Forty-seven years ago an event happened on a far away battlefield and eleven innocent civilians lost their lives. Remarkably, this has now been resurrected from the archives and this is resulting in a near hysterical outcry from the left of Australian politics and the call for some sort of "enquiry "to rake over the coals - and apportion the blame !
In 1967 the Australian army was engaged in the Vietnam war and had a base at Nui Dat. This was protected by a four kilometre exclusion zone and all the surrounding villages had been air dropped with leaflets to make the civilian population aware of the dangers posed by entering what was termed a "kill zone ".
The Viet Cong had been active in the area and an officer and fifteen Australian soldiers set up an ambush as a protective measure. The Viet Cong infiltrated disguised as civilians and when eleven approaching people were observed the troops were immediately suspicious. One carried a long object on his shoulder - which was thought to be a rifle - and when this was waved at the soldiers the unit's machine gunner fired a burst. Four were killed immediately, six wounded and the body of another discovered later nearby.
It is now claimed that when the bodies were identified as "bamboo pickers " making their way to a nearby bamboo forest - and some were women and children - the officer who reported the mistake was reprimanded and told he should have ordered weapons to be placed on the bodies and the action reported as a successful intervention against enemy troops.
The critics of Australian military action in all it's forms are quick to denigrate any mistake that occurs in what is often termed "the fog of war "! Usually these critics have never served in any military capacity and have zero knowledge of the "kill or be killed "tension of active service. They are more comfortable nit picking with their nose in a history book, than criticising the real events that are happening in places like Iraq and Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Libya, Nigeria, Yemen or dozens of remote battlefields where atrocities are taking place daily - and death is often a merciful release.
Vietnam was a long time ago and it is easy to question the reasons for that war, but that in no way diminishes the ferocity in which both sides engaged. Modern wars are also ideological wars and maintaining support on the home front requires a high degree of "grooming "of the war news - and the first casualty of that process is the "truth " !
There is absolutely no point in dragging this matter into the limelight and trying to sheet home the blame to individuals. Many of the troops involved are now dead - and the victims of that action so long ago are certainly deceased. The cover up of mistakes has been a feature of every war that has ever plagued the citizens of planet Earth - and you can be sure that it will remain a fact of life in whatever form of warfare we take with us into the future.
Screaming headlines simply bring comfort to the enemies of Australia. Perhaps a tactic of those with divisive political ambitions !
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