by Barry Heard
Within a month, I had returned and met up with Lyn. I discovered that she and her mates had moved into a new house together, and my letters to her hadn’t been forwarded. In no time, I dropped several not-so-subtle hints about us getting married. I finally wore her down and, in June, six months almost to the day after we’d first met, we were married. Then the post Vietnam-me emerged. There was no time for a honeymoon — just work, more work, overtime, another job, and another move.
By the time Lyn and I had been married for two years, we had travelled over 28,000 miles. We’d driven from Perth to Darwin. Whilst there, it was great to catch up with Snoggons, who was now an outback policeman. Then we headed off back down to the high country of Victoria. We’d had a son, and had another baby on the way. The previous two years I had worked in Gnowangerup, then Perth for a few months, then Karratha, followed by Port Hedland, and in a few other jobs as well. I couldn’t seem to settle down anywhere. Blokes at work would try to be friendly, but I’d have trouble relating, and would move on.
Once home, I worked in the sawmill at Swifts Creek, driving a forklift. My daughter was born. I did year twelve English by correspondence, passed, and we moved back to Perth. My application to do a manual arts course at Nedlands Teachers College was successful. In February 1975 I started studying to become a high school teacher. We bought a house in the suburbs, and maybe for once I started to feel settled. I worked hard as a student and got good results. I seemed to have little time for my family.
But my nightmares and obsessive behaviour persisted. Naturally, I ignored them and kept totally occupied. Then, not long after we moved into our new house in Yokine, just north of Perth, a strange thing happened.
It was late afternoon. Directly overhead were bloody Huey helicopters! There were two of them. I was totally absorbed: I ran outside staring up at the Hueys, and followed them until they disappeared. The noise filled a hollow void in my being that I couldn’t explain. After that first flyover, I did this every time one appeared, even if we had the odd guest or I was just studying. My wife thought my actions strange, and I offered no reasons for them. As well, she was amazed that I could hear them coming long before anyone else could. I appeared to have a sharp ear for that familiar sound. Later, I found out that their flight path to Pearce Air Force Base ran directly over our house.
By now, after settling into our new house for several months a familiar routine emerged. Lyn ran the family, the home and, somehow, we stayed married. The months and then the years ticked by … When the sixth of August rolled around six years into our marriage, the nightmares and flashbacks returned as usual, like they had all the Augusts before. But in the first years of our marriage I tried to disappear for a few days around this date. It had been ten years since that devastating incident in Vietnam, and although I was desperate to stay in control at home, come August I would fly into rages over the smallest incidents, then turn to Lyn and bellow, ‘Don’t you know what month it is?’
‘It’s August,’ my wife would answer — rationally, calmly.
I ranted, mumbled, and was frustrated with her. I was never violent, thank God. At her urgings, I tried to explain the significance of the date.
‘It was something that happened … in Vietnam …’
But I said nothing more, withdrew, and ended up vaguely sad and, more than anything, guilty about that part of my life. I had never, in my marriage, said a word about Vietnam, the jungle, the stress, coming home, or the abuse I had received in Melbourne. Lyn knew I was a Vietnam veteran, and that was it. Years later, Lyn told me that every August she would do anything to avoid a confrontation, no matter how small. But the cracks were starting to show. Occasionally, when we would go into the city with the kids, within half an hour of mingling in the crowds and walking through large shopping centres, I would experience debilitating wind pains and agonising bouts of diarrhoea. I was baffled. I had experienced this problem for almost ten years, and could never fathom its cause. I was a typical male, and never dreamed of seeking medical advice.
‘Why do you always walk along the wall or the outside edge when we walk on busy footpaths?’ my wife would ask. What a stupid question, I thought.
‘Why do you sit in the corner or near a door when we go out? Or near the exit at a picture theatre?’
God, I’d think, she was so paranoid. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone?
Then, one evening, I found I couldn’t sit through a movie. It was an American film about troops leaving for Vietnam, and showed an American veteran in a wheelchair telling the young combatants how foolish they were. Ten minutes into the film I broke down completely. I went outside, sat on the steps, and shook violently. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. My poor wife was very concerned but, as usual, I fobbed her off with some lame reason. I still had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that any violence, either on a TV screen or in real life, made me react with fear and a display of nerves — usually the shakes.
In 1978 I graduated as a high school teacher. I was thirty-three years old. It had taken me eleven years to find a career and settle down. My first week at my new high school in a new suburb north of Perth was a classic. The fact that I wasn’t suspended or sacked straight away was amazing. As a new teacher, I expected and got the worst classes and duties. I had much of my lunchtimes filled up with locker duty, the worst duty in the school. This area was renowned for disturbances and bullying. On my fifth day, I was in the locker area at lunchtime when a fight broke out, just outside. Kids came from everywhere. Four hundred of them out of a school population of six hundred were instantly watching the fight. They appeared thrilled with the spectacle. I raced into the centre of the mob, turned a rubbish bin upside down, and jumped on top. I shouted with anger at them, feeling swelling rage and frustration flood my system.
‘Listen, you little arseholes!’ I said in a strong, loud, quite calm voice. The fight stopped instantly.
‘You disgust me!’ I said with narrowed eyes and a feeling of anger. ‘Mention the word “fight” and you run from everywhere in seconds. You chant, urge, and then claim to be humans. You must be bloody joking. Yet sound the frig’n school siren, and you stroll to classes and arrive late. What are you, bloody animals?’
There was a stunned silence. Nobody else spoke.
‘God help this world if that’s what motivates you. Piss off, the lot of ya.’
Heads went down. A teacher standing nearby looked at me with astonished bewilderment as the large crowd dispersed. I knew immediately that I had overstepped the mark as that enraged fear returned to my stomach. It heralded itself with nausea, ominous wind pains, and then a vice-like headache. I had a sudden, excruciating glimpse of myself as a loud, tactless moron.
The siren sounded. Disillusioned, I walked up the stairs, thoughts rushing around in my head about resignation and trying to explain it to my wife. I gripped my painful stomach. My class was outside my room before I arrived. That was a first. During afternoon recess there was a lot of whispering in the staff room and strange looks in my direction. At the final bell, with the students dismissed, a message came from the principal to report to his office immediately. I feared the worst.
‘Take a seat, Mr. Heard.’
I had had two 30-minutes meetings with the principal before the beginning of the school year. He was direct, and I respected that. He struck me, then, as being very professional.
‘Mr. Heard, I have been told by another teacher that you had a long, strong talk to our students?’
I hesitated.
‘Don’t answer that,’ he interrupted before I could speak. ‘I believe your delivery in the locker area would have matched an address at a waterside workers’ meeting. Whatever you said and how you said it is of little interest to me. All I know is that the teachers are abuzz. It’s the first time all the students turned up for classes on time. The school has never been quieter. Mr. Heard, two things have occurred. Somehow, you’ve gained the students’ respect. Secondly, half the teachers think you’re
a peace-loving, crazy idiot, and the other half believes you are a reformed megalomaniac thug they don’t want to upset. Do something about your swearing, son.’
That was the start of a great relationship.
Teaching became my life. After a few years of intensive effort, I found I was prepared for most lessons, and began to have some spare time on my hands. Any normal man would have jumped at the chance to spend more time with his family, but I became obsessed, instead, with filling my spare time with demanding pursuits. I joined a marathon club, and competed every weekend. Most evenings I ran 5–10 kilometres. I took on more study, and had to have distinctions in all my subjects. I couldn’t just run for fun; I had to have top times.
Slowly, as time passed, I was becoming a robot. My students excelled, my academic results were excellent, and my running times were good. All this helped me not to look at my private life, which was shit. Our marriage was bumping along the bottom. My wife ran the family and held it together. I guessed I loved them all, but couldn’t show it. I was devoid of emotion, a workaholic, and beginning to feel the first creeping symptoms of anxiety.
Most nights, I would sleep between four and six hours, and the nightmares were becoming common. My lips were covered in sores, the rashes I’d had in Vietnam returned, and I sweated a lot. Finally, my wife insisted I get some help.
I did. I had some counselling. I left satisfied that I had been cured, and announced this proudly to my wife. Of course, I didn’t tell the psychologist about Vietnam, my nightmares, the terrifying anger, or the churning stomach pains. No way. They were nothing to do with it.
When the sixth of August came around again some time in the 1980s, my efforts to smother my stress and anxiety were not working. I usually ran 10 kilometres after work, so I built it up to 15 kilometres, hoping I would fall asleep exhausted. It didn’t work, and most nights I would wake up sweating and screaming. I averaged four hours’ sleep at the most. My wife was very concerned and somewhat bewildered by my unstable behaviour.
On the sixth of August I drove to school early and put up the school flag at half-mast. I was still at the same school. I hoped it would be a quiet, busy day with no input from me, and that the students would just get on with the work I set them. The first class lined up as they usually do and then quietly walked into the room. Out of my mouth, suddenly, came a completely unrehearsed statement.
‘All of your work is on the blackboard. Please, help one another quietly. Today is a very sad day for me. I have struggled to come to school. Thank you.’
I admit my eyes were probably teary as I spoke, but I would never have guessed the reactions. Those students were inspiring. Every class lined up and walked in quietly. I said nothing. Some students as they left said, ‘Thanks, Mr. Heard.’
I was close to tears by my last class. I remembered with shame the foul-mouthed anger I’d displayed in my first week at the lockers. These were good kids.
In the mid-1980s I was posted to a country school north of Perth. One evening in 1987, I heard about the Welcome Home march on the news. It was being organised by Vietnam veterans in Sydney.
‘You should go, Baz,’ said Lyn.
‘No way.’ All that stuff was behind me. That was my blunt, automatic response.
The local RSL offered to help pay the airfares for any local Vietnam veterans. In fact, the RAAF were flying vets from Perth. I still couldn’t bring myself to make the trip. Instead, I sat and watched the march on the TV. My stomach felt heavy and my heart ached. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I recognised so many faces, Pigs from my battalion, my old unit, Sap in a wheelchair, blokes crying, hugging, backslapping, and distressed diggers … people were waving flags, cheering, smiling, clapping, and welcoming us home. It was very powerful. To my knowledge, it was the first time Vietnam veterans had stood up as one, organised a march, and allowed thousands of veterans to come out and bravely admit they were returned men.
When it was over, I sat bewildered. I had made a terrible mistake; I should have attended. I felt so alone and isolated. That night I sat for hours in the dark, and then walked aimlessly around the town, talking aloud to Kards, Booster, Blou, Stacka, and most of those blokes I remembered fondly but had never seen in many, many years. It had been decades since I’d even seen Knackers.
The phone rang the following evening. It was Booster.
‘Ya slack prick, Turd. Where were ya?’
He had taken five hours to find me.
‘Saturday night, the Chelsea RSL. Be there, ya dopey bastard!’
I was stunned. It had been twenty years, but I knew that voice in an instant, automatically remembering Booster’s operator call sign: one, one.
Lyn drove me to the airport, where I caught the plane for the four-hour trip to Melbourne. Booster was waiting to pick me up.
It was impossible to explain the warm, overwhelmed emotions that surged through me when I saw Knackers, Snoggons, and Booster … We held hands, we hugged, we laughed, we traded insults, we were happy. I hadn’t shown those emotions in twenty years. Then something remarkable happened. The conversations took a strange turn.
—How do you handle the sound of a chopper?
—Are your guts still tender?
—Did you have trouble settling down when you got home?
—Have you lost all your old school mates?
—Do you have flashbacks?
—Any rashes? How are ya feet?
—How’s ya bloody back, ya poor bastard … mines stuffed … frig’n radio!
—Get upset when violence appears on the TV?
—Never marched on Anzac Day … bastards!
—Pisspot or workaholic?
—Hate crowds, loud noise? Do you cover your back, and sit in the corner?
—Do you never mention Vietnam?
—Do you hate dumb authority?
—Do you get angry … and not take shit from dickheads?
—Do you have the nightmares?
—No real friends?
We were all the same, all of us. Their wives nodded in unison. Why hadn’t I thought to bring Lyn?
Back home, she commented that every photo of my mates had us with arms around each other, laughing and relaxing. She’d been married to me for years, and had never seen me like that. I looked at her, and knew that it was true.
I resigned from teaching and headed for Victoria. It was a big move. I managed to get jobs — some with the Education Department, TAFE, and the Department of Education, Employment and Training.
Knackers moved just up the road from me. We saw a lot of each other, and it was good to have someone to talk to who understood.
Come the sixth of August, we got together. Knackers was a bloody mess. His guilt about the date just appalled me. He went to pieces, sobbing.
‘I should’ve come out with you … they should’ve sent someone else on leave, not me … should’ve helped … I was too green … had no idea … if only I had, then … poor … poor … I was only a fuck’n kid, for Christ sake!’
My heart was hammering in my chest. Knackers was drunk, and ranting that he wished he had been killed instead of the blokes who were. His grief turned into terrible anger and I put him to bed, sat in the dark till dawn, then went home and got ready for work. Several days later, when we got together, Knackers didn’t even mention our drunken night. It saddened me deeply to see him hiding such overwhelming sadness and anguish. During his troubled outburst, he’d said that the memory of August was a daily event for him. By comparison, I felt lucky; most of my problems occurred during my sleep or if I had spare time on my hands. However, Knackers did something else for me. I was starting to laugh again. Despite all his distress, you could still see flashes of the real Knackers, a funny bastard who loved a prank.
The march through Sydney was the catalyst for many reunions and renewed mateship. Our battalion, 7RAR, the Pig Battalion, had organised its first reunion at Holsworthy. It was fantastic. There were so many familiar faces, stories, and memories. One highligh
t for me was seeing Jock for the first time since he’d disappeared into the body of a dust-off helicopter on 6 August 1967. What a brave bugger. I remember at the time believing he would die. He hadn’t, the tough bastard and, as a result, he was our mascot, our hero. During the evening, he called me up and mumbled something about my part in his evacuation. I grinned at him.
‘Where’s my hoochie, you slack bastard? I got drenched that night, ya prick! And by the way, you still owe me a beer as well, ya lousy Scottish bastard.’
Jock just smiled. He couldn’t remember. But he still got us a beer. Then, slightly wobbly on his pins, he gave us an appalling rendition of Danny Boy. We drank too much, and sang our hearts out. Funny, when I first arrived, there were a lot of blokes I didn’t recognise. Then, once we got talking, I realised who they were. Admittedly, some had grown larger, mainly around the girth, while others had lost most of their hair and gone grey. The skinny, tough young Nui Dat soldiers were gone forever. We were truly old men now. But in another sense, nothing had really changed. We could still talk. There were many moving ceremonies and a great dinner. I went home with a book full of addresses. The one memory that stuck out for me, though, was of our hosts. The army at Holsworthy treated us like royalty. Nothing was too much trouble. I recall asking one of our waiters what he did in the army. He told me he was a major — a company commander. He had given up his weekend and more for our reunion.
‘I’m proud to serve you men,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Vietnam veterans, the Pig Battalion, are very special, and this has been a long time coming. You deserve this and more, you poor bastards.’
