Vietnam 1969:
Dappled sunlight danced
About your greasy, sweating body.
Oh! What fun.
It saved us shooting twice, and just as well.
For when we finally came your eyes were glazed
And staring at the Sun.

All the way with L. B. J.,
Was what we said back in the day.
But what it meant, if truth to tell,
Was two years servitude in hell.
That is, for those without the bent
For service life, cared where they went.
Most of them, well, from what we saw,
Without preamble went to war.

'But Lyndon Johnston told the nation
Have no fear of escalation',
This, a song of protest from that day.
But for those that really cared
(Another word for being scared?),
It didn't stop them being sent away
To twelve months service and a war.
So tragic now. What was it for?

And when Nixon asked the British
For the Black Watch, they turned skittish.
And the Parliament it stood to tell him no.
They thought it was unreasoned war
And that is what the people saw,
And so, the Black Watch weren't allowed to go.
And yet we here went 'All the way...',
And for our dead - now rue the day.

Weary Sun, your sleepy eyes
With lidded shadows tip the night.
While water gently lips the shore
And swoops the owl in whispering flight.
Small, twitching nostrils quest the air,
And daytime slides from out of sight.

Cast from your mind the busy day.
Look not to labours left undone.
Take this moment, for yourself to say,
‘Now is the time that of my mind I will enquire.’
Draw up your knees and sit content
Before the warm and flickering fire.

As a gathering of Infantry Veterans meet in the Australian capital to commemorate their Battalion’s participation in the Vietnam War the International War Crimes Court is considering its probe into the British Army for atrocities allegedly committed in Afghanistan and an American Seal has been publicly reviled for alleged atrocities.

The hunters, they are gathering in Canberra this year.
They’ll tell each other lots of lies
And steal each other’s beer.
But their stories aren’t for publishing
They’re not for you to hear.

For these, the men who went to war,
Lean, lithe and silent, ghostly then.
Now paunchy, pallid, blear of eye,
Their stories, told of service life
Might make you laugh, more likely cry.

Nowadays, with hindsight’s wisdom told, their tales
Are glossed, embellished thoughts on war,
Reflecting social aspects voiced by those
Who eagerly howl; declaring all and any conflict is a crime.
(Yet had they gone still would they so - do you suppose?)

But when the hunters gather
Then the truth, if ever such there is,
Is broached and P.C. takes a walk.
While drunken geriatrics laugh and roar and feebly thump the table.
I think Society should listen very carefully to their talk.

Yesterday, I laid a solemn wreath in Regimental Square.
Then, when standing up, and in that moment’s quiet pause;
With hand on heart, with eyes downcast,
I could not but think that you weren’t there,
That brave, bold memory from my past.

Where are you now? I thought. Where might you be?
While standing there and quite alone.
I’d never been with you like this, you see,
Laying wreaths and standing still.
We almost always used to be
Returning fire and lying prone.

But now, in retrospect and after thought,
Here, while drawing back the curtains to my past.
I realise you’ve been here, always at my side;
And of my memories you will always be my first, my last;
Laughing, scorning those with whom we fought
With such exuberance, and with such an awful pride.

For us to go out scrumping
As often as might be.
We would reconnoiter every day
To find an apple tree.

Whenever someone found one
Then all would try to see
How quickly could they climb up there
Into that apple tree.

Now, in my dotage, I believe
Our children should be free
To stretch their bodies and their minds,
To climb the apple tree.