Remembering the War in Vietnam and at Home

Sixty years ago today, a step was taken that fundamentally shaped the history of Australia right down to the present time. Today at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance a ceremony will be held to commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In the early 1960s South Vietnam was quickly sinking into a deep crisis. There was a growing communist insurgency, and the government was losing control over the countryside outside major towns and cities and was facing growing internal dissent. Realizing its vulnerability, the government sought help from the United States, which was prepared to help but was anxious to avoid the appearance of replacing the earlier French colonial regime with American imperialism and so sought the involvement of other countries from the region, such as Australia, to indicate that any intervention reflected regional and international concerns at a prospective communist takeover of Vietnam.

The US was Australia’s major ally,…