In Good Company Read online

  After he had pointed out the errors of my ways he quietly looked at me with a look of resignation on his face and asked, ‘Sir, do you know why you’re a second lieutenant?’ I didn’t have a quick rejoinder so acted mute and he broke the silence, answering his own question with, ‘Because there aren’t any bloody third lieutenants!’. My first reaction was to tell this ex-boilermaker to go fly a kite; but in fact I was the ‘Johnny-come-lately’ and I could learn a lot from this veteran of three campaigns. So I just swallowed my pride and ego and watched and listened. After about three weeks, Mitchell came up to me and suggested that I had been watching long enough and that it was about time I started earning my pay.

  There were about 30 living-in single second lieutenants or lieutenants working in the unit. Mess life was never dull. As eligible ladies of the district didn’t think too highly of soldiers out on the town intent on having a good time, we would concentrate on parties in the more genteel surroundings of the mess where, in any case, the grog was cheaper. But life for a subaltern at 3rd Training Battalion was fairly hectic: the normal, (if ever there was one) day started with physical training with the soldiers before breakfast, lessons, lectures, weapon training, drill and the like. The days were divided into 40-minute periods and contained a bit of everything. Because I now had to instruct on basic infantry skills, I relearnt what had been taught at Scheyville and got to know them thoroughly.

  All types came through the platoon. For instance, we had a qualified chemist who may have been bright as a chemist but who was a bit short on common sense. During a routine morning inspection of the platoon, I leant forward to look down the barrel of his rifle to make sure he had cleaned it. I couldn’t see light through the barrel. So I checked to see if he had the bolt of the weapon pulled back and his thumb nail in such a position as to reflect light up into the barrel. Having confirmed this, I stepped back into position to look down the barrel again. I still couldn’t see any light no matter how I held my head or squinted my eye. Then I did what every young officer should do; I called up the platoon sergeant. He couldn’t see down the barrel either. With a quizzical look on his face, he then took the weapon out of the hands of the now shaking chemist and began to strip it down. Once he broke the rifle open we discovered the problem. When cleaning his rifle that morning, the chemist had put a piece of flannelette on the pull-through that was too large; it had got stuck in the barrel. After failing to dislodge the obstruction the chemist had panicked and cut both ends of the pull-through. Sergeant Mitchell was not amused. He marched the chemist off to the unit armourer so he could explain what he had done to the man who would now have to completely strip down the weapon.

  Then on leave I suffered a bad injury to my hand when I was water skiing. I was hit by the propeller of a boat; three of my finger tendons on my left hand were severed. An operation was required to sew them back together; so I found I would have to languish in 3rd Training Battalion until my hand recovered. The operation was done with almost no loss of movement to the fingers but I was required to spend some time in Concord Repatriation Hospital. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I was being admitted into the hospital: there before me was Warrant Officer Quee, our drillie from Scheyville. Ironically, he was being admitted for severe laryngitis; things were not going too well for him.

  I was put in a ward where most of the patients were quite old and were either unable to talk or didn’t want to. After a day of silence I was moved to what was called the Vietnam ward. This in fact only had a handful of guys in it. My bed was opposite two men whom I shall never forget. They had both been wounded on the same day; one had been wounded going to the aid of the other. Both had suffered severe multiple gunshot wounds to the legs. They had been in Concord since arriving back from Vietnam and they had been operated on several times. All up they had been in hospital for eighteen months and still had several months to go and then extensive physiotherapy. Both would have a disability of some kind and one leg slightly shorter than the other. What was remarkable about these two guys was their spirit. After our early morning wash one would look across at the other and ask: ‘Whatta you wanna do today mate?’. The other would reply, ‘I dunno, we could go fishin’, or sailin’, or go and have a game of tennis’. Back would come, ‘Nahh, did that yesterday, looks like rain outside anyway’. To which the final response was: ‘Yeah, stuff it. Let’s stay in bed!’.

  These two men were both national servicemen. I was continually amazed at the way they handled their predicament. They drew on each other when the pain was severe and when one was down the other would help giving tremendous support and encouragement. At times I felt embarrassed by this naked, open display of mateship, which I had never seen before. The sad part about these two was they had been so long in hospital and had been through so much pain that they had become dependent on the pain killing injections. Even before the nursing sister would appear with the next needle they would be rubbing their arms in anticipation, trying to increase the blood flow to aid the drug’s effect.

  My injury meant that I wouldn’t be posted to the Reinforcement Holding Unit in Sydney for some time. Almost a year had passed since I had been drafted. During May in 1969 I was then moved to an Infantry Corps training company, Echo or E Company. This meant that our time out in the field virtually trebled: we had the task of bringing the national servicemen in the company up to a level where they could be posted to Vietnam after finishing the battle efficiency course held at the Jungle Training Centre at Canungra in Queensland. I found I was enjoying my work immensely. I liked working with soldiers and I enjoyed the type of lifestyle we had to lead. A year before, whilst working at the New South Wales branch of the AMP, I used to wake up some mornings knowing I would be catching the same train or bus and that the type of work I would have to do would be much the same as the day before. In the army, however, every day was different. You worked long hours but the work was exciting, challenging and required a sense of adventure.

  The first Christmas I spent in the army was at 3rd Training Battalion. I spent it fighting bushfires in and around Singleton. The fires were sweeping toward the winegrowing area around Branxton, and the Tyrell’s vineyard complex was in danger several times. All of a sudden the bushfires were whipped along by hot westerly winds; we found ourselves outflanked. One of my classmates began to survey the scene from atop our stalled truck, and shouted ‘Run for your lives!’. This we all did and luckily we got through the fire just before our truck was burnt out.

  As my time at 3rd Training Battalion increased I grew frustrated at my hand taking so long to mend. Most of the guys I had arrived with were going off to regular units or to Vietnam, and all I was doing was listening to the stories of the young captains who had just come back. I tried to get a posting out of the unit but I suspect that the fact that I was the captain of the rugby team slowed down my departure. The team was doing very well: despite the fact that all of our players were very young, we had fitness on our side and we usually ran the legs off our opposition. We won the grand final. In October the adjutant, Brian Kelleher, who also happened to be the rugby coach, asked if I would be interested in a posting to the 9th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (9 RAR). I thought I would have a better chance of getting to Vietnam if I moved from 3rd Training Battalion, so I was on my way again.

  By now I was determined to go to Vietnam. I was beginning to feel like an athlete who was spending all his time training and never being allowed to compete. This may sound strange to someone who believes that wars are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Yet, when one is serving in a warfare environment and where the on duty and off duty talk is always war, the feeling is difficult to ignore. I think also deep down inside I wanted to see how I would handle being shot at and being scared. I wanted to see if I could do the job I had been trained to do.

  My farewell from the mess smacked of my farewell from the AMP Society and was a pretty riotous affair. I was continually being bought drinks and it wasn’t until I left the mess
to walk back some 100 yards to my room that I realised I had been set up. I opened the door and behold, my room was missing. There was nothing left in the room save the curtains, mirror and washbasin. All of the furniture, my bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk, rugs, fan, and even the table lamp, was gone. I went back out of the hut and had a look at the number on the door. I was even driven to going and checking the first room on the right in the hut next door to make sure I hadn’t got it wrong, but I still couldn’t find my room.

  Back to the mess I went—to find a group of my mates drinking on and grinning like Cheshire cats. I threatened several people with physical violence, to no avail. I had to get to sleep as I had a long drive in front of me the next day, so I left in search of a bed. As I was making my way back to the huts I glanced over at the parade ground and there, on the saluting dais, was my room—in exactly the same layout as it had been in the hut. I contemplated moving the furniture back but the late hour and too many drinks had taken their toll. So I went to bed on the dais. My first recollection of waking was of two of the regimental sergeant major’s (RSM) policemen shaking me awake at about 0730 hours and of the sun streaming down on me and my ‘room’ I was in trouble. By the look on the faces of the regimental policemen, it was big, regimental sergeant major-type, trouble. I quickly gathered some subalterns to help me move, hoping that I could escape the wrath of officialdom since I would be leaving that morning. I think the adjutant was aware of what had happened. All I got from him as I was in battalion headquarters picking up my documents before leaving was a ‘Hope you slept well last night, Mister McKay!’.

  I arrived in Brisbane to find that myself and another chap, Mick Campbell, comprised part of the 9 RAR Australian Component; we represented the battalion until it arrived from Woodside in South Australia a month later and then regimental life commenced in earnest as the normal cycle of training began. A lot of the officers and senior NCOs only stayed for a short time and were then posted off either on promotion or to new jobs. My platoon in Delta Company consisted totally of men who had returned from South Vietnam. I was the only man in the platoon without a service ribbon on his chest. Despite this somewhat perplexing disadvantage, training had to go on—and to my amazement I discovered that even war veterans make mistakes, although they make fewer of them. A lot of my time was spent working in the field, not only on our own company and unit exercises, but also on exercises for other battalions. On these we often acted as enemy and umpires.

  There were some really helpful guys in the mess. They were prepared to go out of their way to tell the new lieutenants who hadn’t been to war what it was like. One of these was a tall bloke, Brian Vickery, with whom I became good friends. One day he invited me around to his place for lunch. There on the lounge room floor was a huge map of Phuoc Tuy Province. During the whole afternoon and evening Brian told me in detail what the terrain and vegetation were like, what effect the wet and dry seasons had on the area of operations, where and why some places were better than others to ambush. What he did was colour in what had previously been black and white sketches in my imagination. Brian gave me the briefing you can never get from a book or pick up from a training film. Later I was to recollect what he had said about the land, the Vietnamese and the enemy and reflect on how accurate he had been.

  I had no preconceived idea of what the enemy would be like. I had been briefed on where he came from, what his motives were and how he would fight. I didn’t hate the Viet Cong with any great zeal, but I had a vested interest to make sure that if I saw him before he saw me, then I would do my best to destroy him. But that is the essence of war. That is what the final resolution must be and no doubt any enemy who saw me had a similar aim. I did respect the enemy as a fighter. He was tenacious, tough and resolute. Many times I saw selfless courage which I know idealogical indoctrination alone cannot inspire.

  By this time I had decided to sign on in the army for a five-year short service commission. This was in order to get a trip to Vietnam. There was a lot of talk around at this time that there might be a withdrawal from the war zone, and in that case permanent soldiers and officers would go before anyone else. The thing that really made me sign on for five years was a return visit to my old workplace at the AMP Society. I went back to my department and there they were: the same guys, sitting at the same desks, doing the same job that they had been doing when I had left eighteen months before. Even lunch was exactly the same: we went to the same lunch spot, met the same people and the idle chatter was the same. I began to realize how much I had done, how much I had learnt and how much more aware I was of what was going on around me. There was no way I could go back to the sedentary indoor job I had had before. To make a clean break, I told the AMP that I wouldn’t be coming back after my two years of national service. I was now embarking on a different career.

  Despite an almost continuous existence in the bush I had become entangled with a young lady. I had met her through a surf club mate and by Easter 1970 I was trapped, although not unwillingly. Now the expense of visits from Brisbane to Gay’s home in Mona Vale near Newport in New South Wales got out of hand; so after we announced our engagement at Easter, Gay moved up to Brisbane and rented a flat not far from Enoggera Barracks.

  Regimental life in 9 RAR was terrific. There was a good mix of youth and experience. Most of the company commanders were veterans of Borneo, Malaya and Vietnam. My own company commander, Major Brian Goodwin, was a very experienced infantryman. He passed on much of his jungle fighting experience to us as we exercised against our sister battalions who were preparing to go to Vietnam. A lot of these exercises were conducted in the army’s huge Shoalwater Bay Training Area, just north of Rockhampton. These exercises were of great value to us all as we learnt from each other’s mistakes. After my soldiers had accepted me as their platoon commander, I only had to ask how they would do something if it was in Vietnam—and there would be no shortage of men wanting to offer advice.

  Unfortunately by August it was becoming apparent that 9 RAR didn’t stand much of a chance of returning to South Vietnam for a second tour. I spoke to several people about what I should do and I decided to write to my Infantry Corps Directorate and ask that I be posted either to the Reinforcement Holding Unit or to a unit going to Vietnam. Then I gave a copy of the letter to my commanding officer, Lt Col Eric Philip.

  He told me to get the original at all costs before it left the unit. I raced down to our unit post office and managed to retrieve the letter just in time. I was expecting the commanding officer to reprimand me for writing to the Directorate, but instead he put a covering letter with mine recommending and supporting my request!

  Within six weeks I was posted to the Reinforcement Holding Unit in Ingleburn. Movement overseas would certainly follow shortly after. So Gay and I decided on marriage. It was now September 1970: anti-Vietnam War songs, marches and protests were in vogue. Just as I was preparing to move back down to Sydney to join the Reinforcement Holding Unit and get married, the adjutant called me up to his office to tell me that my posting order had been cancelled. Now I would be joining the 4th Battalion (4 RAR) in Townsville.

  The 4th Battalion was due to go to Vietnam in early 1971. It looked like I was going to get a tour in after all.

  Soon, however, my march-in date to 4 RAR was changed. I was also told I would join the battalion at the Jungle Training Centre at Canungra instead of going direct to Townsville. The wedding was therefore postponed—several times. The civilian rugby team I played for on the weekends kept on winning games during the semi-finals, and when we found ourselves in the grand final our wedding was finally scheduled for the Monday after the game, on 28 September. Unfortunately this meant that a lot of my friends from the army couldn’t attend, but I was compensated by a great bucks’ party before I left. The honeymoon was a non-event as I had to return immediately to Brisbane and go on one last exercise before I joined 4 RAR at Canungra. Gay drove with me back to Brisbane and so we had two days together before seeing each other
again in late November. As it turned out Brian Goodwin took pity on me; he arranged a delay on my march-in date and we had a couple of days together just before I left.

  At last I packed my bags once again. On 9 November 1970 I became the new platoon commander of 11 Platoon in Delta Company undergoing training at the Jungle Training Centre. The battalion was going through the battle efficiency course which every soldier had to do before going to South Vietnam. The course was demanding: you had to ‘pass’ it or you would not go to war. It was continuously assessed and reports were written on both the platoon commanders and non-commissioned officers; men were known to be sacked from units if they got a bad report.

  My platoon had been run by the platoon sergeant; but unlike John Mitchell at 3rd Training Battalion, this sergeant was immediately glad to hand over the reins of command. All of the section commanders were veterans: two had been to Borneo. The platoon however, had only a couple of privates who had been to Vietnam; most of the 33 men were untried in war. Half of them were nashos, and most of the regulars were under 21 years of age. We were thus a young outfit, with some experienced junior leaders amongst the corporals.

  The course at the Jungle Training Centre consisted of two weeks’ work-up training around the camp and then two weeks in one of the training areas—in our case a charming hell-hole called Wiangarie near the New South Wales border. The work-up training consisted of learning how to live, fight and survive in the jungle. It was non-stop, dawn till dusk and at nights there were lectures until 9.30 pm for the officers and NCOs—on jungle fighting techniques, fire support in the jungle and so on. The whole company was subjected to such Jungle Training Centre ‘delights’ as the confidence course, the section obstacle course, the tropical-firing ranges, the mines and booby traps course and (last but definitely not least), the battle inoculation range. On this last range we conducted platoon and company sized, live-firing attacks. As we went through our fire and movement battle drills,. 303 Vickers machines guns would fire about fifteen feet over our heads. In addition, explosive charges of TNT were positioned in lanes alongside the assault and were detonated as we went past. It most effectively brought home the problem of trying to communicate with your men in battle.