Fifty-five years to the day since a group of Australian soldiers held off a large Viet Cong force in the Battle of Long Tan, Vietnam war veterans in the Hunter are having to give ground to a new enemy: COVID-19.
The Vietnam Veterans' Day service in Newcastle's Civic Park and a dinner at Wallsend have been cancelled due to the COVID lockdown.
"It's disappointing that once again an important commemorative day has been cancelled, but we accept public health is important," said Vietnam veteran and acting president of the City of Newcastle RSL Sub-branch Ken Fayle.
At Lake Macquarie, Wangi Wangi RSL Sub-branch has had to cancel its annual service. Of the sub-branch's 65 members, about 40 are Vietnam-era veterans, intensifying the disappointment of having to cancel the service, according to president Leigh Warren.
"It makes it doubly hard, because apart from all that we're going through with COVID and the lockdown, the date doesn't change, so the 18th of August still brings back the memories," Mr Warren said.
"Anyone who has been in the military, they still need that day to think about the people they served with and didn't come back, and this gives them time to reflect."
Ken Fayle said for some veterans, the cancellations were made harder by the images coming out of Afghanistan, with people fleeing from the Taliban forces. It felt like history repeating, he said, conjuring memories of the end of the Vietnam War.
"Given what's happening in Afghanistan, it's very poignant, because it brings back so many memories of what happened, and leaving behind so many Vietnamese nationals who had worked with allied forces to an uncertain fate, the same as the Afghan nationals at the moment," Mr Fayle said, referring to veterans' pleas for the federal government to evacuate those who assisted Australian Defence Force personnel during the Afghanistan operations.
"You've got Chinooks [helicopters] landing on buildings like in Saigon, so it's very similar," said Leigh Warren.
For the Newcastle veterans, hope that the past will still be remembered has come from the young.
When Newcastle East Public School Year 5 student Hannah Holmes was recently given a writing assignment, she combined her love of history and of words to create a poem, "The land the soldiers now call home".
Hannah said the poem was about the human cost of World War Two.
"It was a very dark period of history," the 11-year-old said. "But it was the beginning of a new era, new hope, new joy for the world; there was like a rebirth."
Hannah's teacher sent the poem to the RSL, and it came before Ken Fayle, who was moved by what he read: "It's wonderfully insightful."
"I feel very proud," Hannah said.
The veterans hope that others follow Hannah's example and pause to remember on August 18.
"If you know a veteran, give them a call," Leigh Warren said.
"Tell them that you care."
