Repatriation Ceremony The Australian 2007
Date uncertain
John Stapleton
TWO Australian soldiers missing in action for 42 years after being killed during the Vietnam conflict have been offically welcomed back to Australian soil in a moving repatriation ceremony at Richmond Airbase in Sydney.
After being transported on board a Hercules military aircraft from Hanoi via Darwin, the coffins of Lance Corporal Parker and Private Peter Gillson, who both served in South Vietnam with the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, were carried through a guard of honour to be placed before tearful family members, officials and hundreds of Vietnam veterans.
The coffins were draped with the Australian flag and decorated with a reef of banksias and an army slouch hat.
Both men were posthumously awarded Infantry Combat Badges.
Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson said the day of collective mourning, denied for four decades, provided closure for family and friends. He said recovery attempts on 8 November 1965 during Operation HUMP, which had encountered intense enemy fire on the Nui Gang Toi hills east of the Dong Nai River, had been defeated by intense enemy fire, rapidly approaching nightfall and the need to evacuate the wounded.
``For the soldiers involved with that tragic contact, bound by an enduring brotherly bond known best by those who have served, made vital and vivid by the unconditional interdependency of mortal combat, this was not and could not be the end of the story,'' he said. ``Mates lost: battles passed. But soldiers carried the weight and worry, without respite, of an invisible and unimaginable `backpack' of unfinished business, of mates not returned.''
Mr Billson said a grateful nation could now fulfil its moral obligation to those who had done all heir country asked of them and in doing so, had paid the ultimate price. He paid tribute to the many people who had worked tirelessly to locate and then repatriate the bodies, thus allowing the country to fulfil a mission more than 41 years in the making, to return two soil of their homeland ``back amongst the mates whose thoughts and brotherly bond never left them or faded.''
An emotional Robert Gillson, who was four months old when his father died and said to have an uncanny resemblence to him, said he never thought he would be able to bring his father home and described the event as ``a great day for the family, the country and for Vietnam veterans. ``The family are just so happy that someone stood up against insurmountable odds to find this needle in a haystack, my dad.''
A lone bugler played the Last Post as two Iroquois helicopters flew over the coffins, followed by a minute's silence.
An army band played Waltzing Matilda as hundreds of serving and former servicemen along with family members formed a guard of honour as the coffins were taken off the base in silver hearses.
The funeral for Lance Corporal Richard Parker will be held at Woden in the ACT on the 12th. Private Peter Gillson is to to be buried in Melbourne the following day.