VNExpress-July 31
Haunted by memories of a 1968 battle in southern Vietnam, two Australian veterans have spent the past two decades searching for the mass grave of 42 Vietnamese soldiers buried in a bomb crater. Brian John Cleaver left his homeland 56 years ago to fight with allied forces in South Vietnam as part of the 3rd Battalion under The Royal Australian Regiment. Back then, the 20-year-old man simply thought he was on his way to complete a two-year military service and then return home. “I didn’t expect to be thrown into a life-and-death, unjust war,” the veteran recalls. On May 24, 1968, Cleaver’s unit was deployed to establish and defend FSPB Balmoral, a military base in Binh My Commune, Tan Uyen District of Binh Duong Province. The base, located about 40 km from Saigon, was a crucial position to thwart the second phase of the Tet Offensive, a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, by the Liberation Army. Simultaneously, the 7th Division, one of the main army units in the southern battlefield of the Vietnamese People’s Army, received orders from the Southern Command to attack the base. The ensuing battles caused significant losses on both sides. Cleaver was shocked to witness over 40 bodies of North Vietnamese soldiers being bulldozed into bomb craters, forming mass graves. The horrific experiences of the battle led him to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2002, Cleaver decided to return to Vietnam to search for the burial site of those soldiers, hoping to heal his psychological wounds. Telling people he was touring Vietnam, the veteran returned to the battlefield, which is now a vast rubber forest. After identifying the area, he went back to Australia to gather documents and reconnect with old comrades, including Private John Bryant. Read more at:
