The Vietnam Years: From the Jungle to the Australian Suburbs, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2007
Contains many extracts from interviews with both Vietnam veterans and Australians who opposed our involvement in the war. There are recollections of both the conflict in Vietnam and the conflict on the home front as well as the after effects. Comparisons might be drawn between the depictions of division on the home front with the similar picture during World War I.
Some of the chapter headings are revealing, sourced from the remarks of those interviewed: ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ ‘If we look like having another war, send the frigging politicians’. When the book was written, Vietnam had been Australia’s longest war; now that record belongs to the war in Afghanistan. The author talks about his book here.
An article about the decision to rewrite part of the history of the Vietnam War to give greater recognition to the effects of Agent Orange on servicemen.
