The Top Ender Magazine August September 2022 Edition

MEET VIETNAM VETERAN
DON TATE
to validating all aspects of my war service. I am one of a
cohort of veterans whose service histories were the subject
of defective maladministration by Defence. It took me 28
years to prove I had served with the 9th Battalion (with
whom I had been wounded), and 38 years to validate the
2nd D&E Platoon’s existence— neither of which I should
have had to do.
Bestselling author and Vietnam Veteran Don Tate
chats to us about his time in the military.
PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOUR MILITARY
BACKGROUND:
I volunteered for service in Vietnam as an infantryman. Subsequently
served across four units as a reinforcement- which denied me, to a
great extent, that sense of esprit de corps that comes with belonging
to just the one unit. The alienation resulted in a certain amount of
psychological damage.
I was wounded in action with the 9th Battalion in July 1969- just as
man was about to walk on the moon. With most of the first section
of my platoon either killed or wounded, I ran forward with two
other men into a fusillade of fire to bring fire to bear on the Viet
Cong bunker complex, but was badly wounded in the run when a
bullet shattered my right hip, sending me cartwheeling through the
jungle.
I was to spend more than two years in military and repatriation
hospitals as a result.
TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR WORK AS AN AUTHOR:
My memoir - The War Within - became a best-seller in 2008. It is a
large book (approximately 460 pages) and was described as an
examination of the dark crevices of a man’s mind, but personally, I
consider it to be an intimate portrait of a man’s life and how genes,
family, environment and a litany of physical trauma affect a man’s
character.
I wrote Anzacs Betrayed as a follow-up to The War Within to fully
explain the contentious 2nd D&E Platoon matter— a matter that
split the veteran community and resulted in widespread vilification of
the men who served in it. The platoon had been edited out of the
histories of the Vietnam War after a series of ‘in country’
controversies in May 1969 following a successful ambush at Thua
Tich. Only in 2008 did the federal government formally
acknowledge the platoon’s existence and its very successful actions
against the Viet Cong. The book is now out of stock.
My most recent book — Crucible: The Australians in Action in
Vietnam — is unique in that it takes a look at 370 interesting matters
from the war, not only detailing the great heroism but also the
appalling tragedies behind the headlines that come with such a
terrible war.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START WRITING YOUR FIRST
BOOK,‘THE WAR WITHIN’?
In 1999, I was stabbed twice in the back in a ‘thrill stabbing’ on a
main street in Brisbane, and concomitant with having lost my
teaching career as PTSD began to take hold of my psychological
state, meant I had to deal with my war experiences and the impact it
had on my life.
A psychologist suggested that I write a chapter every fortnight,
highlighting either a specific person or event that had some
substance, and it became the focus of discussion, which was cathartic
for me. Over time, she was so impressed by the quality of my writing
that she suggested I collate the chapters and put them into book
form, which I did. My book was published in a very short time by
one of Australian’s most prestigious publishers — Murdoch Books,
Sydney - who were delighted and stunned by the book’s eventual
success. Twelve years on, it is still selling.
HOW DID YOU MANAGE THE TRANSITION FROM
DEFENCE?
Transitioning from Defence was just as traumatic as combat, in many
ways. Spending the last eighteen months of my army career in
hospital — including almost a year in a full-body, plaster cast — was
horrific, insofar as these were the supposedly the best years of a
man’s life, and they were passing me by. I was medically discharged,
and found myself immediately unemployed, permanently disabled
and with no skills other than soldiering.
To make it worse, I had just met the woman I was to eventually
marry— and a man’s desires in such a situation as a military hospital
can have profound consequences. In such a
state of psychological disarray, I once dived
into the ocean in that plaster cast, and
almost drowned.
WHAT SKILLS/LESSONS HAVE YOU
LEARNED IN THE MILITARY THAT
YOU STILL USE REGULARLY?
I learned resilience and how to fight, and
both were essential components in my
struggles with the disability in the first place.
These skills also helped me to battle with
the military and government when it came
BEST ADVICE YOU HAVE RECEIVED?
My father taught me to use my fists as a boy— that it was
the easiest means to an end. He enjoyed a fight and passed
that on. Fighting, inculcated in me as a boy, and fine-tuned by
the army, has more or less become a way of life, but not
without cost. ‘If you get hit,’ he’d say, ‘don’t turn the other
cheek - hit ‘em back twice as hard!'
HAVE YOU VISITED OR LIVED IN THE TOP END?
I was invited to speak at Karama Library some years ago and
took the opportunity to explore the Territory. I thoroughly
enjoyed the waterfalls in Litchfield National Park and the
sobering war cemetery at Adelaide River - the top end has
such stunning panoramas.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE OR THING TO
DO IN THE TOP END?
I thought the military museum in Darwin was excellent. The
curators have done a fabulous job there. But without a
doubt, that sunset over the Timor Sea…Majestic!
Interviewed by Deb Herring
Committee Member
The Top Ender Magazine
Vietnam Veteran Day
18 August 2022
Photo: Newspaper article about Don’s films of the Vietnam Conflict being
donated to the AWM. Originally printed by the Herald Sun.
Did you know
Don took a super 8mm movie camera into the
jungle with him in Vietnam. A keen
photographer, his historical wartime movies are
now in the AWM and valued at over $90,000.
You can see some short clips of the movies on
Youtube by searching 'Don Tate, Vietnam'
6 The Top Ender | Tri-Services Magazine Incorporated AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2022 7