This extract — from testimony given at the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation staged in the US by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 — is part of the latest propaganda tool in the Left’s pursuit of George W. Bush and John Howard.

It features prominently in Nam Bang!, a new touring exhibition that “examines the consequences of the Viet Nam War from a generational and international perspective.’ In reality, it is a grubby pretext for aged Vietnam protestors to maintain the rage. And once again, Vietnam veterans are the pawns in their ideological battle against the West.

Van Thanh Rudd, nephew of Kevin and a notorious Howard hater, is one of the artists represented in Nam Bang! His most infamous work is titled “Genocide: The Australian Scream,” featuring an explosion-like montage with the heads of John Howard and George Bush and a burning Australian flag. His other artistic perversion, “Portrait of an Exploding terrorist” has seen him booted out of the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane and removed from the Trocadero Art Space in Footscray. This piece has now found a home at the Nam Bang! exhibition.

The painting shows a terrorist, bearing the head of Christ, exploding on the forecourt of the Opera House, under the flags of the US, Britain, Israel and Australia. On his website, Van Thanh Rudd describes the painting as “an attempt to illustrate the death and destruction, on a mass scale, that accompanies ‘western-style democracy,’ where its economic model of global capitalism relentlessly seeks to profit from ‘underdeveloped’ countries. I’m trying to express the terror that leading western ‘democracies’ inflict upon countries who attempt to defy this unsustainable, economic system.”

Looking down on Rudd’s deranged artwork is a montage of offensive, humourless cartoons depicting John Howard as a “miserable bastard selfish prick”. Such is art.

Nam Bang! is at the Casula Powerhouse Art Centre in western Sydney until June 21. The irony of Gough Whitlam’s old electorate hosting an offensive Vietnam exhibition has not been lost on former Vietnamese refugees. Whitlam did his damned best to stop them coming to Australia. As communist tanks rolled into Saigon he cabled the Australian embassy: “Locally engaged [Vietnamese] embassy staff are not to be regarded as endangered by their Australian embassy associations and therefore should not, repeat not, be granted entry to Australia.”

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese “boat people” were to perish at sea in their bid to escape Whitlam’s new communist allies.

After the dismissal new Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, reversed Whitlam’s inhumane policy on Vietnamese refugees and offered them safe-haven in Australia.

It was a turbulent time in our history. Conscription and our involvement in the war provided the media with a daily diet of headline news. The new medium, television, beamed reports from the war-zone directly into our lounge-rooms. It provided a rich node of discontent for the Left to tap during our longest and most divisive military engagement.

Our diggers were caught in a classic military-political pincer movement. As the North Vietnamese army manoeuvred against them in Phuoc Tuy, province the political Left mobilised on the streets of our major cities. Heroic battles at Long Tan, Coral, Balmoral and Binh Ba were overshadowed by moratorium marches in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.

Unions refused to load ships and deliver mail for our troops. Returning veterans were greeted with abuse and mocked as “baby-killers”. They felt betrayed. Many took to the bush and the grog.

Private Mark Gladwell got a job with the Transport Workers Union. As he threw his old battle jacket into the truck, the union official noticed the shoulder flash with “Royal Australian Regiment” inscribed on it. “Where have you been?” asked the official. “Vietnam,” replied Mark. “Get out of the truck and get out of here,” bellowed the union official.

Mark took to the grog and fought his demons for years. His son, Sean, an accomplished artist, displays a work at Nam Bang! based on his father’s tattoos and bearing his regiment’s insignia. Along with contributions from a couple of other acclaimed artists, Sean’s work provides a mask of credibility for communist sympathisers, Islamic appeasers and Howard haters to continue their propaganda against our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Communist atrocities during the Vietnam War have been airbrushed from the exhibition. “Re-education camps,” where hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were tortured and brainwashed, don’t rate a mention. Some of the survivors of the camps stood in silent protest at the official opening of Nam Bang!

“George W Bush needed an ape without a brain. An ape who would sell his soul to the devil himself.” This is the caption of a cartoon showing a farting John Howard swinging from a tree proclaiming, “I’m king of the apes”. Obviously, nothing is sacred in the Left’s pursuit of Bush and Howard for their leadership in the war against terror.

Not even the reopening of the old scars of our Vietnam veterans.

A large rally of protesters waving Republic of Vietnam flags was an early indication of the veracity of the Ministers observations.

A traditional ‘burning of the dog’ ceremony was interesting and well received. Viewing a display by the son of a Vietnam Veteran, Sean Gladwell, was a highlight. His father Mark, is an old friend and it was great to catch up with him after many years. He had many demons to fight after the war.

I was transfixed on the haunting Image of a Dead Man by Ron Beattie. I have seen that jacket on many vets over the years. I moved past the paintings depicting the communist North Vietnamese stories and wondered if that was what the protest rally was about. I found them interesting and saw nothing in them that could offend.

I later realised it was what they didn’t depict that was offensive.

I then moved up to the largest, most visible wall that seemed to display cartoons of the war – a bit of light relief depicting our Diggers humour in Vietnam no doubt. Wrong. The entire wall was a crude, humourless, offensive display against John Howard.

What the hell has this got to do with the Vietnam War I thought? I knew the exhibition was about the aftermath of Vietnam but lampooning John Howard’s commitment to the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is a long bow. ‘George W Bush needed an ape without a brain. An ape who would sell his soul to the devil himself . . . you miserable bastard selfish prick’ captioned a farting John Howard swinging from a tree with one hand and holding a banana in the other. It got worse.

The artist was obviously deranged. I believe the curator erred by allowing his offensive bile to be put on public display. I would certainly not classify it as ‘art’.

Another display depicting the American soldier in Vietnam was equally ‘confronting’. ‘He went over there, ripped her clothes off, and took a knife and cut her vagina almost all the way up, just about to her breast, and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them away. Then he stooped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there . . . as a sign of something or other’.

‘Wait a minute’, I thought. ‘What about the atrocities committed by the Communists against the South Vietnamese to ‘encourage’ them to join the Viet Cong? ‘

And what about the great work of our Uc-Dai-Loi [Australian]Civic Action Teams?

And why display the worst of the American atrocities? Obviously because there is no evidence of any Australian atrocities committed. At least the American perpetrators were publicly exposed and dealt with under their democratic system. Communists don’t have such a system – they just shoot the whistle-blowers! It’s a fundamental difference between communist and democratic societies.

The Communist atrocities have obviously been airbrushed from the exhibition. Now I was beginning to understand the reasons for the rally outside.

Communist ‘re-education camps’ are also a serious aftermath of the war for many Vietnamese living in Australia. A number of ‘graduates’ bearing the physical and emotional scars of years of torture in these camps feel betrayed by the exhibition. Some were standing quietly in the rally against the exhibition.

So back to John Howard. If they were going to lampoon him, what about Gough Whitlam?

Cabinet papers released over recent years reveal the extent to which Whitlam went to appease the Communist government in North Vietnam. Whitlam would not allow Vietnamese refugees or ‘boat people’ to come to Australia. He even betrayed the Vietnamese who worked for our embassy. “Locally engaged [Vietnamese] embassy staff are not to be regarded as endangered by their Australian embassy associations and therefore should not, repeat not, be granted entry to Australia,” was the shameful instruction he sent just before the fall of Saigon.

After Whitlam’s dismissal Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser reversed that inhumane decision and provided safe-haven for thousands of Vietnamese refugees, or ‘asylum seekers’ in today’s parlance. John Howard was a key member of the Fraser government when that decision was made.

If it was not for Malcolm Fraser and John Howard there would not be a Vietnamese community in Australia. There would not be any ‘aftermath’ from the Vietnamese artists to display. This is not depicted in the Nam Bang exhibition.

I am not an art critic and I tried to keep an open mind about the exhibition and what it was supposed to represent. But I left with the strong feeling that the exhibition was a crude front for communist sympathisers, Islamic apologists and Howard haters. Association with the war in Vietnam gives them a perverted relevance they would never otherwise have.

Forty days before he woke from a landmine that blew his right leg into the Niu Dat minefield, blasted his right arm off, shattered his left arm, ripped his stomach to shreds, and peppered his body with shrapnel, Sapper John ‘Jethro’ Thompson mumbled to me: ‘I’m not getting out of the army mate – they’re gunna have to build a special dozer I can drive’.  ‘No worries Jethro’, I said ‘they’ll do that!’ 

He was a handsome 21 year old regular soldier who had already seen active service in Borneo during confrontation.  I was a 21 year old raw nasho.  We were on exercise in North Queensland in late ‘66 when the call came for volunteers to go to Vietnam.  Within 24 hours we were on our way to the jungle warfare school at Canungra and a month later we touched down in Saigon on the 4th January 1967 – a day before my first wedding anniversary!

Jethro was assigned to the minefield at Nui Dat.  I was operating bulldozers constructing our logistic base at Vung Tau.  The helipad near the US Army field hospital was one of our early tasks.

It was just four months after the crucial battle of Long Tan and Australian commanders were driving our sappers to lay a protective minefield around the Task Force base.  It was hot, sweaty, dangerous work.

Nobody knows what happened that day.  Jethro was arming land-mines when they were hit.  An explosion lifted him in the air and threw him onto his back.  His mates in the squad were blasted but Jethro took the full brunt of the deadly mix of explosive powder and jagged shrapnel.

As I raced to the helipad the bloodied bodies had just arrived and were carried by desperate medics into the field hospital.  Surgical teams went into immediate action and six hours later Jethro, his body swathed in bloody bandages, was wheeled into the ward.  Stumps stuck out where his arms used to be.  Another stump where his leg used to be. Huge clamps held his stomach together.  Shrapnel fragments peppered his face. 

Within a couple of days two sappers in the squad died of their wounds.  Jethro defied the odds – his subconscious mind was already planning what he was going to do when he got better – not if.  He has no conscious memory of his first 40 days in that ward full of young limbless soldiers.  I recall many conversations with him – all of them positive.

During my vigil at his bedside I received news that one of my five brothers had been killed in a car accident at home. It took two weeks to find out which one.  A far cry from the ‘embedded’ communications we have in army units today.

Six months later Jethro was a patient at Heidelberg Repat Hospital – I was a student at the Officer Cadet School, Portsea.  It was a dramatic upgrade for both of us. During a weekend visit he looked down at his healing stumps and mused, ‘this is all I’ve got left mate – I’ve got to make the best use of it’. 

He did just that.

Fitted with a new arm complete with a shining chrome hook, and a mechanical leg, he settled into a new job with the Public Service. Soon after he met Judy, an attractive Vietnam war widow with two children, Justine and Dominic. After a brief courtship they married and soon Danielle, Diedre and Judith joined the family roll.  He boasted that he didn’t lose everything in that fateful land-mine blast.

The bliss of family life was soon shattered when Judy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was just 31.  How could life be so cruel to one so beautiful?  He nursed her until the day she died.

Now a single dad with 5 children he learned that changing nappies was not easy for a bloke with only a reconstructed thumb and finger.  He joked that the babies got more pinpricks than the shrapnel pellets he got from the land-mine explosion!  Simple chores were major challenges but Jethro was a sapper – and sappers are trained to find ways around obstacles.  The role of the Royal Australian Engineers is to enhance the mobility of our troops and impede the mobility of the enemy.  It often requires a high degree of ‘sappernuity’. 

Hanging nappies on the Hills Hoist was just one of the daily challenges he faced.  How we take things for granted!

Jethro was not alone in his struggle.  His army mates and Legacy kept a watchful eye on the family and were ever ready to help.  But as time went by he noticed some of them starting to fall apart.

A stunning woman caught his eye at a Legacy function.  He learned her name was Perle and she was an army widow with two young boys, Ian and Anthony.  They chatted and it was soon game over for Jethro.  They married soon after.

The plight of Vietnam Veterans was recognised amongst peers but ignored by government and the RSL at the time.  An association of Vietnam Veterans was established and Jethro left his job to become a full time advocate for his mates.  He joined Legacy to help other service widows and their children.  It was the least he could for them.

During our bicentennial year in 1988 he received the ‘RSL Achiever of the Year Award’ for his selfless service to veterans.

In 2006 he was made a member of the Order of Australia. 

It has been a remarkable journey for the skinny 11 year old immigrant who arrived in Australia on 26 January 1956. Flags were not an issue in those days.  Australia had fought off the Japanese just eleven years before.  We knew who and what we were.

But forty years on Jethro’s war injuries are creeping up on him.  His left shoulder needed major surgery because of the years supporting his large frame on crutches.  His left arm, the only one he has, is now useless.  Excruciating lower back pain keeps him immobile for days on end.  Last year open heart surgery was required to replace a faulty mitral valve.

A later keyhole operation resulted in an infection that attacked his new valve.  A blood clot broke off and lodged in his spleen.  Repat surgeons decided there was no option but to replace the valve with a mechanical device – immediately!

As the sun rose on the 50th anniversary of Jethro’s arrival in his adopted country an emergency team scrubbed up for a marathon operation at Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital.  Jethro had just one request.  He wanted to see an Australian flag on the end of his bed when he woke up.

I was lucky to get a late flight to Brisbane on the eve of Australia Day.  I met Perle who had little sleep from the night before.  We expected a three hour operation.  Four hours went by – we pretended not to notice the time.  Five hours.  It was getting harder to maintain the pretence.  Perle picked up the phone in the intensive care waiting room.  He was OK.  The valve had ulcerated and it took them an additional couple of hours to work through the complications.

The call ended but Perle held the phone for a few seconds as the relief washed through her.  We were told he would take a few hours to come round.  Perle had time for a quiet rest at home.

I waited because I was the first bloke Jethro saw when he came out of the operating theatre in Vung Tau 40 years ago. I thought it might be a good omen to be around when he woke up this time as we all feared the worst.

I will never forget the moment.  He reached out with his stump and I grabbed it – his eyes expressed an urgency I had never seen before.  We stayed gripped together for the next hour while he dozed in and out of consciousness.  As he came to he began to grin and squeeze my hand between his stump and his side. 

He was in good care.  A charming, attractive nurse maintained an attentive vigil at the end of his bed.  A young doctor hovered around.  High tech instruments monitored every bodily function – a far cry from the pressurized ward in that army field hospital 40 years ago!

This time he opened his eyes a little further and his face lit up – he sighted the Australian flag on the end of his bed!

Australia Day has different meanings for different people.  For Jethro’s family –his wife Perle, their seven children and 12 grandchildren, and to all the mates who know of his plight,  it is the celebration of the survival of a young immigrant digger who has given his all for his adopted country.

Jethro’s spirit is an inspiration to us all.  His laconic wit has never left him.  Before Christmas he wanted to go to a show in the city.  His mate, Peter Ferguson, called him to say the prices were outrageous – it would cost an arm and a leg. ‘I’ll send Perle then’, Jethro said, ‘I can’t afford to go’.

On arrival back in Sydney I received a note from Annie Philiben:    

‘I was the nurse on duty when he arrived on the post op ward. I never forgot that fighter.   One of the things you probably didn’t know was that after 7 or so surgeries to clean his amputations (shorten the limbs) he was doing real well. Then he became extremely ill and for days we had no idea what the problem was.  Finally they took him to surgery and found he had an infected gall bladder.  The surgeons just wanted to drain the gall bladder but a false move caused the gall bladder to rupture and all that infected goo went over his belly. This is really a bad thing to happen. We were very worried about him. He had such high fevers and was so out of it.  One day a nurse noted that my uniform was full of holes.  It was from the silver nitrate solution we used on burns, it used to splash back on us and made holes in our uniforms.  She said “Annie what happened to your uniform.”  I told her about the silver nitrate and said “one of these days the whole uniform is just going to fall off.”  John lifted his head and said “I sure hope I’m there that day.”  He was better.  It was hard not to cry’.

It still is Annie!

The threatened collapse of nation states in our Pacific neighbourhood and the scourge of terrorism have awakened Australia to the need for a more proactive leadership role in the South Pacific region.

Since World War 11 Australia has punched well above its weight on the international stage. European Union and ASEAN trading blocks and powerful domestic lobby groups in the United States have not precluded us from successfully penetrating overseas markets. We took on the world to win the 2000 Olympic Games for Sydney and we have been America’s most loyal ally in the international struggle against communism, socialism and the more recent war against terrorism. Our early and generous response to the Asian tsunami gained international acclaim.

But whilst our international gaze has been well over the Pacific horizon a crisis has emerged in our very own neighbourhood – the island chain extending from Timor in the northwest through West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Solomons and Fiji. This island chain is now regarded as our arc of instability.

Recent reports from the Centre of Independent Studies, the Menzies Research Centre and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have traced our historical ties with each of these nation states and the impact of our withdrawal from anything smacking of neo-colonialism in the 1970s. More ominously they have highlighted the failure of our aid policies over the decades since they were granted independence from their colonial administrators.

Those with expertise in the region warn of catastrophic consequences for Australia and the island nation states if the impending crisis is not arrested.

This realization has led to direct intervention in Timor and The Solomons, a change in our aid policy from a ‘magic pudding’ concept to a ‘tied-aid’ policy formula, a more forthright role in the Pacific Forum, and the implementation of an Enhanced Cooperation Program (ECP) for Papua New Guinea which was destined to fail. The ECP was estimated to cost $800 million over five years in addition to our annual aid budget of $320 million. It was cut short because of a constitutional challenge in the PNG courts. The sudden influx of funds into PNG caused former Prime Minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, to express a word of caution:

“I am worried that the Enhanced Cooperation Program is too much at once, and expensive for what it might achieve’ he wrote. What is critical for any measure of success is for Papua New Guinean officials to be deeply involved in it and for people to see tangible accomplishments soon.”

Sir Mekere understands his people.

Each of the reports I mentioned has made a significant contribution to the debate about the significance of our relationship with PNG and our international responsibility as a leader in the region.

But, as I stand before you here today, it is difficult to see a solution to the challenges PNG faces with the diversity and complexity of its 800 plus cultural groups separated by formidable physical barriers with little or no communications between them.

When I first began trekking Kokoda during the ‘90’s, PNG began to experience major economic and social problems. Curfews were introduced in Port Moresby because of a breakdown of law and order; the local currency crashed; a major political crisis erupted when mercenaries were recruited to fight in Bougainville; billions of dollars in international aid money was wasted; mining and exploration closed down; a bloated public service with up to 7500 ‘ghost’ workers was unable to deliver essential social services to rural areas where 85% of the population live; urban drift from remote villages to major population centres in Port Moresby and Lae created chronic problems within wantok settlements; and corruption emerged in the political system.

The problems now faced by PNG seem almost insurmountable and have recently been the subject of a number of reports on cause and effect with positive suggestions for remedial action.

Our practical experience in dealing with a subject as meaningful as Kokoda indicates that we have much work to do in order to develop an empathetic understanding of our closest neighbour. Indeed, if we don’t begin to develop realistic intangible goals in this area now, then we risk failing in our endeavours to assist them in overcoming their problems.

Our model for a Kokoda National Memorial Park was based on the premise that it should provide a self-sustaining eco-trekking industry for the Koiari and Orokaiva people who live along it and that is should protect the historical, cultural and environmental integrity of the track. Once completed the plan would be used as a model for the development of a self-sustaining eco-tourism industry within PNG. We saw it as a small contribution we could make to the people who helped us so much during the war in the Pacific and who now need a hand themselves.

Our first obstacle was a prevailing attitude within government that the Kokoda Trail is the responsibility of the Department of Veterans Affairs. All communication with Ministers of other departments resulted in a reply that politely advised us that ‘PNG is a sovereign country’, and that our inquiry had been referred to the Minster for Veterans Affairs for a more detailed response. Only a bureaucratic staffer could have drafted such a patronising response!

We argued that proper recognition of Kokoda involved a number of departments – Foreign Affairs, Defence, Veterans Affairs, Education, Environment and the Arts. We proposed that an interdepartmental team of advisors be formed to join with their PNG counterparts and trek across the Kokoda Trail to gain a proper understanding of what it represented, and what needed to be done to have it proclaimed as a national memorial park.

We have not been successful in this regard but as we now know increasing numbers of Australians, young and old, are now beginning to trek across Kokoda.

Our experience in working with PNG and various government agencies has provided a valuable insight into the challenges faced in developing any type of sustainable tourism operations based on the history of the Pacific War.

Australian trekkers arriving in Port Moresby for the first time are struck by the squalor of the settlements surrounding the city, the countless thousands of unemployed people, and the forbidding razor wire wrapped around every house in the city.

After spending their first night in a heavily guarded 4-star hotel they catch a charter flight over the Owen Stanley Ranges to the village of Kokoda.

As they move from the airfield, which was a key factor in the decision to send troops to Kokoda in July 1942, they are greeted with shouts of ‘Oro! Oro! Oro!’ (Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!) as they climb the plateau towards the village. ‘Kokoda’ is an Orokaiva word meaning ‘place of skulls’. Australia’s first Victoria Cross winner, Private Bruce Kingsbury was buried here. His body was transferred to Bomana War Cemetery after the war.

On the north western edge of the plateau is a large generator installed when PNG was governed as a mandated territory by Australia. It has been idle for more than 20 years and the network of power poles connecting houses and administration buildings are derelict and rotting. A large disused concrete tank is a haunting reminder that the village once had a water and sewerage system.

As trekkers follow the footsteps of the brave back along the track they come into direct contact with remote village communities. On day 3 they arrive at Templeton’s Crossing which is the boundary between Oro and Central Province. The Orokaiva and Mountain Koiari clans in this area have been converted to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They stay converted under the watchful eye of local pastors who conduct church services twice daily at 6.00 am and 6.00 pm. Children with angelic voices and swollen bellies sing hymns in perfect harmony.

A noticeable aspect of village life is the absence of young men who are either working in distant gardens or have gone down the track to seek better opportunities amongst the bright lights of Moresby. Older men sit around their huts while women care for the village, nurture the young and prepare the meals.

Those who venture down to Moresby find there is little work available and are soon reliant on their ‘wan tok’ system for sustenance. Some turn to crime to meet basic needs while others join the fasting growing industry in the country – security! Thousands of uniformed guards with fierce dogs are trucked into the city before dusk each day to stop their own people trying to breach the razor wire fortresses around Moresby.

Back in the villages trekkers notice basic Aid projects designed to support subsistence living in remote areas. Water systems, classrooms and medical centres are in various states of repair due to a lack of recurrent funding for maintenance, school/medical supplies and wages.

Despite these daily challenges villages are warm, friendly and generous with their offerings of food and assistance to trekkers. The legacy of their ‘fuzzy wuzzy angel forbears is evident to all who trek Kokoda. During their ordeal they establish bonds with local guides who tell them of their daily struggle for survival and of their plans for the future.

On return to our affluent society many trekkers want to help but they soon find this is easier said than done. There is no guarantee that clothing parcels, medical supplies, electronic goods or even letters will reach the intended recipient due to the lack of a reliable distribution service to remote villages. Phone, fax and email communications are out of the question. Assistance with educational programs are almost impossible to monitor as school fees are easily misappropriated and students often substituted.

This may well be the reason why World Vision does not have a sponsorship program for PNG students!

What needs to be done?

Short term:

Access to seasonal labour markets
Student scholarship programs
Sporting scholarships
Public and private enterprise exchange programs
Village Partnerships in agriculture and eco/cultural tourism
Assistance with Police, the Judiciary, the army. Teachers, doctors and nurses.
Establishment of ‘Village Cooperatives’

Long Term