A small crowd gathers at dawn in a tiny western NSW town to remember their service, as soldiers and settlers, to carve out a place in the community’s history
Vietnam veteran Gware Green does not look forward to“It brings back all the bad memories, all of your friends that didn’t come back in one piece,” he says.Green’s close friend Michael Noonan was 21 when he died. He and Green were in the same battalion, but served in different companies. “I was almost alongside of him but didn’t know until two days later.”
The commander gave him a dressing down because Green’s father had been publishing his son’s letters home in the local paper, to inform the community about what was happening in the war. Fordham and Charnley’s fathers weren’t farmers before the war but Fordham says “they were all used to hard work, doing dirty work, doing any kind of work.” Malone’s father was a farmer.
He says the soldier settlers had to build their own houses, fence them, and do their farming all with no modern machinery like forklifts and front-end loaders. “Everything done by hand.”Although the men’s fathers served in different countries, Charnley says their overseas service was a common bond. They formed the local RSL and built a community hall.
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