Vietnam Veterans Museum.

While at Philip Island recently we visited the Vietnam Veterans Museum there. Initially I did not want to go, as it held no interest to me, but a friend did, so we went too. It has just passed the 41^st anniversary of a famous battle in Vietnam involving Australian troops and the Video shown at the Museum touched me more than I expected.

The museum itself is quite impressive even if a lot of the stuff is not actually strange to me. I spent most of my teen years in the 60’s and it was a time when a lot of World War Two Army Surplus equipment was widely available, thus jerry cans, fold-up spades, Machetes, even army jackets were not unknown to me, as the older brothers were into 4X4 travelling and used a lot of the WW 2 surplus stuff on their trips etc.

Likewise I have never felt any real connection for the war itself although at the time I was convinced that I would be conscripted. My two older brothers had both missed out on being conscripted and I felt sure I wouldn’t, and so had psyched myself up to be conscripted. Thus I was greatly surprised but not really disappointed to actually miss out, with dates being called either side of my birthday but not on mine.

Besides that, apart from Normie Rowe, (a famous Australian Pop idol of that time that I only knew about but didn’t know personally,) the only other person I knew who went to Vietnam, was a friend, of a friend, of one of my brothers, so again the connection was scant.

All of this is to say that the Vietnam War largely past me by at the time and we had no close or real connection to how it played out in the public arena. So the trip to the Museum was a timely reminder of the sacrifices of some of our fellow Australians.

How much of the world goes by around you with out you feeling any real connection to it? How many famous battles have been fought that you know nothing about? I am not pushing war here in anyway but can’t help wondering how much of our history we really know? The Vietnam War is often referred to as the ”Forgotten War,” and I wonder how many other things we have forgotten too? Sometimes we may wish they never happened but they did and we need to learn from them to avoid or plan better for the future. What say you? Walter