What was the Australians attitude the the vietnam war?

Question

history
did the australis lke or dislike the war?

Answer 1

There were mixed views.
Many supported it in fear of Communist expansion in the Asia-Pacific area.
Others didn't because due to advances in modern technology, the war was able to be broadcast people saw that innocent civilians were sufferring.

There's more to it than that.

Answer 2

We didn 't like it.
We didn't see it as our war we only got involved to help the USA
The voting age at that time was 21 same as drinking etc the government conscripted all 20 year olds and sent those who were selected to Vietnam this was not very popular.
If it was volunteers only or regular troops then there would not have been the protests etc.
Remember these guys were not allowed to even have a drink yet
or vote against the people who were sending them to fight.
They did their duty well and fought well and a lot of people were very proud of them.
But not everybody treated them well on their return and it took a long time for them to get the respect they deserved.
The voting age was lowered to 18 as well as the drinking age.
As for the Iraq war we don't agree with it either but this time we are showing a lot more pride in our soldiers.
The politics are a different story.

Answer 3

We'd probably have to start by saying that few folk (anywhere) 'like' the idea of war, but if you mean 'did they think it was necessary and right', generally yes at the beginning, which for Australia was 1962 with the dispatch of expert military advisers.

The 'primary' argument for going to war was Australia's obligation under the post World War II ANZUS treaty, which required the United States and Australia (and New Zealand) to come to each others aid in time of war. Australia was apprehensive about a whole range of threats in Asia, including Indonesia, and was looking to a time when they might need some US heavy muscle to help them out. Vietnam was seen as a just another of a series of insurgencies that Australians had already been facing down (in the early 1960's in North Borneo). But unlike North Borneo and Malaysia where Australians had by virtue of the British Empire connections some 'experience', Vietnam was entirely 'new territory' and it would have to be said that Australians knew very little about it. But if the US asked for help, that was 'good enough' for the Australians. It was understood that the Australian effort on one level was a 'token' one, to demonstrate that it was not just a 'US' war. But at the same time Australians knew (and some US Generals knew) that the Australian Army had specialised in the sort of counter-insurgency warfare that was developing in Vietnam, and expected (as they are so fond of saying these days) to 'punch above their weight'.

Australians acquited themselves fairly well in Vietnam, concentrating on pacification rather than killing Vietcong (so much so that the US Generals complained that the area under the Australians control was 'too quiet'). By 1967 however, a series of operations (some conducted poorly such as the laying of a giant minefield that was promptly 'pulled up' by the Vietcong and redeployed against the allies) and some 'friendly fire' incidents had begun to erode public support as the Australian death toll increased (ultimately to around 500). The atrocities (on both sides) during the Tet Offensive, and the My Lai massacre and revelations about assassination and torture began to turn large segments of the population against the war by 1968. Australia's overseas fighting forces in two World Wars had been made up of volunteers, and the introduction of conscription in 1964 was controversial. Demonstrations of up to 100,000 people protested against the war in 1970. The bulk of Australian troops were withdrawn in 1972. I don't have numbers, but opposition to the war was running about 50% in the general population (largely split on political lines, in 1972 the left-leaning Labor Party came into power with about 50% of the national vote).

You might characterize the period from 1970 to 1990 as the 'shameful' period, where there was a tendency, outside of the veteran community, to minimize or ignore the involvement and to dismiss the possibility that there was anything positive that came out of it. Support for veterans increased considerably however during the 90's with the commissioning of the Vietnam War Memorial, and commemorative marches of returned veterans (who had never had the opportunity in the 1970's).

Australians now figure prominently in tourist numbers visiting Vietnam, and business investors in Vietnam (a lot of them Vietnamese refugees who were welcomed into Australia in the 1970's). You'd have to say that there are relatively few who'd claim today that the war was justified, or necessary, or a good thing on any level. But this has been 'tempered' by a high regard for the soldiers who fought, and helped considerably by the attitude of the Vietnamese, who perhaps give the Australians some credit for the considerable charitable work they did during the war, and their relatively quick recognition and support of the new regime after 1975.

While the death toll of 500 seems low by comparison to the horrific losses suffered by the US, it reflects the relatively small Australian contribution, and the considerable 'care' that Australian officers took to achieve maximum results with minimal casualties - an attitude that arose in the killing fields of the Western Front in 1916 and 1917, when British Generals wasted Australian lives by the tens of thousands in futile maneuvers which gained nothing. By the same token, the incredible US casualty rate was/is a source of amazement and horror to Australians, both civilian and military. I'd say that's not based on a view that the US fought 'badly', just that Australians fight wars quite differently to mainstream US troops - as exemplified by the operations of the Australian SAS in Iraq and Afghanistan. You might say that you'd never heard of them, and I'd say "precisely, but they were/are there 'doing the job all the same.'"

Answer 4

From what I remember, they varied in their attitude, just as they do on the Iraqui War. Since the government of the day sent troops over, the official position must have been positive... at least, at first.