|
Foreword
by:
Lieutenant-General Peter J. Gosgrove, AC,
MC, Chief of Army,
Australian of the Year 2001
The
Fog of War feels like scuba diving. You're wearing a diving
mask and all you can see is what's straight ahead, all you can hear
is your own breathing and a rushing sound in your ears.
Outside that mask is just silence, like someone turned a radio off
but it keeps coming back in bursts of terrible loudness. There is
a crack above your head and then a loud bang and your ears shut
down to all noise: they're overloaded.
Then there's silence again, a silence you want to stop. The Fog
of War drains every ounce of energy out of your body in a rush;
you have never been so terrified in your life-but never so capable
and determined......."
In October 1966 a group of soldiers were chosen to form Australia's
first specialist Reconnaissance platoon in the Vietnam War. One
of this platoons section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier,
Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols through the jungles
of Phouc Tuy Province while the First Australian Task Force established
its headquarters in Nui Dat.
Operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian
forces these young men braved regular enemy contacts, mines, booby
traps, and the natural perils of the teeming jungle.
Crossfire is the story of Bob and his mates in a tale of
courage, terror, madness and survival.
Like most veterans, the war didn't end for Bob and his fellow
soldiers when their tour of duty was done: it haunted them night
and day for decades. The life long bond forged between these men
in Vietnam: sees them reunite 30 years later in the silent vastness
of the Australian Outback. Reliving the fears, the desperation and
the camaraderie of war, they finally lay their crippling ghosts
to rest.
Bob Kearney teams up with fellow Vietnam veteran, Peter Haran
best selling author of Trackers
to tell this gripping story of men at war whose toughest battle
is to regain peace.
FOREWORD
BY:
Lieutenant-General Peter J. Gosgrove, AC, MC, Chief of Army, Australian
of the Year 2001
FOREWORD
This
is a remarkable story. As an older still serving soldier, I know
the authors, many of the characters and the events they describe,
and I have sweated it out in many of the areas in South Vietnam
where the story largely takes place.
A considerable
amount has been written about Australia's war in Vietnam and quite
a bit at this plane- that of personal recollection. To me this
account is especially compelling because the authors have the
wonderful knack for vivid yet convincing descriptions of operations,
battles, moods and the digger vernacular. On many occasions you
feel as if you are standing alongside "Dogs" and his friends.
You can laugh and ache with them and feel the unique, breathless,
adrenaline rush of close-quarter battle. Like them and me, you
feel a great sadness for those lost and damaged souls who still
carry the burden of their service of their country in that war,
into their middle and aging years.
All these
years later it seems pointless to engage in political dialect
about the why and wherefores of the Vietnam War. What is undisputed,
and from this book unmistakable, is that our young Aussies who
went off to that desperate, far-off place, full of hope and apprehension,
performed with valour, good humour and stoicism on par with their
illustrious ANZAC predecessors. It was a privilege to stand in
their midst.
Read this
story. Read about these Australians. They are so ordinary but
so extraordinary-they are heroes.
Lieutenant General Peter Cosgrove, Canberra 2001
|
|
