At dawn on ANZAC Day, Iain Seabrook will pause to remember.
Whilst this year’s commemorations won’t be the same as any in living memory, the father of three will still stand quietly as the sun rises over the Barossa Ranges and think of his grandfather, Tom who was wounded in the Western Front, and his father, Douglas who was in the commando unit “up in Borneo”, with a sense of pride.
Yet there are other names etched deep within this retired, fourth generation wine merchant’s heart, those of the mates he fought alongside in Vietnam.
“I remember the people I was with that aren’t here anymore,” said Iain, a former private in the infantry.
“You remember the people who were around you that didn’t make it - even the ones who came home didn’t make it...”
Iain speaks of a unique bond, a concept he struggles to put into words.
“It’s a bond of camaraderie...doesn’t really matter what corp. you are in. I don’t see it in anybody’s normal daily life in this day and age. I think people in the military currently overseas would have the same thing.”
Seated under the vine covered verandah of his Tanunda home, Iain recalls the day he went to Vietnam like it was yesterday.
He was 18 years old and had just finished a stint working on a 3,500 square mile sheep station out at Tarcoola, his first job out of school.
“I came back home to Melbourne and said to dad, what am I going to do now? Have you got some work in the family company? He said oh no, you’ve got to have experience first, why don’t you join the army? I thought, why not? I’ve got nothing else to do, might as well do that.”
He joined the army on April 12, 1965 and went straight to Wagga for 12 weeks of recruit training, before heading to Inglburn to train in the infantry.
“I’d since found out there was a war going on. I didn’t know that when I first joined the army...you don’t read newspapers when you’re young!
“I was put into what they call reinforcement wing... reinforcement wing supplied soldiers who were required in Vietnam. Someone might have got sick, wounded or killed…and you went and replaced them.”
In April 1966, Iain was sent to Vietnam. He had to wear a normal every day shirt - anything other than army issue - as they flew Qantas into the Philippines.
“You weren’t allowed to look like an army person, this was due to the Indonesian confrontation and we were flying over Indonesia to get to Manila.”
The next day he flew Air France to Saigon.
“That was interesting. You were flying along, getting ready to land and the plane just dropped...I thought what on earth is going on? Apparently they used to get shot coming in to land.
“The bustle of American activity at Saigon was amazing. You get out and this blast of heat and humidity hits you and you wonder what on earth you’ve driven into!”
Iain was trucked into Bien Hoa air base as part of the Royal Australian Regiment, 1 Battalion where he remained on local patrols until early June when he was told to go south to Vung Tau.
“The Australian base was going to be near there,” Iain explained.
“The Colonel commanding 6 Battalion did a patrol around various areas of Nui Dat and said that’s where D Company will be, that’s where C Company will be and, I’m in B Company, that’s where we’ll be.
“I’m the forward scout out there and I can see people up in the bush where we are supposed to be going - you don’t know who they are. As an Australian soldier I had excellent training at that time, I didn’t fire at anybody but it turned out it was people from another Battalion which we didn’t know was even there - you could have killed them!
“Anyway, we settled in there at the Australian base. It’s at the start of the monsoon season, it’s raining, we’re in creeks of mud and water all that sort of thing, trying to sleep in little two man hutch type things, no decent tents or anything. You dig a gun pit to jump in if you had to and the next morning it would be full of water!”
Nui Dat base developed over time with “proper tents” and “decent wire protection” which everyone manned in shifts, 24 hours a day.
Waking up before dawn was routine as was doing patrols at all hours and either maintaining the base, helping to build infrastructure, or heading out on operations.
“85-90 percent of the time you were out in the bush...You can’t switch off – you’re fully alert, you switch off and you are dead,” Iain said.
One of the most significant operations in Vietnam’s notoriously thick rubber plantation would become etched in the Australian psyche - the Battle of Long Tan about 5 km from the base at Nui Dat.
“With Long Tan, half of our B Company went out to support D Company, the one heavily involved in the battle, the ones being decimated.
“You could hear the battle going on out there. Lots of explosions and gun fire...in amongst all the artillery shells going over the top of us.
“Half our company was told to stay there. They were near D company and were told not to interfere, we didn’t know why. We think the enemy wanted to get rid of them and then come flying through our base who knows...it didn’t happen though, thank heavens.
“That was fairly hairy.”
Eighteen Australians were killed and 24 wounded in the Battle of Long Tan, the most publicised and documented Australian battle of the Vietnam War.
“The other big one that happened to B Company 6 Battalion was on February 17, 1967,” said Iain.
“That’s when the enemy set up an ambush on us and they enticed us into an area. The operation was called Operation Bribie. We were flying in by helicopter, it was called a “hot landing”...In other words, because the helicopters had been fired on, they weren’t landing.
“I was the last one out and I was kicked out six feet off the ground so you had to jump.
“We lost seven blokes that day and one Armoured Personnel Carrier. It wasn’t good they were waiting for us. They basically had the upper hand.”
Iain said he didn’t know what they were going into at the time and every ounce of training kicked in.
“The (Viet Cong) were based in some very tall timber which protected them from artillery. They couldn’t be seen properly. It was not a good environment to be in because normally we call the shots, this time they were.
“Of course you’re frightened, but you just couldn’t let it get to you because you just had to be so vigilant, you didn’t have time for it.
“Anyway, we got out of there alright.”
Iain said B Company was also known nicknamed the phantom company.
“In other words, in the early stages and mid way through, we had never been caught out. We controlled what we did.”
After 12 months in Vietnam, Iain returned to Australia in a four engine RAAF Hercules and he still remembers the big old motors whirring for hours on end.
He ended up in Townsville barracks where he concluded his three years in the infantry.
“You are proud to have been infantry and survive Vietnam – thank heavens!”
Iain would travel to the Barossa a number of times whilst working with his wine merchant father’s business and was keen to call it home one day. He managed to secure vineyard and cellar work at Saltram, then at Chateau Tanunda in the brandy bond.
He met a lovely girl named Wendy at the Gawler Arms Hotel, they married and raised three children who Iain proudly said all reside within 15 minutes of their Tanunda home where the couple have lived since 1977.
Life is good, yet the memories of Vietnam have not faded for the 73 year old.
He’s been back there three times with Wendy and still “feels nervous” when touring certain sites as he remembers a year that changed his life.
“It was a surreal, hyper intense 12 months. It had lots of downs, a few ups but you always had support from all the people around you – always.”
Whilst he still wakes up at 4.15 a.m. and concedes to never having a full night’s sleep or touching a firearm since Vietnam, Iain finds solace in contributing to Legacy and attending a reunion at Bribie Island in Queensland on February 17 each year to remember those young men who fought and died at the Battle of Bribie more than 50 years ago.
It’s here where memories are shared and friendships are cherished.
“It’s a matter of remembering,” said Iain.
“You don’t want it to happen again but really, you know it will – it never stops.
“Lest we forget.”
