Conscript and Conflict

The Brutal Toll Of Vietnam's Battlefield

"Some of us were only 20," Kenneth (Ken) Higgins OAM recalls, his voice heavy with the weight of memory.

"In those days, you couldn’t vote until you were 21 and you couldn’t drink.

“Yet they would send us to Vietnam to kill people."

“We were sent to a foreign land we hadn’t even heard of before as kids, to kill people we didn’t know or dislike.

“They expected us to go and do these horrors and then come back and forget about it.”

This is part of the turmoil many Vietnam Veterans have had to face throughout the years, many with undiagnosed PTSD battling recurrent nightmares, many with unexplained illnesses through harsh poisonous chemical exposure and many who still to this day are reluctant to talk about the horror of conflict as a conscript.

The sad irony of the Vietnam War, is that although it was the first war to be televised, it’s the war with the most reluctance for its returned soldiers to talk about, due to the harsh labels pinned on these kids when they returned, “baby killers”, “murderers” were yelled at them when they first stepped foot back on ‘home’ soil.

There was no welcome home parade for these men and women.

And then, after the constant anxiety of staying alive for months on end in a jungle with constant attacks and explosions, these brave souls were basically forgotten, left to get on with a life they barely recognised, with little to no support.

This is the story Ken Higgins OAM has agreed to share, not to glorify war, but to acknowledge the sacrifice of those still living with inner turmoil, pay respect to those fallen and ensure the mistakes and sacrifices of the past aren’t white-washed and forgotten.

Forgetting the horrors of war proved impossible for Ken and his fellow conscripts.

"Nearly half of the Australians killed in Vietnam were conscripted soldiers, yet the Australian Government said conscripts were mainly to be utilised to make up the numbers... Yet the reality was that conscripts saw as much action as the full-time soldiers.

“In our platoon at least half of us were conscripts.”

The conflict which forever changed Mr Higgins’ life occurred on December 11, 1969. For the soldiers in Vietnam, it was a very different ‘Summer of ‘69’ than the one sung by Bryan Adams.

Amidst the dense jungle of Vietnam, fate dealt a cruel hand to a band of brothers.

"War correspondents were a relatively rare sight for us... until that day," Ken recounts with the rawness of memory. It was a day etched in blood and sorrow, a day when Lance Corporal Robert Buchan, known affectionately as Jock, met his untimely end.

Jock led his platoon through the treacherous terrain of the Nui May Tau Mountains. With every step, they made their way through the thick jungle canopy and traversed the thin line between life and death.

As they pressed forward, Private Kenneth Higgins, a forward scout, signalled the presence of an enemy bunker just 15 meters ahead. Jock, ever vigilant, halted the platoon's advance, sending a second scout to investigate. But fate, cruel and unyielding, intervened with ruthless efficiency.

The enemy, hidden amidst the canopy, advanced upon the unsuspecting soldiers. In the chaos that ensued, Jock was struck down by a hail of bullets to the chest, his young life extinguished in an instant. Nearby, Private Kenneth Higgins was wounded, his arm and leg torn by the onslaught.

Above the canopy, the rhythmic thud of helicopter blades signalled the arrival of salvation. An American medivac team descended upon the sight of contact, their mission clear: to rescue the wounded and retrieve the fallen.

The aftermath was captured by the war correspondent who was with them that day.

"It’s the only photo of an Australian soldier killed in action taken by a war correspondent in the Vietnam War," Ken reflected.

The photos capture the aftermath of the contact with L/Cpl Buchan’s body in view while an American ‘dust-off’ helicopter (Iroquois) hovered overhead to winch the injured Pte Higgins to safety as well as retrieve the body of the deceased.

“They winched me out of the jungle first as Jock was already dead and if they ran into strife they would have left him and returned later, but they were able to get Jock’s body out. There were no body bags or anything, they just had to tie him on and lift him out.”

The memory of that incursion still haunts Mr Higgins to this day, though his valiant stature rarely shows glimpses of the effect these and other moments in Vietnam left scarred on his soul.

“It was a horrible time but interwoven with the best of times which is hard to comprehend.

“But when faced with the horrors we were, you relied on the person beside you with your life, and that forms bonds which are still strong to this day, more than 50 years later.

“We knew we just had to hold on long enough to get out of there.

“It’s probably scarred us a lot more than we realise in the way we think. My wife recognises it in me, she says when bad things happen I show no emotion. But when you’ve seen the worst, whatever they dish up now is no worse than what we’ve been through.”

Mr Higgins said that a lot of the Vietnam Vets are dying very young, some through suicide and some through illness.

“I’m not saying we’re young now but we shouldn’t die yet, and a lot are dying sooner than they should.

“We’ve had people die in their 40’s and 50’s from a lot of cancer.

“We’re suspicious of the defoliants used during Vietnam and it leaching into the water and all sorts of stuff that stuck to us, all the poisonous agents.”

More than 20 years after returning home, Ken spent three weeks in Greenslopes hospital with a rash from one end of his body to the other.

“They had me in oil baths daily, wrapped me up like a mummy, I had to sleep in wet gear and they never told me what it was.

“We had a reunion back in the nineties, and out of the eight of us that slept in the same room, six of us had rashes.

“We’re seeing a lot of child deformities coming through, out of all of my mates nearly all of us have a child with something not quite right and not just the children but the grandchildren.

“But the Government won’t admit to any of that, we’re just told to ‘get over it’.

By Amanda Wright as originally printed in Mackay Life newspaper

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