When Gosnells resident Desmond Hayes returned to Australia after serving in the Vietnam War there was little fanfare.
He has seen in recent years an increase in support for Vietnam veterans – a trend he hopes will continue as Anzac Day approaches.
Mr Hayes joined the air force as a 22-year-old in 1964 where he worked as an aircraft metal worker.
He had wanted to be a pilot so for him the air force was the next best thing.
By 1968 Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War had expanded and Mr Hayes was sent to join the effort, leaving behind his wife Kaye and two eldest children.
“Leaving my wife behind was very hard and she suffered too,” he said.
“Our eldest son was only four at the time and his friend up the road said to him ‘oh your dad’s dead,’ which upset him and Kaye had to deal with that.
“The wife used to write a letter every day and we used to have fun with it because Kaye’s handwriting was not the best so it would take a while to decipher.
“On our cupboards we’d have a calendar and you’d count down the days you had to go before you could go home.
“The song We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place was played all the time as well.”
While Mr Hayes was in Vietnam his job was to fix the planes that came into the Phan
Rang base and get them back into the air as quickly as possible.
“We only had eight planes and they all had to be flying so we had to keep working until we got that plane back into the air,” he said.
“It was a lot safer for us than it was for the army boys because they had to go out in the jungle and fight but I must say we had a couple of rocket attacks.”
He said one of the other dangers threatening the base was the fact the enemy could be anywhere and often remained hidden.
“There used to be a Vietnamese barber who cut the Americans’ hair on the base and one day he was killed trying to come through the fence because it turned out he was VC (Viet Cong),” he said.
“They tried to come through the fence a couple of times but they always got turned back.”
Mr Hayes left Vietnam and was discharged from the air force by 1970.
He said it was good to reunite with his family but the reception from the public was less warm.
“When we came back, we got nothing,” he said.
“I tried to get work after but nobody seemed to want to know me and if anything they would spit at you.
“In the last 10 or 15 years the reception has changed quite a bit and in the last couple of years we’ve had people stop and shake our hands and say ‘thanks for the service mate’.
“It’s all coming out now but it should have been like that when we first came back.”
This Anzac Day, Mr Hayes will reflect on the mates he met in the air force and the comradeship between all those who served together in Vietnam.
He was encouraged by the recent increase of people attending dawn services on Anzac Day.
“There are so many people coming to dawn services these days and it’s great to see,” he said.
“I hope people appreciate what the servicemen have done for them because if it weren’t for us we wouldn’t have a free country.”
Dawn service
The Gosnells dawn service run the Gosnells RSL will begin with a march from the Coles car park on Albany Highway at 6.30am to the War Memorial at the civic centre.
The memorial service will begin at 7am, followed by a gunfire breakfast.
