Rescued from Vietnam

By Michael Hosking

Following his service as an Intelligence Infantryman with the Australian Army, Michael Hosking relates his engrossing journey of recovery from PTSD. Honouring the valour of the original 7th Battalion, he recounts his experiences during the Vietnam War and pays homage to the brave who fell in many battles.
The narrative includes his early years during a colourful, larrikin youth, and how the Army plucked him from civilian life, trained him to fight, and sent him sailing to Vietnam on the great adventure. But he discovers confusion, fear, and resentment in Vietnam, as he survives the jungle and enjoys mateship, but fights internal struggles, pain, and guilt over the war.
Troubles upon returning home are myriad, death and grief follow him, and seeking peace, he journeys overseas to recover his identity, make sense of life, and be released from the effects of PTSD.
Humorous adventures unfold across Europe and east along the Hippie Trail through Central Asia, where intriguing and gradual recovery from PTSD takes place in his heart. His spiritual journey of discovery, release, and outreach includes life-changing travels to impoverished African countries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514442685

Michael Hosking

Michael Hosking is an ex-National Serviceman who served with 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, in the Vietnam conflict. Born in Melbourne just after WWII and now a retired API property valuer, he is married with three children, living in Dromana, Victoria. Realising how insidious and pervasive PTSD can be to a returned soldier’s life, Michael hopes his story will encourage veterans everywhere to seek and accomplish their recovery.

Book preview

Review by Kirkus Indie

M ichael Hosking recounts his experiences in Vietnam and his life with post-traumatic stress disorder in this non-fiction d ebut.

When the author received his summons to join the Australian Military Forces at the end of 1965, his feelings were mixed, comprised of ‘patriotic compliance, employment relief, and emotional discontent’. Raised on tales of World War 11 heroism and a deep hatred for Communism, his peers were eager to protect the democracy of South Vietnam from the treat of invasion from the North.

Yet the author quickly became disillusioned by his military activities, such as seizing crops, forcibly re-locating civilians, and fighting an enemy who appeared to be underfed teenagers. He survived the war but returned to Australia feeling lost and empty; he proposed to his girlfriend but then called off the engagement. He watched with interest and revulsion as the Australian public turned against the war, and as the counterculture swept through the United States.

After Saigon fell in 1975, the author decided he needed to get away from it all: he bought a ticket to Athens, Greece, and spent months traveling through Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, running away from his past even as he sought to find a purer, deeper version of himself. Michael Hosking is a natural storyteller, weaving his personal narrative through the larger historical and cultural contexts that support it.

The first chapter, for example, begins with the image of the author as a soldier, nervously pointing his rifle at a young Vietnamese farmer and wondering, ‘Does he have a weapon concealed under the straw?’ He then offers a concise but comprehensive explanation of the origins of the conflict, replete with Australian-style color commentary (he refers to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for example, as ‘two German dropkicks’), before resolving the story of the standoff between him and the villager.

The globe-trotting nature of this memoir sets it apart from the familiar there-and-back-again structure of American experiences in Vietnam. Seeing the war through the eyes of an Australian conscript, who then travels widely on a semi-redemptive pilgrimage, puts the struggles of Vietnam and PTSD in a different light for American readers.

A memoir with a colorful, empathetic voice.

Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, Austin, TX 78744

Rescued

from

Vietnam

A veteran’s recovery from PTSD

Michael Hosking

Copyright © 2016 by Michael Hosking.

Cover Photograph reproduced with thanks and by permission of Mr. Phan Cu, Mandarin Café, 24 Tran Cao Van St, Hue City, Viet Nam.

Rising Sun Military Badges approved by an appointed delegate of the Minister for Defence pursuant to the Defence Act 1903, Department of Defence, Canberra ACT 2600

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015918690

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-4266-1

               Softcover       978-1-5144-4267-8

               eBook            978-1-5144-4268-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 05/18/2016

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Contents

Dedication

Preface

Chapter 1 Commitment to a Cause

Chapter 2 Training Hard in Uniform

Chapter 3 Early Years

Chapter 4 Voyage to the South China Sea

Chapter 5 The Smell of Mildew in the Morning

Chapter 6 Vietnamese Resentment

Chapter 7 Into the Jungle

Chapter 8 I should have been there—August 6

Chapter 9 We Will Remember Them—Cobbers, Diggers, Mates

Chapter 10 Going Home to Struggle

Chapter 11 Standing Up to Life

Chapter 12 Travels in the Wild

Chapter 13 Across Europe—Someone Following Me?

Chapter 14 East Is East and Is Strange

Chapter 15 True to the Calling

Chapter 16 What the Future Brings

Chapter 17 Africa Is Dark, Is Poor

Chapter 18 Walkin’ the Walk

Acknowledgments

Glossary of Aussie Slang

In memory of Ray Fraser, Roger Pettit,

Keith King, ‘Hash’ Hutton,

John ‘Speedy’ O’Connor, James ‘Gabby’ Hayes,

and all who gave everything.

A.jpg

Dedication

My story is dedicated to the brave men and women who fought for freedom, to those who gave everything, and to the returned soldiers, peacekeepers, fire fighters, policemen and ambulance paramedics who pay the price, those who struggle with the exasperating condition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

These pages are dedicated to my family, and to the families of those who fell—the wives, parents, siblings, and children who live with their grief and loss. This book in particular recognises the sacrifice of the Australian Diggers and the American GIs, especially those involved in the Vietnam War.

I salute and honour all the courageous ones who suffer from PTSD, for you have faced the abyss, and I acknowledge the dedicated medical staff who nursed, and still nurse, the veterans with expertise, counsel, and comfort.

This emotional journey is dedicated to you all in the hope that you will one day seek your peace, bring forgiveness, and recover.

Preface

F riends who knew something of my life asked why I had not written my story; I would shrug and say it was all ‘too hard basket’. When thinking back, especially to the Vietnam days, I realised my memory banks contained many long buried incidents, which seemed too painful, regretful, or stupid to bother digging up.

Honestly, I didn’t think there would be much interest in a Vietnam veteran’s story any more. But people said they would be interested, they wanted to know exactly what a soldier goes through—heart and soul.

One day I pulled out the letters my mother had kept from my time with the Australian Defence Force in 1967. After forty-five years of unwillingness to go there, somehow I found the guts to open them. So with encouragement from friends, patience from my wife (most of the time), and those letters I started to write, fearing what I might find, thinking perhaps it would be good for me, and for others.

I have woven summaries of heroic and tragic battles into the narrative to honour the brave who paid the ultimate price, as well as those who survived the trauma. They have inspired me to appreciate my freedom, and to reach out to returned veterans in their struggles with PTSD. For those who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies, there are many fond recollections.

My story includes the Vietnam days, painful struggles upon returning and travel across two continents. Following those wanderings and heartfelt searching, my soul began its restoration with compelling events in the Subcontinent. In further travels, I gained an understanding of the cultural complexities and hardships surrounding life in Africa.

Through it all, I discovered the value of spirituality, how outdoor recreation and serving others help to engage our recovery process. It is my hope that this book will encourage veterans of all services, and their beloved families to reconcile with their past, seek closure, write their story—and find peace.

Chapter 1

Commitment to a Cause

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honours, the men it remembers… Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

—John F Kennedy

W hy did I become angry over trivial things, feel strangely agitated while watching the television news, or sense that I couldn’t relate properly? Why would I jump at sharp noises, tremble when I flashed back to a jungle dugout and remember the sounds of battle? Why is the suicide rate of Vietnam veterans higher than all other demographic groups, and their children’s three times as high?

The day I read of my sister’s death from bowel cancer, I felt my heart shrivel deep into my chest—the world stopped spinning. I walked slowly down through central London, not seeing the crowds, and stared at the murky flow of the River Thames, and for a while the waters seemed the best option for me.

How had it come to this, contemplating the ultimate solution to my troubled heart? There were so many factors, but they centred on my latent sadness and guilt over my time in the Vietnam War. The news of my sister’s passing, aged 36, with a husband and five children, brought everything to a head.

But a small voice somewhere inside told me not to jump, and slowly, head bowed, I walked back to my gear beside a couch in a house somewhere in London. The thoughts and flashbacks, however, didn’t go away.

Where do I begin to piece this together, to try to explain what a soldier goes through, what he becomes, and how he affects those close to him? How did I recover from the trauma of war which caused unresolved anxiety to travel with me? Where did this bloody mess begin?

This is my story. . .

I silently levelled my rifle at the young Vietnamese and slipped off the safety catch, as he slowly raised himself from his stooping position over a mound of grass. Was he a civilian working his field, in his baggy grey clothes, or Viet Cong, who changed at night to black uniform?

Does he have a weapon concealed under the straw? Waiting for our eyes to meet, I knew this was another decision—I was about to shoot someone, or let him live. Then a thought hit me—How the hell did I get into this situation in Southeast Asia, with someone’s life in my hands?

Tumultuous political events had unfolded over the years, causing me to be part of a village cordon and search patrol in South Vietnam, carrying a powerful rifle and pointing it at someone’s heart, ready to fire. The story surrounding this incident is true; history includes the individual’s experience—often stranger than fiction.

_     _     _

We all question why countries go to war, and most of us wondered why Australia would bother getting involved in Vietnam, a country about which we knew bugger all. Most people didn’t understand the reasons behind the American and Australian commitments to the war—I just knew enough to cause an argument in my poor, dumb head.

Back in the early Sixties, concern was mounting about the Commie threat to the north; we began to think that if we didn’t stop them in Vietnam, the Reds would eventually gobble up all Southeast Asia. Then Australia would be next, as President Eisenhower had warned in his 1954 ‘domino theory’ speech—something the North Vietnamese leaders never denied.

But we Aussies and our allies highly value our freedom, as our fathers and grandfathers had fought long and died hard to save us from tyranny during two World Wars. Furthermore, we agreed with America, holding strong distaste for the social and economic malaise caused by this hardline, controlling system. Regarded as the opposite of freedom and free enterprise, the saying was, ‘Better to be dead than Red’.

I skim-read a book—South East Asia in Turmoil (Brian Crozier), which examined the power struggles and aspirations within countries like Thailand, Burma, and Indochina—Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The political intrigue was so complex, it did my head in. I felt that these Asian dudes would never sort out their muddled imbroglio.

Was it ideology which drives them, or simply a lust for power?

However, through my reading, I realised that these tough, diminutive yellow people were striving for their independence and, in their struggles, chose a socialist approach instead of Western capitalism. They were also recovering from the rigours of Japanese occupation (1941–1945), and over seventy years of French colonial rule (1883–1954).

_     _     _

The communist revolutionary leader of North Vietnam, Nguyen Sinh Cung (at 10 he was renamed Nguyen Tat Thanh) was born in 1890 in the village of Kim Lien. His father Nguyen Sinh Sac was a magistrate who used his position as a defender of the poor and lowly. Cung later adopted, actually he stole, the name Ho Chi Minh—‘Bringer of Light’—from the respected Vietnamese patriot Ho Hoc Lam.

Uncle Ho received a French secondary education in Hue, encouraged by his father. Among his classmates were two young men named Vo Giap and Pham Dong, but unlike them, Ho was unable to enter university, due to his revolutionary activities. Instead, he decided to travel and to his dismay, discovered that all Indochina was controlled by the French. His sister, Bach Lien, was caught stealing weapons while working for the French Army and received life imprisonment. As a skinny 21-year-old idealist, Ho sailed from Saigon in 1911 to see the world and find some answers.

He worked as a kitchen hand on French steamers travelling to the US (New York, Boston), then the UK (London) and France, smoking his pipe, observing everything. Settling in Paris in 1917 with Vietnamese nationalists, he was influenced by Marxist-Leninist literature (Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) and studied the Communist Manifesto, written by two German dropkicks, Marx and Engels. During those years, Ho cabled Washington several times, seeking help with the French, but received no reply as France was a Western ally.

The time spent in the US with Korean nationalists, in Paris at the National Library and the Sorbonne, must have fermented his revolutionary zeal. Rejections from Western leaders confirmed he would have no help from them, so winning back his country therefore meant nothing less than violent overthrow of the ruling class, and the elimination of his rivals.

Much later, this communist ideology conditioned the fanciful imagination of Pol Pot as he studied in Paris, turning him into a totally deceived, bloody-minded maniac. The Khmer Rouges’ murderous campaign in Cambodia over four horrific years was appalling, over 1.7 million perished. The children were finally rescued from their living hell by the Vietnamese Army in 1979. I have met survivors in Phnom Penh, and read their eyewitness accounts, including First they Killed my Father. It was a miracle anyone survived—tragedy beyond words.

Uncle Ho tried several times to meet with US President Woodrow Wilson during the Treaty of Versailles (1919), hoping for recognition of civil rights for the Vietnamese under French control. Again, no response was the firm reply. In December 1920 he became a founding member of the French Communist Party (PCF).

Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, Ho accepted an invitation to Moscow in 1921, where he studied for two years under Lenin’s right-hand man, Dmitry Manuilsky, and became a devout Stalinist—calculating and ruthless. Ho wanted above all to liberate Vietnam and throw the white man out of the country, even if it took ‘thousands of lives and twenty years of struggle’.

He journeyed to China (1924), where he trained over 200 Vietnamese cadres in revolutionary techniques. Six years later, he was summoned from Siam to Hong Kong to preside over the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party. The ‘father of Vietnam’ was arrested by British police in 1931, apparently escaped from a prison hospital, and fled Hong Kong to return to the Soviet Union. There, it is believed he partly recovered from tuberculosis.

In 1938, he sailed back to China and walked through the countryside for weeks to find support and guerrilla training from Mao Zedong. There he mustered Vietnamese revolutionaries who had also fled the French, meeting up with his old school friend and future general, Vo Nguyen Giap.

As a result of his communist activities, Ho was imprisoned by Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Nationalist Chinese, for eighteen months. Upon his release, the guerrilla band crossed together into northern Vietnam near the Red River (1941), and lived in caves to hide from the Vichy French and Japanese patrols, as communism was outlawed.

Vo Giap earned the nickname ‘the snow-covered volcano’, due to his smouldering hatred for the French, who had killed his wife and sister while he was in China. There in the caves, the communist group built the Viet Minh numbers, organised resistance to the Japanese and hoped the French were finished. They marshalled small guerrilla attacks against the ‘Japs’, and in a paradox of history, received conventional warfare training from the American forces in the Pacific, from May to August 1945, when Imperial Japan surrendered.

In September 1945, Britain was given control of South Vietnam by the Western leaders at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, and strangely, Nationalist China was given control of the North. The summit errantly allowed the French to return in October 1945 as the British withdrew, and Nationalist China withdrew from the North in May 1946, also allowing the French to return.

Much of France’s military hardware was then supplied by the US, until the French could organise their own resources following liberation from Nazi Germany. But unknown to the Western powers, during his world travels, Ho Chi Minh had gained the support of China and Soviet Russia, as well as allies in Cuba, East Germany, Bulgaria, and North Korea.

This is the background to the struggle for this land, a long history of oppression, cruelty, and hatred.

So this frail little activist with the long goatee beard was the one who influenced my life and took me to a war zone. Thanks Uncle Ho!

_     _     _

France colonised Vietnam from the early 1880s, subjugating the population of hard-working peasants, forcing them to plant rubber trees, grow opium poppies, and expand the rice crops in the fertile Mekong Delta. The French controlled the markets for rubber, opium, alcohol, rice, and salt across Indochina. Any resistance was quickly put down, with troublemakers placed in bamboo stocks before being carted off to prison.

The Vietnamese were summarily treated as slaves in their own country. Many lived in tiny ramshackle huts on plantations, while the French lived in spacious chateaus, with ensuite bathrooms containing a bidet and toilet to every bedroom. I remember searching through a deserted chateau we found one late afternoon in 1967, where under a dark blue Vietnamese sky studded with diamonds, our interpreters taught me how to dig up and cook sweet potato. A peaceful moment—it was like walking back into history.

I totally understood why the peasants hated their French overlords, as the ‘Frogs’ would threaten to shoot ‘ten of you for every rubber tree that dies’. It was ironic to me that the Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat was situated within one of these symmetrical rubber plantations.

There were rows of straight trunks for tying our tents, and a high canopy of green leaves, filtering the sun. Although grateful for the shade, we had no idea of the hardships endured by those who had toiled there. Upon arriving with 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, we quickly understood the Asian saying, that if you were good, you were ‘Number one’, and if bad, you were ‘Number ten’. The older Vietnamese had a special saying for the French, ‘Froggy number wousand’.

While touring Vietnam and Cambodia in 2011, I discovered just how bad they were.

We visited Maison Centrale, or Hao Lo Road Prison, in Hanoi, and walked through the iron ‘mouth of the monster’ to a cell where the prisoners were kept, hardly fed, shackled together on two rows of metal and concrete benches. The only toilet per cell was one large pot for over thirty men, placed out front so all could see, and left there for weeks until it was full. This was a slow form of torture and hated by the prisoners. But they were at least together and could talk about their revolutionary tactics.

The ‘dangerous’ captives endured the solitary dungeon cells; the concrete floor sloped down from where their feet were chained to an iron bar. They spent long nights with blood flowing into their heads, unable to turn. Any survivors suffered from severe headaches for the rest of their precarious lives. Many were executed by a mobile guillotine, including young women—I have seen their photos.

It was the same prison where American POWs were held (The Hanoi Hilton) and badly treated. They included Commander Jeremy Denton and Captain John McCain, the US pilot whose Skyhawk was shot down in October 1967, when he parachuted into Western Lake, central Hanoi.

He endured over five years in hellholes, with many beatings, solitary confinement (two years), dysentery, and deprivations. But he survived to become the Republican senator who ran for the White House against Barack Obama in 2008. He said, ‘Prayer sustained me.’

_     _     _

The First Indochina War began in November 1946, when Viet Minh guerrillas ambushed a group of off-duty French soldiers as they shopped in Hanoi. The French responded by shelling Haiphong, but the Viet Minh numbers swelled as teenage men and brave young women, indoctrinated in the ‘glories of Communism’, joined the struggle.

Guerrilla warfare continued until late 1953, when several divisions of the French Army, about 20,000 men commanded by General de Castries, were sent by Henri Navarre to disrupt communist supply lines and protect the opium trade routes running east from Laos. They established a series of forts in a heart-shaped valley, far west of Hanoi, known as the ‘arena of the gods’, near a village called Dien Bien Phu.

The Viet Minh leaders saw their chance, and assisted by Chinese engineers and advisors with heavy artillery, a confident General Giap remarked, ‘We will take the French by the throat.’ The ruthless Ho had earlier