By KATH GANNAWAY
THE Yarra Valley Vietnam Veterans’ Day commemoration is being hosted this year by Upper Yarra RSL.
The event, now in its 11th year, provides an opportunity for veterans, their families, and members of the broader Yarra Ranges community to come together to recognise the contribution and sacrifice of the men and women who fought in the ‘conflict’ to Australia’s north.
Upper Yarra RSL welfare officer, and one of the organisers of this year’s event, Dennis Reeves, said while the official title of the Vietnam experience, as an undeclared war, remained the Vietnam conflict, it was every bit as much a war as the First World War Australia is commemorating, 100 years on this year.
Live artillery and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are just two of the experiences shared by the first Anzacs and their counterparts who fought from 1962 to 1972 in Vietnam.
Their desire to never see another war in which Australian lives would be lost is another. On both counts that has been a failed dream with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Comradeship is another.
Mr Reeves said the Yarra Valley commemoration was initiated because many veterans couldn’t attend the Vietnam Veterans Day service held on the anniversary of Long Tan, 18 August, each year in Melbourne.
“This local event gives an opportunity for them to get together in recognition of their mates, and for the community to also show their appreciation and support,” he said.
This year’s guest speaker will be Senior Vice-President of the Victorian State Branch of the RSL, Vietnam veteran, Robert Webster.
The march will assemble at 10.30am at the Yarra Junction Recreation Reserve and proceed down Park Road to the cenotaph for the service and wreath laying.
Veterans, their families and members of the community are invited back to Upper Yarra RSL after the service.
The Yarra Valley Vietnam Veterans’ Day Committee is an initiative of the Vietnam Veterans Community; Outer Eastern Melbourne Sub-branch – Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, the Healesville, Lilydale, Mount Evelyn, Upper Yarra, Warburton and Yarra Glen RSL Sub-branches and the National Servicemen’s Association.
