Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip features interviews with two Vietnam veterans, Rowan Marsh and Peter Stainthorpe, recalling what it was like to return to Melbourne after two years of active service in Vietnam. They describe the expectation that they would be welcomed home and the incongruity of finding nothing had changed. Both veterans describe feelings of not fitting in and needing to reconnect with other Vietnam veterans for mateship and comradeship. The clip ends with footage showing Vietnam veterans marching in an Anzac Day parade.

Educational value points

• This clip reflects the alienation and rejection two Australian soldiers felt when they returned home after fighting in the Vietnam War. Nearly 60,000 Australians, including ground troops, air force and navy personnel, served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975, of whom 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded. In the context of the growing anti-War movement in Australia, returning servicemen and women were often shunned, despite many of them having been conscripts.

• Unlike Australian soldiers returning from previous conflicts, many Vietnam veterans experienced hostility on their return. The interviews reflect the trauma caused when their hopes and expectations of being welcomed home were dashed because of the War’s unpopularity and divisiveness in Australia. Some veterans were even pelted by tomatoes and had red paint thrown at them. Others returned home in the dark of night to escape unwelcome protesters.

• To cope with the unwelcome response they received from society on their return, many Vietnam veterans re-created the friendship and social groups they had formed with fellow servicemen in Vietnam, who had ‘replaced family and were like family to you’. These groups provided solace and mateship but also support and assistance to those veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder or illnesses caused by chemical warfare.

• Although the clip shows the inclusion of Vietnam veterans in an Anzac Day parade some time during the 1970s or 80s, they were not officially acknowledged on a national level for their service until the 1987 Welcome Home Parade. Initially Vietnam veterans did not feel accepted or welcomed even by the Returned Services League (RSL) and in 1979 formed the Vietnam Veterans Action Association to lobby for their rights, including counselling and health services.

• The experience of these returning soldiers reflects key differences between the Vietnam War and previous conflicts in which Australia had participated. Sending young conscripts to fight overseas was highly controversial. Under the National Service Scheme 20-year-old men were required to register and, subject to a ballot, were then required to serve in the regular army for two years. Traditionally Australians have been opposed to sending conscripts overseas, rejecting conscription twice in referendums during the First World War.

• The filmmakers use the ‘talking’ heads’ style of interview, giving the audience an emotional engagement with the interviewees and a direct insight into their personal journeys. The interviewees talk directly to camera and by implication speak directly to the audience. The two interviews are intercut, graphically suggesting that one soldier’s story is also the other’s. The filmmakers illustrate the interviews by cutting away to the Anzac Day parade footage.