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Glen James Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 23 January 2001 - tape 1 (1hr 2mins)
Glen James interviewed at Templestowe 23 January 2001. And first question is where and when were you born? I was born at Mooroopna Base Hospital, which Mooroopna is just out of Shepparton, Shepparton being the primary town in the area you could say, probably the capital of the Goulburn Valley. And Mooroopna is just across the bridge in fact, across the highway. I was born there on 6.6.1946, so it is pretty easy to remember. Easy to remember. Tell me a little bit about your family. My mother and father were products of … my Dad was a product of a theologist who went from … ended up living at Barmah on the Murray River and he was the teacher there. He was headmaster at the school, he was a chemist, he was a doctor, in fact he was a herbalist, but he was all those things and he was a minister as well. So we come from a fairly interesting background really. Where, at one stage, people would not believe it now, but there were 300 houses at Barmah and there were street lights and trams and all sorts of things at Barmah. Now, you wouldn't believe it. And your family came from there? My family came from there. My father came from there. He was one of about 8 children and my mother came from Deniliquin, from a place called Moonakulla, which is an aboriginal mission just out of Deniliquin and she met my father on a visit to Barmah and they got married. As a matter of fact I don't know what year that my Mum and Dad got married to be truthful. Well, it's not important.. Not important. So you grew up in Shepparton? Grew up in Shepparton. Apparently we lived in Mooroopna before - I can only ever remember living in Shepparton, but Mum and Dad lived in Mooroopna, always lived in rented homes, unlike today. There is 14 children in our family - I have got 8 sisters and 5 brothers and they now all own their own homes and drive their own cars and that is something that Mum and Dad never did do. So, but they moved from … apparently Mum and Dad moved from the riverbank to … and a lot of aboriginal people lived on the riverbank between Shepparton and Mooroopna, to improve our lifestyle and our own lifestyle and we moved into a rented house in Mooroopna. Then they moved to Shepparton, and that was a difficult time for them in fact because they moved out of the aboriginal community into the white community and they weren't really … assimilation in those days was not one of the key words. Well how did you manage at school? Did you have problems at school? We certainly did have. We certainly had problems at school in terms of being friends with kids. You know kids are kids and you make friends with boys and you put your arms around one another and say you know he is my best friend now … we are in Grade 5 or 6 or whatever and you would spend a lot of time with those children. But when it came to … he would say, "Come around to my place and play", we would have to wait outside until he went and got permission from Mum or Dad. It was mainly Mum because Dad was at work and he would come back out and say, "Oh no, Mum said you can't stay and play", so we had to go home. So it was difficult in that sense. Well when you were growing up, when you were a teenager, were most of your friends aboriginal too at that stage? No, not for me they weren't, but for a lot of my other brothers and sisters they were, even though a lot of my cousins were aboriginal people, aboriginals as well. I used to talk to them … we'd be at family functions and church mainly, see a lot of them. Church was a big factor in our lives as well, even though I disliked going to church intensely, but it was a good place to get together with people and we did that. But we had to do that because Mum and Dad told us we had to do that and we respected what Mum and Dad said. So it was a matter of just doing what you were told and once you were there, we enjoyed the place. So what about … when did you start playing football? Look, well sport was just one of the biggest factors in our lives. We played sport. Mum and Dad told us when we moved into town just to respect people, be polite, don't be rude to anybody, it doesn't cost anything to say hello and if they hear that we have been rude to anybody we will be dealt with and we used to be dealt with severely for a while. But we got involved in the football clubs and the cricket clubs and we met some terrific friends who are still friends of mine today, still friends of the families. That was one of the niches that really allowed us to build our character, because we were learning off the people who were with and whatever they did, well it rubbed off on us because we wanted to do it too. And I did exactly what the other guys did and that was play cricket on Saturday, in the morning, if you were lucky enough to get a game in the afternoon in the seniors, 'cos they were short, well you would play cricket all day too. And on the Sunday most of the friends that I had would go and study so I thought, well that is good enough for them, it is good enough for me, so I did exactly the same and I ended up going to Form 5 at a Tech school, which was probably a long time then, because most of the young boys were leaving school and becoming apprentices or in the work force or leaving school and staying on the farms or whatever it might have been, because that was just the general trend in those days. What did you know about the Vietnam war? Like when you were a kid I mean while you were growing up? I knew nothing about the Vietnam war. Did you know anything about conscription? About the conscription system? I did when I was nearing 20. As I neared 20. See I took on my apprenticeship when I was … I think I was 17 when I took on my apprenticeship. Which apprenticeship? In carpentry. When I went to Form 5, I decided I wanted to be a teacher because a lot of my friends were going to be teachers. They were studying their matriculation in those days and they were going … going to apply to go to Bendigo and Ballarat and those sorts of places and they were just starting to broaden their outlooks on life, and they are getting their lives set up so I thought I might want to be a teacher too. Then I decided against that after spending my fifth year at Shepparton Tech School. After going to primary schools, Gowrie Street and Bouchier Street in Shepparton. I then went to the Shepparton Tech and then I became an apprentice and I was offered five jobs, five apprenticeships on the Friday night and I had to decide by the Monday which one I was going to take. The world has changed a bit now hasn't it? The world has certainly changed hasn't it. I mean like I teach pre-apprentices now, boys who are in the building trade and they really have a tough job trying to get a job. It's a tough task … So you got an apprenticeship? Yes, I got an apprenticeship and I was with … I was just so lucky because I was with … I chose the right man and he had about 30 people working for him and that was one of the things that broadened my horizons because I worked with a guy who just jumped off a boat from Holland and he became a truck driver. About 2 weeks later another guy started who'd spent 14 years in "H" Division, Pentridge. And he got out and our boss was prepared to give him a go, give him a chance in life and it was just fantastic to have him there because he told us lots of stories and different things and broadened our knowledge of just general life and eh we helped him in the process, in terms of getting his life back on track as well. And em … yeah, for like the boss to come up and shake your hand every pay day with a pay packet and say "Thanks for your week's work" it was just one of those things that, you know, you don't see these days. And did you finish your apprenticeship? Oh yeah, I finished my apprenticeship and I was deferred from the army actually. That was my first … I was reading in the papers around the time I was 20 that people were being killed in Vietnam and that is what heightened my interest in Vietnam and being conscripted was those sorts of things in the paper and because it was a war that there was some protest, protest being run about it, people weren't happy about Australia's involvement in the war and so forth, and all that heightened my awareness to it and I thought, no it is not going to happen to me, I got married, I got deferred from that because I got married when I was still finishing my apprenticeship. So I had a bit of a struggle to get through that and then I got called up for National Service 3 months after my eldest daughter was born. So I got called up, went to Puckapunyal, didn't know too much about anything military-wise. How far away from Shepparton had you travelled before this? Not very far at all. Well I had been to Melbourne, you know, quite often. I had been to Melbourne to visit my sister in Carlton. But that would be straight down the Hume highway. She lived not far off Sydney Road so I only had to make two turns or whatever it was and straight back out again. So, you were very much a bush boy? Very much a bush boy and a hometown boy, yes. Like most country people were in those days, very rarely left home. Ok, so Puckapunyal, describe what it was like when you were there, what did it look like for a start? Oh it looked enormous, it was just something … imagine a 20 year old these days going to a complex where there are something like 6,000 people there, including the recruits, and all the training personnel, staff and bases … different units set up there and trucks going back and forwards with big guns on and 'cos they would be going out to the range and people marching everywhere and other … A bit overwhelming by the sound of it? Oh, very much, yes. Very much and next to the parade ground was the … what they had was the army prison, it was right next to the parade ground and you would be reminded you know, if you didn't behave yourself, you would be in there. But I found that all the discipline that I had in my life in my family was exactly what was happening in the army, and it didn't perturb me too much to be in the army. But what I did see and observe, and I still say this to this day, is that I saw lots of people who thought that their marble was the only one chosen, and I've actually seen them drift into ruins because they had a chip on their shoulder over it and didn't have a positive outlook, whereas my family upbringing helped me in that sense to cope with many, many things. Were others of your brothers and sisters conscripted too? No. Not your sisters … Just your brothers? No, one of my brothers who is 2 years younger than me, he was in the same draw as me - because I got deferred for 2 years - his conscription time was the same as mine then, so he wanted to go, and he was single and I didn't want to go. And as it turned out, I got conscripted and he didn't and because the government had such strict rules regarding that, there was no chance of changing that one for one, so it was just a birth date because as you know, the conscription was a birth date, based upon a birth date and it would have affected so many other people, so there was no chance of us changing, so I just had to go. Did you ever consider refusing to go? No, not at all, no, no. Because that was just part of our upbringing again, just reflecting back to what I said earlier is that, you know, you did what your Mum and Dad told you, and it was just part of the way you lived your life, everything you were asked to do, you just agreed to. So what were you trained as? I was trained as a field engineer, after the basic training. What does that mean, explain what it means exactly? A field engineer in Vietnam was de-lousing booby traps, blowing up mines, blowing up bunker systems, de-lousing mines on bridges and tracks and wherever it was. So we were … So did you go in ahead of the others? No, we went in with the infantry. With the infantry? Yes, there was a section of 14 and there would be a medic., a sig. - signal officer - and an engineer and the rest would be infantry and you would be right in the middle of that so they would have infantrymen on either side of you in case of any … you know with any contact. They were their prized possessions really to look after because they'd de-louse the booby traps, they'd fix people up when they were hit and they let people know, the sig., let people know where we were when we needed assistance. All right, well now, what did you know about Vietnam itself, not so much the war, but about the country before you went there? Knew very little about Vietnam, very little … I can't ever remember. I do remember when I was at school learning something about Laos. Now, Laos is virtually their neighbour, but that is all I knew of Vietnam. That is the closest I had any information about Vietnam. Where did you land? We landed in Saigon at what they call Tonsanoot Airport. Did you have any time at Saigon? No, no, we didn't have any time because we flew straight out, straight to Nui Dat. Now, when I landed there, when we landed there, it was very hot and sticky. We were given lunch boxes for lunch before we flew out. We were throwing the scraps into the bin and this really … into a big 44 gallon drum and this really took me back a little bit to think, oh you know, how poor is this country and how unfortunate are these people because the scraps we threw into the bin, the kids were jumping in - and not just children, but adults too. Were jumping in there and gathering them out so that they could feed themselves and, or they would put them in plastic bags or some sort form of utensil so they could carry them away and eat them. And in the end, you know, the guys who had just jumped off the plane were giving them their boxes when they realised what was happening. So, there was an eye opener the first day we landed there. There was so much military activity with the Americans and planes coming in and flying out every … like I … I think we were there about 20 minutes or half an hour maybe, and I would say that we seen something like 200 planes coming in and flying in and out. At Saigon you are talking about? At Saigon, yeah. But there were lots of people also just going about their business, as if there was nothing controversial happening in their country. Ok, and then you went to Nui Dat? And then we went to Nui Dat. Describe what that was like. Again, it was just a little bit close to the action than say Saigon was, because you are getting closer and closer to it all and helicopters are coming in and landing with troops on, getting off and their loading gear on to set up fire support bases and the guns have been carried on helicopters and the whole thing was there right before us, and the artillery was firing when we got there, people were being brought in on the Medivac helicopter, you know, from being injured out in the bush. So it was all happening and … A sudden dose of reality then? A sudden dose of reality, a real sudden dose of reality because when we were being driven from the airport, the airstrip to our quarters, we went past the jail, the prisoner of war compound, and there were Vietnamese, there were captured prisoners of war in there and they were standing with their hands up on the wire looking out, and for me to see people locked up like that was something brand new, and it was brand new to the emotions as well. So, it was … it wasn't a pretty sight and then I thought, well wow, I have only got 365 days of this to go, so it was, it really was a … Describe your living quarters in Nui Dat. The living quarters in Nui Dat were sandbags and tents, a canvas tent over the top to four corners and then after some time they were renewed with corrugated iron, tropical hut type accommodation, at this time with no sandbags around them and quite often the enemy would fire into those … inadvertently fire into the sides of those huts, and you know they'd be quite often, quite often you would be in bed or in the tent or in the hut rather and a bullet would hit the side of the hut, sort of shake you back into reality, and think, you know, you have got to be alert the whole time you are here. What about eating ..a mess tent? Yes, out in the field we had ration packs, which was mainly dehydrated food. In camp we had cooked meals most of the time - or every time, every meal time was a cooked meal. We had plenty of … like that was … everything was sufficient there. We didn't have any dieticians to tell us, you know, this was the best stuff to eat, or our food was never based upon how our bodies should perform, or were performing and reacting and it was just eh, you know, you have all got to eat potato, you have all got to peel potatoes, eat potatoes. So it was Australian type food though? Australian type food, yeah. I think the best food that I had in the army was at the Jungle Training Centre which was a preparatory course for Vietnam, was a Canungra in Queensland. You work so hard up there, it was em … and the food was just sensational, it matched what we … The energy you were using. The energy we were using, yeah. Actually up there there was about 20 Americans came out to do our course, the jungle training course, and they lasted about 3 days, they said it was too hard. They went back home, they said that soldiers don't need to be that fit to pull a trigger. To do all that work to pull a trigger. And we were there for 21 days and it really was hard yakka. I mean that's when you bonded together with everybody … and I mean we talk about the bond that I had in my family, I didn't really understand what ANZAC Day was about until I had been to Vietnam in fact. I used to think ANZAC Day was a day for playing footy after 1 o'clock and cricket after 1.00 o'clock and all those sorts of things, I didn't understand what that one was about, I didn't understand what the RSL meant; because my boss was an RSL member, he went to war and never spoke about it though. But when we came … after I had been to Vietnam you understand what the bond is all about because the bond is something that saves your life and sets you up for life forever and it is done by somebody, or with someone else's assistance, who you may never see again, because that is exactly what happened when we came back from Vietnam. We all went in different directions and I said to one of the guys that I was friends with from Melbourne, and I said "This isn't too fair", I said, "I reckon that we should get something going when we get back" and he said … So over the skies of Canberra on the way back from Sydney to Melbourne, we elected one another president and secretary respectively and we set up an association when we came back. And we started with 30 people marching, went to 50 the next year, then it went to 130 or whatever. Now we have roughly 300 people, 350 - 400 people every year … march, and each year someone new rocks up. So I was a foundation member of that. I am no longer on that committee now, but em … That is the Vietnam Veterans … Yeah, it's Royal Australian Engineers Vietnam Veterans. Just Engineers? Just engineers, yeah. And you think that bond began in Canungra, not Pucka? No, oh yeah, well, yeah, no it did in Puckapunyal actually. It started on a very small basis at Pucka because again at Puckapunyal, seldom did we go right through with someone from our basic training to the end of our training, 2 years, because they all chose different courses, they came from different vocations which meant that a bank teller was probably an infantryman. A tradesman, like a builder, was probably put into engineers and truck drivers were put into service corps and they used their talents accordingly, their skills accordingly. So, it did begin there in a sense because … in fact, one of the guys who I was in Puckapunyal with, he got blown up in Vietnam 2 days after I arrived there, in infantry, and I had to come back in from out the bush because he was calling my name. He knew I was there and he was asking for me so I had to go back to the hospital to see him and he wasn't … all this was happening and I was only 22. And all these things that happened within a space of 3 or 4 days of arriving there, so, you know, the ugly reality of war was sort of pushed right in your face, yeah. That guy lives in Yea now, yeah I've caught up with him in recent times. So what was it at Canungra that bonded people so much there? Oh it is just ah … well as a group you had to cross the line together, and that was carrying 100 pound packs and machine guns and … otherwise you'd get it all again and you know, like we are talking about running up hills that were nicknamed "Heartbreak Hill" because the captains would say, you know, "Get to the top of the hill", and you could see the top of the hill, but when you get to the top it just veers left and goes back up again, and times and everything was based upon the team getting across the line and that is where it all started. And we really enjoyed one another's company there because of that, you know, you were helping one another through. Guys putting new boots on and having blisters and 20 mile marches and things like … just the normal thing that goes on in the army. The things that are probably missing today in fact. So how did this pay off in Vietnam? Em … well it made you work for everything. It placed an extra responsibility on you, in the sense that someone was probably reliant upon your actions to get back to Australia. I mean that was everybody's aim - to get back to Australia once we landed there. Do our job and do it successfully and ensure that we all got back together. So the need, the feeling that you needed to get back didn't hold you back, make you reluctant soldiers because you thought you could protect yourself better by not going forward? Oh no, no, I mean if we were … again, we got back to doing what we were told. In some cases there were things you didn't like to do, but you had to do them, and based upon your upbringing and the training we had in the army, you just went and did what you had to do and everybody did it, and there wasn't anyone who was rebellious in any way, shape or form that I was involved with, so we all teamed together and thought ok, you know, if he's got to do it, we are going to look after him. A particular soldier has been given a task and we are going to be right behind him. What sort of things were the bad jobs? The bad jobs were, like I mentioned before, having to blow the booby traps, having to blow booby traps and mines and things like that up, and checking enemy, dead enemy and so forth, because it wasn't the sort of war that happened years ago. I mean quite often if you rolled the body over you would be releasing the pin on a hand grenade too. So it was … they weren't the nicest jobs. And entering the bunker systems, that wasn't a very pleasant job either, because you used to have to go down headfirst, naturally, and anything could have taken place in the bunker systems under there. And did it? In some cases it did, yes. Yes. So, I guess some are lucky and some aren't, in cases like that. That is about all you can put it down to. So how much of your time was actually … were you actually in danger? I would say on a percentage basis, you would be looking at em … well I consider the time you spent out in the bush was in danger. How much of your time was spent in the bush? Roughly 8&#frac12 months. Right. And that was not 8&#frac12 months solid, that was in six 8 week breaks, with a three or four day break in between. So you would go out for 6 or 8 weeks and come back to camp for 3 or 4 days? 3 or 4, maybe a week, 10 days was the most we would spend in camp and then back out again. When you went out to the bush, what did you carry with you? Em … you carried all your supplies, you carried ammunition, water, food, radios, machine guns - and machines guns were carried by the group collectively. What did you personally carry? I carried 100 lb pack. Everybody carried a 100 lb pack and that is including a few straps of machine gun ammunition, so … no the pack was 100 lb and the machine and ammunition was extra, everybody had to carry those. What were your special tools of trade as an engineer? Eh … plastic explosives, PE, that was the … that was the main source of survival. Can you describe how you would go into the bush? What would you do and what was each person's job and how did it operate? What happened is that you would land in the bush, the helicopter would drop you down, you would jump out of the helicopter from probably 6 or 8 feet, sometimes lower, depending on the clearing that was made for them, prior to … by the reconnaissance team. They would tell you where you can land and how much it was or whatever and the first one down would take up a point to protect the chopper against enemy fire and there would be four down, and then the rest would follow … I think the rest would follow, yes, so it was … in some places we went to it was very hairy. Some of the enemy lines we went into, yes. Did you know in advance what to expect? Yes, we did, because we were trained for all that before we left Australia, yeah. And you had confidence in what you were told and in your officers? Oh yes, yeah, because a lot of the officers had been, it was their multiple tour of duty over there, so they had been there, they knew what was going on, so they were fairly well versed with the situation, which was relayed to us. Did you have any contact with the locals, the non combatants? Yes, we did have, and that was probably, that was a sector of the war that people didn't understand, because sometimes those people were friends by day and enemies by night, and that was quite evident to us in some cases because the guy who managed the market place in some cases was our friend during the day and he would get caught and be in the prison of … ...compound … … compound when you come back into camp, so em … it was, you know, then people were saying, "I had my sort of feelings about him, but blah, blah", but they … we also tried to build a community relationship in terms of making things better for the Vietnamese people … we built market places and they did lots of kerbing and guttering and actually built the market places - the sheds and the coverings and all those sorts of things, the Australian government, in conjunction with the Americans - so yeah, it was, you know, it was. Were you involved in any of the relocations of the local people? Yes, I certainly was. Describe that. Well they were very inquisitive. As well, they wanted to know what was going on and what they were doing and they would be right there under your feet in fact, and thousands of little kids who, you know, had cuts hands from being at the tip and trying to salvage food and they'd pull out a sheet of corrugated iron - one kid has his hand almost cut off - and things like that, and against all rules, we took him back … I can remember the driver and I and a couple of … another guy took him back to the RAP at Nui Dat because I knew a guy there. We took him back in and we got past the guards on the gate and he stitched his hand up and we took him back out again. His hand was almost off and that was the best we could do, but he was, he was competing with a lady, an adult, for this sheet of corrugated iron. And what they were going to do with it I don't know. They probably wanted to build a house, or you know, they had ideas for that sort of thing. So, yeah we did get close to them. One of the people used to … 'cos you would be working outside the houses in some cases. They would be bringing out water melon and cognac and all sorts of things and we were encouraged to be friendly to them and quite often, you know, you had to have a drink while you were … it was only a small swig of course. A soldier's swig. How did you manage the language? That was very difficult. We did have a few lines that we had to learn that the army gave us, but a lot of the Vietnamese gradually - or quickly picked up, not gradually - quickly picked up the English language, so there was always one person in there that would be able to interpret for you. I mean, they didn't believe that I was an Australian because I wasn't 6ft 6 tall and didn't have fuzzy wuzzy hair and I didn't have a radio in my ear and I wasn't chewing candy. So I asked them what did they think I was and they said that I was an … they thought I was an Australian Red Indian. So they didn't believe that I was an Australian because I was short and had … And they may have known as little about Australia as you knew about Vietnam. Yeah, exactly. That would have been the case in fact. I think about some of those times and those kids over there. There was one guy named Rocky and he was just such a really nice kid and I thought he was a kid … 'cos the Asians, I mean my experience of the Asians is that you can never tell how old they are, and he told me he was 19, but he looked about 11 this kid, about 11 or 12. And he was just such a nice kid. He would ride down every day after looking after his Dad's ducks near the Long Hi mountains where a lot of VC activity took place and I just often wonder where he was … he'd just come down to say hello and put his arm around you. Very affectionate. I just wonder whatever happened to that guy, yeah, a really nice guy. And lots of us quite often think about that. Like the army guys. We often say, we wonder what happened to Rocky. So this was, we started out talking about when you were in the bush, but now you are back in camp again aren't you, so how often were you in camp? As I said before, we were in camp 3 days, 4 days in between operations. 10 days at the most, yeah. Right, what did you do with your time in camp? I assume for instance clothes didn't get washed or anything like that while you were in the bush? No, that's right. So you did catch up on that kind of housekeeping? Yeah, catch up on those sorts of things, yeah, clean your pack out, keep your rifle in good working order, clean your boots, it would be just back to the normal army routine. Quite often. And the things which I just mentioned about the marketplaces being built and so forth, that's the sort of day job you would do out of camp. What about your relaxing time? I assume you did have some, at least while you were in camp? Yeah, we did have some. Actually, what used to happen was we could have gone down to Vung Tau where the R&R area was at the Peter Badco Club for the Australians, it is called a Rest and Recreation area. And Peter Badco was a VC winner and it was named … and we could go down there for a few days recuperation. On the beach. It was on the beach and they had a pool as well. So, and that is where the main hospital was, the main Australian hospital was as well. And there were also Australian units down there too. There were 17 construction engineers who were service corps. That is where the ship used to come into for all the supplies for the army and they used to be transported by road up to Vung Tau which is probably 40 minutes away up the highway. It was route number 1. And em … you could go down there if you wanted to. Otherwise you just sat around in the camp and just … you had a muster every day and there were jobs allocated while you were on duty, while you were in camp. So it really wasn't … if you went down there … most people went down there. I went down there a couple of times. As a matter of fact I ended up spending my last 6 weeks in Vietnam at Vung Tau, but doing the same sort of jobs, same sort of work. Because we had lots of Vietnamese people in Vung Tau working at the camps and they would work in the kitchens … no not in the kitchens, in the workshops and so forth. So, that is where I spent my last 5 or 6 weeks I think it was down there, just before we came home. Was there ever any sabotage by those Vietnamese inside the camp? No, no. They were very carefully vetted then? Yeah they were, very carefully vetted. I mean a lot of trust is put in them and that was part of the whole process, was to have trust in them so that they could have it in us and that worked pretty well in fact, yeah, down in that part of the … it was very rarely, very rarely any altercation of any sort down at Vung Tau. You said you were about 8 months in the bush. Yeah, roughly yes. And how long were you there altogether? 12 months. So what was the rest of the time spent? The rest of the time was spent in camp and the sorts of jobs in the marketplaces for 3 or 4 week lots. Ok So that's what The other 4 months was … Did you have exactly a year in Vietnam? Ah yes, yes. Oh well, 2 day short or something like that. As the year … as the date came closer, how did you feel? Coming home? Yes. Ah, well, I mean to come home was just the ultimate. It is the biggest thing that was happening to me in my life apart … you know, after being married and having a first child of course, that was the next best thing that could have happened to me, was coming home. I couldn't wait to get home. Did it make you nervous? Yeah, it did actually, it did. Take less risks, take fewer risks? Oh no, no. What happened was that we had a sergeant who said when we were out in the bush, he said, "Look we have done our share, we are not going to go chasing any more trouble." So that is what we did the last time we were out there. So we didn't need to take any risks. What happened was that we em … as I said the last 5 or 6 weeks I spent in camp anyway. But … Was that policy, did everybody do that? No, that wasn't policy that just depended upon which … It just happened. What happens is … what happened then was that if you were put with a regiment, if that regiment went home you maybe would be transferred to another regiment, but if you had a short period of time they wouldn't bother sending you out with another regiment, they would get somebody who was going to be long term with them, who had time to serve in the country as well and "serving time in country" means a 12 month stint, so if they could have them for 8 months, then that is better than having someone for 3 weeks then changing after 3 or 4 weeks, or whatever it might have been, yep. So that is the basis on which people came back. And conscripts weren't allowed to spend any more, that was the policy, the policy was that conscripts weren't allowed to spend any more than 12 months "out of country", meaning out of Australia. So, the army had to be aware of all those sorts of things too. Do you get a lot of mail? Yes, yeah, we got … I used to get a letter every day from my wife and I would write every chance that I had to write. Sometimes, I remember going for about 3 weeks without writing a letter because it was just a matter of , you know, like I was a bit mixed up in the head about how things were happening back home and you were thinking, and some traumatic things happened to you there at the time, and I didn't write a letter for about 3 weeks and my wife wanted to know … and it really put her through hell in fact, not hearing from me, because she used to hear from me on, you know, like 2 or 3 days, every 2 or 3 days. I mean it would be different now, if we had a war of the same nature, we would probably be able to ring on the mobile in between firing a shot at the … but it was quite different then. Because you did have some form of depression at some stage or another because of where you were and that happened to me, but my wife used to write every day, it was just fantastic. Can you talk about the bad times? What were bad times for you? In Vietnam? Yes. The bad times were being away from my family. That was the bad times. Rather than talk about the bad times there, yeah, they were the bad times. Ok. Because we had 14 children and you know 8 sisters, they used to look after you like you were a prized, you know, a prized brother and sister and we used to sit down on the floor and have our … when we were kids I can remember sitting down on the floor having our dinner (when we had something to eat that was) and Mum and Dad used to put newspaper on the floor for us to sit on and have our tea before the adults had theirs and we used to have to wait outside while the adults had theirs and then come back in and then cleared the table and washed the dishes, wiped the dishes. Missing all that sort of stuff because when you did it, you know you sat down with your sisters and they gave you a cuddle and all that sort of stuff. They were the things that you cherished the most and Mum would say, "Ok Roma, you have to look Glen for the night, or Clare, you have got to look after Kerry" my brother, or you have got to look after Heather and that is exactly what they did and I mean that … they were the things that I missed and they were the hard things. It's homesickness. It's homesickness, yeah it was. See one of the other things was, I mean, things just kept hitting you in the face … like tough things. Things that toughened you up. I remember being there for 3 months and we came back into camp and one of the guys who was due to go home, he had been home on his R&R, which is a one week break in between the war. He came home, got engaged, come back to Vietnam. He landed back in Vietnam, we picked him up from the airport and when we got back there the captain said, "When you pick him up bring him straight to the office, I want to talk to him." His fiance got killed in a car accident. And I mean, you know, they were some of the real tough things and he decided to stay on there. He didn't want to face it, he didn't want to come home without her, without her being there. And he was just a bonza bloke, he was a Western Australian guy. Another guy that I was friends with, his wife come from West Australia to marry him in Sydney on the Saturday. He got killed in Vietnam on the Monday. They were the tough things, apart from the war action itself. Yeah, so. What were the good things? The good things were that, you know, I have met people from West Australia, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania. Wherever I go I meet people that I was in the army with. My friends meet people that I was in the army with, all over Australia and em just having known those blokes and experiencing what they were about was just one of the good things, certainly was one of the good things. How did you come back? In terms of mentally?   No, did you fly? Yeah, we flew back. I was going to mention that before actually. What happened was when we came back when you asked how long we spent there, I … we left over there at 12 o'clock mid-day and the pilot said we would be landing … no 2 o'clock it was sorry. The pilot said we would be landing in Sydney at 10 o'clock and right on 10 o'clock we landed in Sydney and there was just … I don't think I have been anywhere in my whole life, apart from a grand final - umpiring a grand final - where there has been so much noise in a plane when the wheels hit the deck. You know, the captain was in the mood as well, like he has obviously flown that route before and experienced that … bringing troops back before. He gave us a big welcome home. He said, you know, free beers, we will have a beer for everybody before we jump off and all that sort of stuff and it was just, you know, blokes were kissing one another and bloody hugging and all that sort of stuff and it was just a great experience to get back home.. Was that relief, to have made it, to have survived it? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I remember that night because we got paid when we left Vietnam. All our money was given to us. We were paid over there in Australian dollars and we came back and this friend who I was talking about before who helped set up the Association … me, him and I were in the room and we... I remember putting $1600 under the pillow at Kings Cross while we went out and had a drink. And now, I think how silly it is to do that, 'cos that was $1600 I brought … I come home and bought a 'fridge and a washing machine and a couple of power tools for me to go back to work and there was … actually that was one thing I was a bit fearful about coming back and going to work, coming back into civvy street because civvy street was a term that was used a million times in the army by people in the army. "It is not like this in civvy street", "I can't wait to get back to civvy street", but a lot of people found it pretty tough coming back. Did you? Yeah, I did, yeah. What form did that take? Sorry. What form did it take? Just a lack of confidence within myself, because there was no counselling whatsoever to sort of break the push the pull from here, and the push … the push from there and the pull from here sort of thing, and there was no one for me to ring up and say, look I need to talk to somebody about it because counselling wasn't very much heard of in 1970. It was only for people who had been divorced or on the verges of being divorced, I think, I am not sure. And you were still very young of course. Yeah, yeah, I was only 23, yeah. So, I came home and, you know. Where did you go to when you came home? Actually I went to my wife's grandparents' place because actually my wife had a pretty rough time when all that happened too. She moved from … she was living with my sister and then it was difficult for that to happen. She moved to her cousin's place and then to her grandmother's place and her mother's place and her grandmother's place and oh, it was just, you know, like that was one of the things that was worrying me as well when I was in Vietnam. About my daughter, my eldest daughter now, I was wondering what was going on and all those sorts of thoughts were running through your head as well at the same time. Sorts of thoughts were running through your head as well at the same time, so there were lots of pressures on people because in those days there were lots and lots of guys about my age who were married, because it was the thing that happened. People got married young. Most certainly all the guys that I was involved with, they were married by the time they were 21 and so was I. So em … it was … all those things were happening too when I came back, then I got called up for jury service the Wednesday after I got out of the army, the Wednesday week and I was on a huge case that took a long time, it took 37 days, I got locked up for that, so all these things were, you know, they just snowballed on top of everything else and that is why I felt a little bit ordinary about going back in the workforce and I know. Did you have a job to go to? Yeah, the boss had to re-employ me because that was part of the conscription … that was part of the conscription deal. But then the boss … I knew that when I came back in July from previous experiences before I went into the army, because I was a foreman at this company, that at that time of the year things were very quiet and he quite often put people off or asked them to go and find work somewhere else, but when I came back he didn't do that to me. Maybe it was his understanding of him being in the war and his experiences that he maybe said, look we are not going to do that. And then 2 years later when I became … I was a foreman before I left, he made me a foreman after I came back, built the Shepparton Police Station. The old one now - they've got a new one of recent times, haven't been back there. And I … and then after 2 years I decided to go into teaching and that was … I got out in 1970, I worked till the end of '71, '72, and then I decided to go and teach. And that was just after I started another new big job for the boss, another … oh … but I had to take … I wanted to take a new step in my life, a new direction, and then I came to Melbourne and became a trade teacher. That is another thing I had to decide all of a sudden on a Friday too, and my wife come and picked me up and I used to come home for lunch. One car family. My wife didn't have the car during the week, I had it to go to work and come back. She stopped home and looked after the children. And I went to work, came home and had lunch, she picked me up, I went home, had lunch and took me back, I had a cooked lunch, which was just fantastic and then she dropped me off at a place called Pine Lodge, which is 10 mile out of Shepparton and she came back about, oh, it must have been half an hour later and in those days there was a telegram, urgent telegram. So she brought it out to me and it was from the Education Department offering me a position, which I had to decide by 3 o'clock that afternoon - I got it about 2 o'clock - offering me a position at Mooroolbark Tech School, Technical School, as a trade teacher to start on Monday at 8.00 o'clock.. So, I was in the middle of this big project for the boss and oh, I made a pretty tough decision I suppose in terms of how he treated me, and I said, yeah, I'll take that on and I taught for 29 years. I have been teaching for 29 years. So that was before there was trade training then? No, I did my apprenticeship. Yes, but I mean you didn't have to do teacher training to teach in trade? No, that was incorporated in my teaching. I would teach 3 days a week and go to college 2 days a week. It was a virtual studentship, yes, the old studentship, yeah. And there again I met some people I was in Vietnam with. Not that I particularly knew them in Vietnam, but they knew me in Vietnam, and we sort of talked about different things at our breaks and people would come up and say, "Are you Glen James?" and I would say. "Yeah", "You were in Vietnam weren't you? I remember seeing you there, I was there at Nui Dat when you built that … " So how did you feel about the way the war was considered in the Australian community when you got back? We were really … as I said I didn't know too much about Vietnam when I was … before it all happened to me. I didn't particularly take too much interest about what other people thought about it while I was there 'cos all I was thinking about was survival. When I came back I knew that people were pretty angry about the Vietnam war and they were angry about the people who had been there - and the people who had been there, it wasn't really their fault. It wasn't their fault in any way, shape or form. And I am still seeing the effects of that through some of the Vietnam veterans who have been there, because of the treatment they received when they got back. Now mentally it has made a mess of a lot of people, so it is … and occasionally I have thoughts and flashbacks about Vietnam that aren't real pleasant, but I guess that is just a result of where you have come from. Yeah, I mean … and even subsequent governments have not recognised, until recent times, that Vietnam is about what it was about, and that had a … that had a very big psychological effect on people. Did you ever have any of the health problems that people have associated with Vietnam service? I haven't had them to a degree where they have affected me in the past, but I am starting to get them now, yeah, so my health is not as good as it was or would be, and it is considered to be the effects of Vietnam, yeah. I am starting to show the symptoms of the things that have been declared to have been the cause of death of lots of people that I have been friends with. You have already said that you joined the RSL straightaway didn't you? When I came back, yeah, I joined the RSL in Shepparton. What sort of things did you do with the RSL? Not a great deal in fact. I used it as a social forum in fact. Because in Shepparton then it was just one … a single building, they didn't have any social members, you had to be a returned soldier to be part of it, and very few members, whereas now I think they have lots of members. They have social members who are allowed into the places and have poker machines and things like that. And you know what the facilities are like these days, the venues are like. I didn't do too much with them, I was just a member while I was in Shepparton. When I came to Melbourne I didn't renew my membership. Did you ever have any problems because of your race either while you were away or in the RSL? Oh, not in the RSL I didn't. I mean … we had problems because we were black anyway, back in those days, and I still feel that we are not treating our indigenous people as well as we should do, and I am always subjected to that sort of stuff and to that sort of behaviour, racism, bias, whatever you like to call it and … I mean aboriginal people are very, very patient people and I just can't understand why so many people are impatient with them. You could be of the colour black and not come from Australia, but if you come to Australia, you are rated higher than an Australian aboriginal person. Do you think that happened in the army? Yeah, at times it did, yeah. Well, I can remember an issue in the army when at Puckapunyal they were asking for boxers to represent our company that I was part of, and of course in the army boxing is a high profile sport and always has been. And the sergeant was standing up on this little dais asking us were there any volunteers and I was standing in the line and he said … no one volunteered. And he poked his head around the corner and he looked at me and he said, "What about you James?" I said, "No sergeant, I don't want to fight." He said, "Well, do you know what?" I said, "I don't know serg." He said, "You are the only abo in Australia I know doesn't like a fight." And he said, "You are fighting" and I said, "No, I am not." He said, "You are on a charge," and I said "Well, I am fighting serg" because I didn't want to be on a charge. That was just how things were in those days, you know they had that authority to yell at you, scream at you … and along with that, I was a kid who did what I was told, so I jumped in the ring and had a fight. I won, I won 2 fights. You know, I must say that, you know … I won the first one in one of those Nissan huts, at the back of the company there somewhere, but the final we fought at Puckapunyal in the big hall, the assembly hall and there were 2,000 people there and that was just one of the greatest nights. I will never ever forget that night all my life. It didn't turn you into a boxer though? Oh no, no, it was never going to do that. I was never going to do that because I em … I won most of my fights by about 200 yards, 300 yards. But when we got into that fight there that night, the bombardier came in and said, "Ok, James and Purcell, you are the second fight." And the first fight was between this guy named Ron Hall who was 6'3 against this bloke who was 5'5 I suppose, 5'6, but they were both the same weight and they went like blazes in the first round. The crowd, 2,000 people - 500 in A, B, C and D company - and they were absolutely going crazy and the noise was thunderous. And the bell went for the end of the first round and the bell then went for the second round - and two towels got thrown in the middle, they had both had it, so you can imagine how … . But that incident with the aboriginal, you know being … liking a fight … I mean that was just common occurrence stuff in the army, but you just had to grin and bear it. So it was coming from the authorities, not from your mates, they just accepted you? No, that happened too from my mates, a bit of banter around the place, yeah, and I mean … there was no political correctness in those days. So when you got back again you had to overcome the prejudice against Vietnam vets as well as the racial prejudices? Yeah, as well as being aboriginal, yeah, yeah, again. So it really was … Did it happen in school? When I went to College? When you went to teach? When I went to teach? Yeah, lots of … yeah, it did happen a bit, it certainly did, although I must admit that the kids were a lot better, the kids were good. Didn't hear too much about it in school? What about the Vietnam side of it? Was that thrown up at you a bit in the school? Yeah, that got thrown up a bit. Yep. Not much recognition, having been to Vietnam, there was just a … mainly ANZAC stuff … was, you know, when you talked about the war and everything else, you would have to tell people you had been to Vietnam and you would probably have to tell them again that you had been there. So it wasn't high priority for anyone, for too many people when I came back.. Now it seems to be recognised more by the government, there seems to be more sympathy in work places and everywhere else, yeah. Because I think in time … . really the Vietnam veterans are going to become the ANZACS of Australia, because they will have been the only ones who will have, or the most recent ones, to have fought a war, yeah. A war that was significant to Australia I am talking about. Right. Do you talk about your war experience much? Not amongst the guys that I have been to Vietnam with, because they don't talk too much about it. I do occasionally relate one or 2 stories to different people, but that is mainly family who ask about it. Some of my nephews might ask a few things about it, whatever. And they want to know, so you know, I tell them some of the things that happened there. So what kept you going through the Vietnam war? Oh what has kept me going through the Vietnam war and through my whole life has certainly been the influence that my mother and father had on me and my brothers and sisters. How they bonded the whole family together. They have been gone 23 and 19 years now and we still talk about them in the most admirable terms. We relate everything to what Mummy and Daddy told us and did for us and it just really forces the issue for me to say to people, you know, if you have a mother and father that are like this, treat them with the respect that they deserve and I am sure that is in the high echelon of anyone's priority. We just had a great time with them and we never would have changed our lives and where we come from because of our parents. They were just absolutely fantastic. And they were the reason that we got through everything and to get back from Vietnam was to get back for them and for my wife and family, it was just terrific.
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Victorians at War - Oral History Project