The Aussie Vietnam Veteran When the Lord was creating Vietnam veterans, He was into His sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared, "You're certainly doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And God said, "Have you seen the specs on this order? A Nam Vet has to be able to run nine miles through the bush with a full pack on, endure barely any sleep for days, enter tunnels his higher ups wouldn't consider doing, and keep his weapons clean and operable. He has to be able to sit in his hole all night during an attack, hold his mates as they die, go scout in unfamiliar territory known to be infested with VC, and somehow keep his senses alert for danger. He has to be in top physical condition existing on one man rations and very little rest. And he has to have six pairs of hands. Notwithstanding he is rationed to ‘two cans of beer per day, perhaps’.”" The angel shook his head slowly and said, "six pairs of hands....no way." "It's not the hands that are causing me problems, it’s the three pairs of eyes a Nam Vet has to have." "Is that on the standard model?", asked the angel. The Lord nodded, then explained. "One pair that sees through elephant grass, another pair here in the side of his head for his mates, another pair here in front that can look reassuringly at his bleeding, fellow soldier and say, 'You'll make it' when he knows he won't." "Lord, take a break, and work on this tomorrow." "I can't," said the Lord. "I already have a model that can carry a wounded soldier 1,000 yards during a fire-fight, calm the fears of the new replacements, and feed a family of four on a grunt's pay cheque." The angel walked around the model and said, "Can it think?" "You bet," said the Lord, "it can quote much of the MBI's, recite all his Unit Standing Orders, and engage in a search and destroy mission in less time than it takes for his fellow Aussie's back home to discuss the morality of the war and demonstrate, and he can still keep his sense of humour. And you know what else? He can make a meal from a can of ‘bully beef’, a ‘dog biscuit’, and maybe a little squirt from a tube of ‘condensed milk’ and feed all the digger’s in his section from a ten-man ration pack." The Lord continued, "this Nam Vet also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with ambushes from hell, comfort a fallen soldier's family, and then read in his hometown paper how Nam Vets are ‘baby and women killers’; tagged as ‘psychos, addicts, killers of innocent civilians.’" The Lord gazed into the future and said, "He will also endure being vilified and spat on when he returns home, rejected and crucified by the very ones he fought for." Finally, the angel slowly ran his finger across the vet's cheek, and said, "There's a leak, I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model." "That's not a leak", said the Lord, "that's a tear." "What's the tear for?" asked the angel. "It's for bottled up emotions, for holding fallen mates as they die; for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the Aussie flag; for the terror of living with PTSD for decades after the war; alone with its demons with no one to care or help." "You're a genius," said the angel, casting a gaze at the tear. The Lord looked very sombre, as if seeing down eternity's distant shores. "I didn't put it there," he said. Author unknown (Adapted from the original to portrait the Aussie Digger!) go to top