The Vietnam Era

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:45 pm

Right On CeeJay!

Lets all go back to the 60's, keep what pay we have now, and have lots of beer at Sixties prices.

:prayer:

Bugger the hooch and other crap!

:drinkers:

I drink ONLY organic beer, whiskey, red wine and my Dr. keeps me in drugs.

The only thing I couldn't handle from the sixties would be the Six o'clock closing.

Last gashies!!!!
:drinkers:

Seejay · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:02 pm

Yeah, it would be great, but I guess I'll have to put it under the 'What if' category in the brain.

And what's this 'organic' beer? There are inorganic beers?

Fact regardless, they all taste pretty good to me! Except there are some beers I'm happy to not drink again.

Cheers

CJ

Wayne · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:59 pm

Nam
In may of 71 I was talking to a ship from OZ that was shooting for me. I was told the call sign but not the name. There where about 40 Marines and my self that where about to get run over buy about 400 cong. When the smoke cleared, we where all ok but there was over 300 dead cong all around us.

Wanted to say that was some great shooting. Would like to fine out who I may have been talking to and the name of the ship. I owe a lot of beers for that.

The next day I didn't keep my butt down and got it shot off so to speak. Got to spend the month of June in Sydney. What a drunk, everyone said I had a good time. I new I was going back so didn't sober up till I was on a plane back.

Seejay · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:06 am

Wayne, in May 71 HMAS BRISBANE was providing Naval Gunfire Support in Military Area 1.

Her nickname, as many on here (iincluding Rick & Ned) will tell you, was The Steel Cat. I don't believe that was her callsign up there.

Thanks for the post, Buddy.

Cheers

CJ

Spud · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:27 am

I recall a lot from that era, during the later part of the 60's I was a paper boy in Brisbane. So I got to see a lot of marches. I recall one where these low lives played havick with the solders marching. So when they were being chased by the cops these pricks knocked me for six. They did not have the guts to help me out when I was flat out on the road and in pain. I was sore and bloody and all my papers were all over the street. It was only a few years ago that there was an artical in our Courier mail about what our state Premier had got up to back then. I looked at the dates mensioned and route he took in his escape [-X

, you guessed he was probable the one who knocked me over. It was only in the last few weeks he was on TV laughing about that same excape. As you might guessed it I have a very big dislike for that man now :axe:

.

On a lighter side, from my early teens before I joined the navy I used to play in senior footy side which was full of army medics. Great bunch of chaps, except they were always getting me pissed. :drinkers:

They had all spent their time in nam, as the medic on the US choppers. Some of there stories were real eye openers. Just prior to leaving to become a sprog at Nirimba, these some blokes told me what to do with the beanie in Singas. Hate to say this I did not do as they instructed that is. "If you feel and they have dangly bits, then turn them over."

Seejay · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:29 am

To make you feel better about your being knocked a**e-over, Spud, I have a good mate in the cop force named John O'Gorman.

One of John's best remembered incidents was at one of the Anti-everything Labor-party-organised protest marches in Brisbane, where he flattened Peter Beattie for being one of the a**holes in the march. :axe:

Beattie was mouthing off at everyone, and made the mistake of pushing John (in plain clothes). Justified, John retaliated in fine form and spread Beattie's nose over his face. :rolleyes:

They both remember the incident well, and 'eyeball' each other whenever they cross paths. :pain10:

So he didn't get away scot free, mate.

Cheers

CJ

Pete Cottam · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:03 am

Stand to attention EWE lot :twisted:

tis I,the NAVYS answer to Captain HOOK :butthead:

AKA Peter John Cottam :finga:

AKA Lumpy

joined pussers January '62,16years old #-o

shit ourselves because the Cuban Missile crisis was in full swing,JFK told the ruskies to get out of Cuba and also implemented the blockade to stop the Russian ships bringing in the missiles,a tense time alround but an incident that was to shape so many of us 150 new JR"s life in the NAVY.
After Leeuwin,30 of us joined the Vendetta,January '63,and sailed to the FAR EAST,joining the Strategic reserve,under the command of the Royal Navy :finga:

for a 17 year old,this was heaven :drinkers:

I have always been amazed that there is NO records of Vendetta's stay in Singapore during the Indonesian Confrontation,bombs going off in down town Singers,troops being killed,sailors,soldiers and wives and children of servicemen being given refuge in the Brittania Club while these terrorists were being rounded up.
On board in Sembarwang,patrolling the upper deck with a 303,torch and whistle,NO BULLETS,because we were only 17,against these terrorists who were trying to lay sachel charges against the hull of our and Brittish ships #-o

all this before we were old enough to vote and before we went to war in Vietnam :-k

Part 2 tomorrow.....Lumpy

Spud · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:26 pm

Thanks for that Seejay, you put a smile on my face again :twisted:

. Just to let you know when John O'Gorman was ever interviewed on TV. I had the opinion that he was an up front person who does not take sh*t from anyone. :finga:

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:00 pm

Ah the good old days of Queensland off Qld. police selection. Not the brighest but the biggest. When a copper was a copper. Nothing like a bit of authorised heavy Police interviewing. With a rubber hose.

:drinkers:

Seejay · **Posted:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:38 pm

Yeah Spud, he's definitely a bloke that won't get promoted any further because of his 'up-front' style of doing things. The top brass can't stand him, but the troops reckon the sun rises when he gets out of bed.

Butch, the old ways of coppering certainly kept a lot of people in line, didn't they? I can remember being put in a patrol car in Williams Street in 1966, after being caught in a kerfuffle outside the NZ Hotel. I'd got a bit stroppy with some bloke in a suit who told me to move along. My ears were ringing the whole weekend.

And as for John O'Gorman, he's had a long association with Vets, having been the selected go-between (mostly after hours) between a vet who's lost the plot and told the world to go away (in a big way), and the powers that be who want to put him in a small room. And every time, successfully.

John is Qld's highest decorated copper, and has been shot at several times - an experience he calls 'sobering'. Which is a laugh in itself, as he doesn't drink!

Sadly, his type of policing is dying out. Or being killed off, take your pick.

Cheers

CJ

The Vietnam Era

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