As I recall the fact regarding the Viet Nam war, the age of conscription in Australia was specifically dropped to 20.
I’ll allow that the age for National Service might possibly have been dropped to 18 (although I don’t think this was the case), but I’m pretty sure that during the Viet Nam war we did not ship any CONSCRIPTED troops under the age of 20 overseas.
This question comes from having spent a night with two males who absolutely insist that they were “called up” for Viet Nam by the Australian Government, when their respective ages don’t even fit the time frames in which we were withdrawing troops, let alone sending them.
Yes, I could spend days researching this myself. I’m kind of hoping that someone who was somehow involved could direct me to the best, irrefutable links.
The age of conscription was never dropped below 20. When the voting age was dropped to 18, I voted for Gough Whitlam because I was due to be in the 1973 ballot and would have gone to gaol rather than go in the army. There was no need to drop the age because the Liberals were already reducing numbers in Vietnam due to protests. IIRC the length of service was dropped from 2 years to 18 months.
So I was NOT imagining the “fact” that the minimum age for overseas service (as opposed to so-called ‘National Service’) is and always was 20.
This question has pissed me off so much that I’ve actually emailed the DOD and asked them what the last “call-up” date was.
In spite of the Redgum song, I still maintain that while youcould have been called up for NS at age 19, you could NOT have been sent overseas to be canno-fodder.
Yes, I’m hideously bitter about these people attempting to claim some special status. I hope that my bitterness won’t affect the factual answers.
Manny - if you think I’m being a bitch and running a personal agenda here, please close this thread.
Obviously, my passion about this subject is interfering with my ability to spell. Can a mod please fix the spelling errors so I don’t get to post the same post 45 times over on the basis of “editing” it?.
The National Service ballots were held in March and September. The last one was held in September 1972. More details are here .
John Schumann’s “I Was Only 19” or “A Walk in the Light Green” makes no reference to conscription. In fact the lines -
“Mum and Dad and Denny saw the passing-out parade at Puckapunyal
It was a long march from cadets.”
indicate that Mick and Franky, who the song is for, were volunteers - cadets being schoolboy soldier types.
He also dates it -
“Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon,” i.e 1969
You could not be called up for NS at any age other than 20 ever. I think people confuse the reduction of the voting age with a reduction in the age for NS. A large part of the reason that 18 year olds could first vote in 1972 was that the poor bastards being conscripted had no say in who governed them.
Reprise, are you thinking that these people volunteered for Vietnam and are now trying to say they were conscripted, or that they never actually went there in the first place ?