General News
21 August, 2024
Vietnam War veteran remembers impact of controversial conflict
It wasn't smooth sailing for soldiers when they returned to Australia from Vietnam.
Arthur Dennis has seen significant changes in the public attitude towards Vietnam veterans in the five decades since he returned to Australia.
The 82-year-old recalls that when he first stepped off the plane at Brisbane in 1967 after months of deployment at Nui Dat, soldiers were diverted down a separate access area while the protesters were blocked from view.
He said the protest group probably only numbered about 20 or so, but they were loud, and a decision was made to keep the soldiers out of sight.
Mr Dennis said he avoided much of the public controversy swirling about the war because he returned almost immediately to his hometown of Townsville.
While it was not the major military city it is today, it still did not have an active or boisterous anti-war protest movement.
Mr Dennis said he also chose to wear civilian clothes as soon as possible, which added to his ability to move about without unwelcome attention.
However, he also recalled that when he initially rolled up to the RSL, having completed his six-year army stint as an infantryman, including deployments to Vietnam, Borneo and Malaya, he received the cold shoulder from many Anzacs of prior conflicts.
“The First World War and Second World War blokes weren’t very receptive to us,” he told North West Weekly.
“They didn’t think we had fought in a real war.”
Mr Dennis acknowledged that many Vietnam veterans had struggled to adjust back to civilian life, but he counted himself among the fortunate ones – he had a plan he had conjured in the Malayan and Vietnamese jungles thanks to a fellow platoon infantryman named Jim Molony, brother of former Mount Isa mayor John Molony.
“Jim was from Camooweal; his parents still lived there and he was always talking about his plan to go to the mines in Mount Isa when he got out of the army,” Mr Dennis recalled.
“He said a bloke could make a lot of money in the mines and I thought ‘well that sounds pretty good to me’ and so I decided I was going straight to Mount Isa when I got out of the army.
“I moved to Mount Isa to get rich, but I got married instead!”
By November 1967, Mr Dennis was out of the army and within three months he was at Mount Isa Mines, albeit working as a kitchen hand.
A chance encounter with a Townsville schoolmate landed him a transfer away from cleaning dishes and mopping floors and into the underground.
He would remain a miner for the next 30 years.
What’s more, he would marry local girl Beryl in 1970. Jim Molony was the best man at the wedding.
Beryl and Arthur will celebrate 54 years of marriage in Mount Isa in November.
The great-grandfather says he believes the controversy over the Vietnam War subsided long ago and there was a renewed respect for the contribution the veterans of the conflict have played in our nation’s history.
He said the Veterans Day service in Mount Isa at the weekend was an opportunity to look back over the chapters of his life and remember the mates he made along the way.
“When I wear my medals now for Anzac Day or at other things, people come over and they say ‘thank you for your service’. They look very respectful,” he said.
“On Anzac Day or Veterans Day, after I have laid the wreath, I always turn and look up towards the flag – I give a thought for the people I knew that aren’t here anymore. But I always look at the flag because I am patriotic. And I am proud to say that.”