ALL THE WAY Key Contributors US EXPERTS STANLEY KARNOW is a Pulitzer Prize‐winning author and veteran US journalist. As chief correspondent for Time and Life magazines, he reported on the Vietnam War in its entirety from the first Americans killed in 1959, and gained inside knowledge of the US political machine. In 1983 he wrote the seminal book Vietnam: A History. Quote: “I remember being in a hotel room with McNamara and he’s telling us it’s hopeless. And then he would get up the same afternoon, the same night, and say everything is going great”. JOHN NAGL is a US strategist and influential expert in counter‐insurgency. A retired Colonel of the US Army, Dr. John Nagl is the President of the Center for a New American Security and an adviser to the Obama administration on counter insurgency in Afghanistan. Nagl explains the disastrous consequences of General Westmoreland’s war in his 2002 book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Nagl provides telling insights into American strategy and the US administration. Quotes: “To convince the American people that [the war] was truly a multi‐national effort, it was very, very important to have the support of friends, and in particular, English‐speaking friends like the Australians”. “There really were a lot of opportunities along the way for the United States to learn from the experience of our Allies. But we wouldn’t listen to the Brits, we wouldn’t listen to French, the Australians. The American army knew how to fight a war and it was determined, under General Westmoreland, to fight the war it knew how to fight”. AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT MALCOLM FRASER was a pillar of the Liberal government during the war and later became Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister. He was Minister for the Army from 1966 to 1968 in the coalition governments of Harold Holt and John Gorton. In this role he presided over conscription. He was Gorton’s Minister for Defence from 1969 to 1971, at the height of Australia’s involvement in the war and the protests against it. Fraser has spoken publicly about the lessons learned from Vietnam and how they should be applied to Australia’s military involvement in the Middle East. Quotes: “You don’t buy brownie points with a super power. I wouldn’t want to go to war alongside America unless I had somebody in the war councils in Washington”. “I’ve never ceased to regret the way Vietnam veterans were treated for far, far too long. It should never have happened”. JOHN MENADUE was Adviser to Gough Whitlam, Leader of the Opposition, 1960‐1967. Menadue was in Parliament the day Prime Minister Menzies announced that South Vietnam had requested military assistance from Australia. Quote: “The principle problem which the Labor party had was how to oppose the war and not be seen, and in fact be, an opponent of the American alliance”. SOLDIERS BARRY PETERSEN (Captain) was a crucial member of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. As a 26‐year‐old Captain, he was sent into the remote Central Highlands by the CIA to build an anticommunist guerilla force among the independent‐minded Montagnard tribes‐people. The aim was to protect the Ho Chi Minh trail, the North Vietnamese supply line to the south. He ‘went native’ and embraced the Montagnard way of life. The locals worshipped him and his guerrilla army grew to over a thousand men. Despite his success, the Americans did not like Petersen’s attitude and relieved him of his post. Australia awarded him with the Military Cross. Quote: “After getting up the nose of the CIA for refusing to have counter‐terror teams, and wanting to continue doing things my way, they decided I had to be replaced”. PAUL MURPHY (Private) volunteered for national service and was an Infantryman with Delta Company, 2nd Battalion. When he signed up he thought he was going to fight a guerrilla war, but soon realised it was a major conflict. Within a few months of joining the Task Force at Phuoc Tuy, about a quarter of his unit were dead or wounded, mostly from mines. Quote: “We were very successful in the job that was handed us. But having said that, my belief is that we destroyed Vietnam. Absolutely destroyed Vietnam. Simply because we followed an ally that was lying to us. We followed them into battle. We should have never done that”. HARRY SMITH (Major) was an ex‐commando and trained his unit, Delta Company, 6th Battalion, as if he were training a commando unit. Delta Company fought in the Battle of Long Tan, the largest battle the Australians fought without American help. 108 members of Delta Company encountered a regiment of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Outnumbered by more than 10 to one, they held off wave after wave of attacks until a relief force arrived. After the battle, the North Vietnamese realised the Australians were a far tougher adversary than the Americans. Smith was awarded a Military Cross at the time, and in 2008 was awarded the Star of Gallantry. Quote: (on Viet Cong at Long Tan) “There were mounds of bodies and they would simply crawl over the bodies of their mates and keep on coming”. JOHN ESSEX‐CLARK (Brigadier DSM) was a major in the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam. He was a battle‐hardened veteran of 13 years experience, having fought in Malaya, Rhodesia and the Congo. Like many senior Australian commanders who were accustomed to counter‐revolutionary war, Essex‐Clark felt deep unease about the US strategy of attrition and body counts. Essex‐Clark was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for leadership in action. Quotes: “They thought we were pussy footers ‐ because we don’t have that bang, the cowboy culture I suppose you could call it”. “We did it our own way. We didn’t do it the American way”. BRIAN McFARLANE (Major) was a regular and another Malaya veteran. He commanded Charlie Company, 6th Battalion, and later became battalion second‐in‐command. He returned to Vietnam in mid‐1970 and was appointed to the staff of Headquarters 1st Australian Task Force as Operations Officer. In that posting he took part in the final withdrawal of the Task Force from Vietnam in December 1971. Quotes: “Those of us who were on the front line were the last to be consulted and the first to be screwed. We were let down totally and completely by politicians not knowing what the hell they were doing”. “I just realised how much we were leaving behind and how much effort had gone into protecting the province, to getting people back on their feet. We’d given the people such hope, and then we left”. JOHN EATON (Private) was a regular army soldier in 1RAR who went to Vietnam with the first troops. He saw two tours of duty in Vietnam: he was first attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade at the US airfield Bien Hoa, and continued with a second tour based at Nui Dat. Quotes: “I never felt disappointed in people’s adverse reactions to us being there, but very, very disappointed to how the government handled the whole thing. And I always felt a bit conned. We weren’t treated really well by the government”. “The American military might, we were just in awe of that. I’d never seen artillery fired in anger. I’d never seen tracer rounds. I’d never seen high performance jets and airstrikes in action. To be quite honest, it frightened the crap out of us”. VO XUAN THU was a North Vietnamese officer who fought against the Australians. Quote: “When we confronted Australian troops, we were more careful, more prepared. We could always tell where the American troops were stationed. But it would be very difficult to know the position of the Australian troops since they operated very secretly”.