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News Features
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Tuesday, 25 April 2006
The then 21-year old lieutenant served with artillery unit the 161 Battery, which was first attached to the US 173rd Airborne Brigade at Bien Hao Airbase, then the Australian Task Force in Phuoc Tuy province. Lieutenant Dreyer also served as a forward observer and air observer. He says he’d gleaned a good understanding of the cold war conflict he was fighting during his officer training and is clearly fond of the southern Vietnamese people he lived among. “The New Zealand soldier excels at that – friendship with the locals,” he says, recalling the country as a “hot, dirty disease-ridden place, not a pleasant place to fight war, but we were professional soldiers with a job to do”. Even though boredom was a constant enemy, he says the “morale and camaraderie were superb”, adding the US troops he served with displayed none of the poor morale and discipline so often portrayed by Hollywood. Kiwi service people got on famously with both them and their Aussie comrades. “The biggest problem in warfare is boredom, not the actual fighting; 95 per cent is boredom and five per cent intense activity.” The most intense action he experienced was the battle of Long Tan, in which 161 Battery supported a 250-strong predominantly Australian force in its desperate victory over at least 1500 North Vietnamese. “We did pretty well,” he says, using a classic digger understatement. The young lieutenant stayed in the forces after his return in 1967, leaving the army as a lieutenant-colonel in 1976. But for Vietnam vets, the war didn’t end on their return. First they suffered public condemnation. Mr Dreyer attended university in 1971-72, during which time he experienced the disdain of classmates – some wouldn’t enter the classroom if he were there. Then there was the complete lack of support from the government. “The system didn’t look after the returning soldiers as they did after, say, the Second World War. They were just dumped on society,” he says. The war’s shockwaves continue with a high number of premature deaths attributed to Agent Orange among Vietnam veterans. “The treatment of Vietnam vets is still not good enough. There are serious medical and mental health problems – 1200 are already dead and successive governments have brushed it under the carpet.” For Mr Dreyer, the year of the veteran will be measured by actions taken by the government. “I personally feel the vets have been shabbily treated over the decades. It’s being addressed, but we don’t yet know the outcome,” he says. | |||||||||
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