Those who believed the war in Vietnam was a civil war that Australia should have stayed out of are naive and wrong, president of the Vietnamese Community in Wollongong Teresa Tran says.
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Ms Tran said her community’s gratitude to Australia’s Vietnam veterans was so great, it would last several generations.
And she wants as many Illawarra people as possible to join the Long Tan anniversary commemoration at Flagstaff Hill on Sunday morning.
Ms Tran’s family was among the many South Vietnamese who found themselves living under a hostile and brutal dictatorship after the North took over once the war had been won.
While the West thought the war was over, those who stayed behind paid a hefty price as the North exacted its revenge.
Her father had believed the entreaties from the new rulers that they would be safe, so he stayed. And he was thrown in a “re-education” labour camp for five years.
“It’s often said it’s an unpopular war,” she said.
“But we did not want to fight. It was the North that wanted to take over. We are the survivors of the war – we know the truth of the war.”
Between 1962 and 1972, almost 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam, for the loss of 521 lives. Ms Tran said these men were heroes.
“On the 50th anniversary of Long Tan, we’d like to pay tribute to the Vietnam veterans and the personnel who sacrificed their lives for our freedom,” she said. “We are forever grateful for their sacrifice – especially the families, and the widows, of Vietnam veterans in the Illawarra.
“They are our heroes for a just cause, and we will always remember them – this generation, and the generations to come.”
