former North Vietnamese pilot. They discuss their time as enemies.

BRUCE BURROW: I was just personally so fearful of my own mental stability. That's why I was fearful of coming back and confronting what I might see. Having come back and the place is kicking on, people are making a go of it, has just been so rewarding, so this is helping me to reduce that fear.

VIETNAMESE VETRAN: It is important to have a good heart, if you have a good heart there is no problem. I believe so. The past is the past and we must look to the future. Yeah?

BRUCE BURROW: That's wonderful. I have found so much warmth. It is so wonderful to receive such a message from you. It's wonderful. Thank you very much.

VIETNAMESE VETRAN: Never mind.

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