Well Done, Those Men

by Barry Heard

  The afternoon’s activity by our second week was to visit a large metropolitan shopping centre. I refused point-blank. I go with my wife, or I don’t go, I said firmly. But they weren’t giving us a choice. Dermy led us off the bus, not too fazed. I held Swig’s hand. Gab, the nurse, Pom, and Ginger were jammed together. We all looked out for Brigadier T. as, being an officer, he was bound to get lost. Big P stalked off like a forward scout, turning around regularly to ensure he had backup. We did a small tour of the centre, and celebrated at a coffee shop. We all sat at strategic points outside the shop and ordered up big. I was proud, even though I held Swig’s hand the whole way, because it was a big step for me. By the time our coffees arrived, Gab was in trouble. He’d got the shakes; he couldn’t drink the coffee. His embarrassment made him shake even more.

  ‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘when I go into a bank with my wife, I get to the window, open my mouth, but nothing comes out …’

  Poor Gab. He had suffered this for years. Later that week, in group therapy, we sat in silence. We always did at the start. I felt a powerful urge to talk, but I didn’t know what to say. I started slowly, and apologised to the blokes in Vietnam. I said their names, nicknames admittedly, but I hadn’t uttered them since I’d said them into a handset in the jungle. With a painful guilt I said that I should have gotten up and checked the wounded earlier. And I admitted I had stuffed up the order in which the wounded were sent out. Maybe X would have lived. I praised the medics, the brave bastards. I owned up to my lack of skill on the radio. I was rambling.

  I apologised to the forward scouts and gunners, who’d done it so hard. I praised Knackers … I yearned for his love and presence. I wasn’t fishing for sympathy; I was trying to say that war and I weren’t compatible. My soul had experienced more than it was capable of handling, my main motor was burnt out, and I felt nothing but a deep feeling of loss, forlorn hopelessness, and a deep, deep sadness. It hurt so much inside. I was in tears, tears, more tears. Shaking violently, I sat quietly. After a long silence, Gab turned to me.

  ‘Sounds like you did a good job, ya silly bastard,’ he said. ‘Who’d want to carry that shit of a radio, and have to report that frig’n stuff?’

  There were other similar comments … Slowly, the words penetrated my head. Never, from the day I left Vietnam, had I had one positive thought about the radio, my role, or my abilities. I was my own harshest critic. My guilt had engulfed me to a point that, at times, my life had seemed pointless. Perhaps, for the first time, I thought now, I might have done OK. Perhaps it was OK for a 21-year-old kid to feel frightened, alone, inadequate, and hopeless. Perhaps it was OK to have survived. Or to assume guilt when most people believed Vietnam was a waste … That’s right. I didn’t have to wait for my country to say ‘thanks’ or ‘sorry’ about the way I had been treated.

  Into my mind flashed an image of a skinny, exhausted radio operator … standing in the pouring rain, deciphering a code, then reporting to his boss, plodding on, his shoulder blades searing with pain, his feet burning, his left ear uselessly buzzing … and his nose bleeding. Then later, his mind is trying to block out the picture of a couple of Vietnamese, one a young female, lying beside an APC, dead. The bullet holes so clean … so young, while a satisfied tracker dog is panting … his job well done. Her skin is so white, so pitiful. They were proud, those young soldiers. He thought they had all done well. And yet, in time, there were so many questions …

  Then came painful words that resonated for years.

  ‘OA, this is One, over … killed in action … killed in action … killed in action … over.’

  ‘Hi, Mum, we’ve been in a bit of a stoush … sorry, it’s all over … no, I can’t explain.’

  Back in the hospital room, an hour had passed. The group showed me support, then dispersed, and the weight on my chest that had been my constant companion for years was gone. I was left with a hollow feeling. There was no joy, no relief, and no pain. That was enough, though — to have no pain.

  That night I had my first, non-drug induced sleep for decades. I slept. Oh, what wonderful gifts I had been given: sleep, and a weightless chest.

  Big P was a hoot. In the gym, we were advised to lift a maximum of 15kg. Big P lifted 40. Not to be beaten, Gab lifted 50. Big P lifted 55kg. His eyes bulged, his neck looked like it had vines growing up it, his legs wobbled. He still had a ‘beat that’ smirk on his face as we moved to the next station. Gab and Big P sat on the gadget where you could push weights with your legs. Recommendation: 35 kg. Gab, 70 kg; Big P, 90 kg. On it went, until finally Big P was shoving something like 120 kg. Even his bloody ears were quivering. Crash! The apparatus thumped back into place. Big P hopped off, clutching his leg.

  ‘I think I’ve done my bloody knee. Stuff it! It’s an old frig’n footy injury!’

  Yes, definitely back in the army. Next day, early morning, we went on the long walk. Big P had a slight limp, but still led the pack, turning occasionally to check we were covering him. The day went well.

  That night, during the quiet time, we were naughty. Secretly, with some coercion from the instigators to get me to go along, we jammed into two cars and took off to see The Full Monty. The movie theatre was attached to a shopping-centre car park, only a fifteen-minute drive from the hospital. It was one of those places with lots of theatres but only one window from which to buy a ticket. We joined the queue, and Big P took over.

  ‘You blokes all got ya card? Give ‘em to me. I’ll get the tickets.’

  ‘What bloody card?’

  ‘Ya frig’n pension card, Baz, ya dickhead.’

  ‘Mind ya language, mate …’

  I ran behind a potted palm, suddenly panicking. I could see Ginger behind another; he was better camouflaged than me. Big P ran along the ticket queue to Swig, muttered something, then turned to the long line of people waiting and explained:

  ‘Don’t mind us, we’re from the Repat Hospital, Ward 17, Psych Ward.’

  He proved this by pointing to the patient tag on his wrist. Turning back, he ran to the ticket office and joined Gab. Both their bloody heads were jammed in the round ticket window, loudly explaining about concessions and being veterans. Big P and Gab are big men, both six-foot plus and weighing over 90 kilograms. The poor girl left the scene, and the manager arrived.

  Big P, Gab, and I had just shaved our heads that very day as a sort of statement about coming out. To be honest, we looked bloody stupid and a little scary. Big P’s head, in fact, looked like a pantyhose full of golf balls. Our heads were snow white and glistening where we’d put baby oil on them after the razor. All of us were wearing those comfortable baggy tracksuits you see people wearing in a hospital. We all had a hospital tag on our wrist indicating our name, hospital, and ward; we were patients, gone AWOL.

  Both Big P and Gab started shouting to the manager demanding a free pass to the movies. As TPI veterans, there were certain theatres good enough to give free seats, and this was one of them. But half of us weren’t TPI. The manager made an executive decision, reached into the window, and snatched a roll of tickets and handed them over, no questions asked. Big P ran up to me triumphantly. I popped my head out from behind the palm.

  ‘Gotcha a bloody ticket, Baz.’

  ‘Shove it up ya arse, ya mad prick. I’m staying here.’

  ‘OK, mate.’

  The crowd in the queue were spellbound. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was nothing compared to this exhibition. Big P found Dermy in the theatre, alone. He tried to drag him back out; no go. Big P was obsessed by now with getting a refund on Dermy’s ticket, the only one we’d paid for. He rushed out waving it. The crowd, quite wary of anyone wearing a tracksuit and a hospital patient tag, melted away from the ticket window. The poor red-eyed ticket girl handed Big P his refund money, and he sprinted off, calling to Dermy that he’d got him a refund. His language was appalling. Poor Big P, he was in PSTD anxiety mode, and nothing made a lot of sense. He needed a pink pill. He rushed around, found all the b
lokes in their various hiding places, and shepherded them into the theatre. Thankfully, he left me alone. I was breathing deeply, centring on being calm. I was safe behind my little plant … if only I could get back to my bed.

  Quiet. The lobby was empty. The girl shut up the ticket window and went to talk to her friend at the candy bar. There was no one collecting tickets. Emerging from my potted palm tree, I sneaked in, and looked left then right. The movies had started. Leaning low, I cautiously crept down to the bottom half of the theatre, selected a seat in the middle all by myself, and slid down, invisible. Minutes later, amid much shuffling, grunting, and grumbling, the others found me. They were all talking at once.

  ‘SSSSShhhhhhhhhhhhh!’ came the low groan from the rest of the audience.

  Swig, no doubt the smartest one amongst us, stood up, turned, and announced to the restless theatre, ‘Don’t mind us, we’re on drugs.’

  I think it was a good movie. I did a lot of deep breathing. We got into trouble when we returned.

  Third week: day two, and we struck disaster, but not the type you would expect. On our early-morning walk, Big P showed Brigadier T the superiority of the Aussie Rules bump compared to a rugby shirt front. Big P was now in Ward 22 in the hospital, with broken ribs and a burst spleen. That night we were given permission to drive down the road to the hospital, about a mile away. The blokes all piled into Gab’s big Ford. Not me, no way was I going anywhere with those bloody idiots. The Full Monty was still fresh in my mind. I decided to walk and wave to Big P from outside. They were going to wheel him to the window. I arrived at the hospital, waited for the blokes, and when they finally appeared they were all talking at once, loudly. As they got closer, I heard Gab say, ‘I should’a head-butted the dickhead.’

  Oh, dear, don’t tell me there’s been a minor problem already?

  Sure enough, it appeared that when Gab reached the car park boom-gate, he’d been informed that the park was not for public use.

  ‘We’re not the public, we’re patients,’ said Gab. He and all the blokes were dangling their arms out of windows, displaying their patient tags.

  ‘Sorry, no can do,’ said the attendant.

  Bad move, mate. Surely he could see they were Vietnam veterans and a pack of mindless morons, even if they were my friends. So Gab, after a pause for deep thought, said, ‘OK, ya wanker. We’re going to sit here and hold our breath until you let us in.’

  Apparently, Pom nearly passed out. Dermy started to make a funny, tight squealing noise like a field mouse giving birth, and Swig made gulping sounds like a dove in courting mode. Up went the boom gate. No wonder those frig’n idiots were still puffing when they got to me.

  At last, in Heidelberg, I gained some excellent skills to deal with stress. I was much better at identifying my anxiety symptoms earlier, and could slowly breathe through situations where in the past I would have soiled myself.

  I realised that some things would probably never change, and that those that did were going to change slowly. I still needed my wife to point me in the right direction at times, and I knew I had to maintain visits to my psychiatrist.

  I have written light-heartedly about some of our experiences in Heidelberg, but a lot of it was intense and painful. It was pitiful at times to see men reduced to a wrecked emotional shell, then watch them risk it all again to be open and honest. I never felt abandoned or that I was getting nowhere during my time in hospital. The staff gave us an abundance of nurturing, affection, and concern. The course has a well-deserved reputation, and I have nothing but praise for its objectives and professional delivery.

  Back at home, I now have a network of friends, mostly veterans, where I live. They are easy to relate to and, when needed, their support is total. Lyn, remembering how much I enjoyed playing golf at Tambo River, bought me a set of golf clubs and sent me to a small country club at Lindenow, made up mostly of farmers. Other vets have started playing golf, and together we have quietly settled into the club. I have been there over two years. Now I feel like one of the blokes.

  Let me describe what being ‘one of the blokes’ is like. They, like me, are social misfits. We can enter crowded rooms and the like together, but alone … the panic starts. Apart from going on short drives, our wives ferry us everywhere or we rely on public transport. We’ve learned to support one another. On my first trip to Melbourne by train without my wife, I wasn’t alone; I had a good mate come with me to the Repat Hospital. As I had a new nickname, ‘Useless’ (thanks, fellas), my mate always referred to Lyn as ‘Mrs Useless’. Mind you, he was known as ‘Pathetic’ in the Vet community: astute bunch, aren’t they? So we left for Melbourne with two bags that Lyn had labelled ‘Useless’ and ‘Pathetic’. Ah, well. When we reached our station we both had our heads down, staring at the floor. No way were we moving. When finally we got out at Ivanhoe, we weren’t sure what to do, so I rang a taxi — and then we couldn’t bring ourselves to get in. In the shade of a bus shelter we watched helplessly as the driver thumped the steering wheel in frustration. Sorry, mate. We both walked to the hospital. We could see the chimney from the station. Both of us had been patients in Heidelberg.

  After completing the program, I bought a motorbike, a beautiful big 1500cc cruiser. For some weird reason, a lot of us returned veterans ride motorbikes. Maybe it’s the sense of freedom and youth. I know for myself that, at the age of fifty-four, I started to live the kind of carefree life that had stopped for me in 1966. My wife and I started touring round the state, feeling less constrained by the unpredictability of my illness. Sometimes, though, something happens to bring you up short again. My wife has taught me to laugh when something embarrassing and uncontrollable happens.

  One time, for example, we had ridden my new cruiser to Adelaide. I like walking around cities, but still don’t like going into shops, particularly alone. On this occasion we had ridden to a suburb that boasted a good quilting shop — something Lyn can’t go past. She went in for a browse, while I headed off up the street window-shopping. A shop full of old railway signals, petrol pumps, biscuit tins, and the like caught my attention. I looked carefully through the window: there was no one inside and no one outside either. I went in and had a look around. Suddenly, half-a-dozen people arrived from nowhere and stood just inside the front door. Shit … my heart rate accelerated, and I broke the rule of listening, staying calm, and planning to forestall a panic attack. I was overcome with tunnel vision, churning guts, imminent disaster. I dashed for the door, groaning inside as I soiled my pants on the way. Outside, I saw a hedge several doors up. I sprinted over, backed into the hedge, ripped down my pants, and suffered the rest of the diarrhoea attack on the ground. Minus a hanky, undies, and socks, all of which I’d used for cleaning up, I took a pink pill and headed for my wife, who had just walked out of the shop. As usual, she wasn’t fazed when I explained what had happened. She just wanted to get me cleaned up. We walked back the way I had just come.

  ‘Where did you do your business, Baz?’

  I showed her the hedge. She looked at me in disbelief. In my haste, I hadn’t realised what a narrow hedge it was. I had just bared my ugly arse to several classrooms of a girls’ school.

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  I HAD BEEN IMPROVING since my breakdown four years before. I was no longer almost totally dependent on my wife. I could go into shops on my own if they weren’t too crowded, and was down to one nap a day after lunch. I had caught a train to Melbourne on my own. I was very proud that day. But when I was asked in 1999 to give a talk to 26 primary school children in a remote, two-teacher country school, I felt sick, scared, and threatened. It would be a true test of my confidence if I accepted. Yet I knew that to accept and then do it successfully would be a big thing for me. I stewed over the request for three days. Could I give an address about Anzac Day? Vietnam veterans capable of giving such addresses were very thin on the ground, and most requests from schools went unfilled. I decided to give it a go. A brief talk, then a few questions and home; that was the pla
n.

  I rode my motorbike to the school, which was an enjoyable 20-minute ride. The principal greeted me with a warm handshake and an invitation to stay for morning tea after the address. The students had cooked Anzac biscuits for their guest — me.

  The 26 kids fidgeted and twisted as they sat on their mats on the floor. They ranged from grade one to six. After an introduction, I handed out my medals, to be passed around among the students. Then I launched into a compressed one-page story of my life in the 1960s. I grew up in a small remote town, I told them. I left school at fifteen, worked on a farm until I was twenty, and I got called up into the army. After Vietnam, I came back and travelled a lot. I was so nervous, I think I said all of this in one large breath. Then I asked if there were any questions.

  ‘Did ya kill anyone?’ burst out a nine-year-old boy enthusiastically, almost leaping to his feet. My heart started to thump.

  ‘That’s a hard question,’ I replied, not really knowing how to answer.

  ‘If I was in the army, I’d kill heaps!’ he claimed. His mate beside him shouted, ‘Yeah!’ and punched the air in triumph. Other questions weren’t so pointed.

  ‘How often were you attacked by lions?’ they wanted to know.

  ‘Did you have a pet monkey?’

  These questions allowed me to calm down. Then, unexpectedly, a small girl put up her hand and burst into tears. My God, I thought, she must know a Vietnam veteran. The chances were it would be a tragic story … ‘Yes, little girl?’ I said meekly, wishing I were home pottering around my garden.

  ‘I didn’t see your medals,’ she sobbed.

  They were duly passed back to the second row. Then came the right hook, out of nowhere. Yes, my guard was down.

  ‘Were you very sad in the army?’ asked one of the bigger girls.

  I lowered my head. I didn’t want them to see how hard it was for me to hold back my tears. The teacher at the back of the room started to move toward the front. Suddenly, I spoke in a broken, sad voice.