Kevin ‘Butch’ Brady – Vietnam Veteran
16 August 2016:
Thursday 18 August 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan and Vietnam Veterans Day. We have been privileged to hear about some of their experiences and we thank them for sharing them with us. In the article below, Kevin Brady relates his story to Bob Evans.
Even now, aged 77, Kevin ‘Butch’ Brady is an imposing figure. When he was fighting fit and a Platoon Sergeant at his peak in Vietnam, he must have been intimidating. Kevin claims the honour of having led the only documented bayonet charge in the Vietnam War, during Operation Bribie. We are used to seeing images of bayonets fixed on 303 rifles, but not on the lighter-weight, semi-automatic FN FALs carried by Australians into the jungle and rice paddies of Vietnam. However odd it may have looked, the bayonet charge by two platoons had the desired effect.
But Kevin wasn’t always so lucky. At another time, during Operation Hobart, his troop was ambushed by members of the Viet Cong’s D445 Battalion – which was also heavily involved in the Battle of Long Tan. Kevin’s men got into a fierce fire fight and only survived with the support of artillery bombardment. The two sides were only metres apart and Kevin says his only option was to call down the Australian shelling on their own positions, in what he calls ‘a close embrace’.
As it was, they lost a platoon and Kevin was wounded.
“I was a bit slow to react, the last one to take cover and I got shot in the hip. I didn’t know at the time and it was only after we got out that one of the other blokes noticed the blood. I guess I must’ve been full of adrenalin. I was airlifted to the Australian hospital in Vung Tau for a month and I got out the day of the Long Tan battle,” Kevin recalls.
The Army wasn’t Kevin’s first choice of a career. His father was a police inspector and Kevin originally applied to join the police force. “I was knocked back because of my teeth,” he says, smiling ruefully in disbelief. So instead he presented himself to the Defence Force recruiting office, planning to apply for the Airforce.
Kevin still has the bullet that he took in the hip – a reminder of his time in the jungle of Vietnam.
“The Airforce Recruiting Officer was off having lunch, there was only the Army guy there. He invited me to come and have a cup of tea. So I ended up joining the Army.”
Kevin enlisted in 1957. His first overseas posting was to Malaya between 1961 and 1963, stationed at Terandak as part of Australia’s contribution to the lesser known anti-communist campaign referred to as the ‘Malayan Emergency’. Australian forces were then part of the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve, established in 1955 mainly to deter external communist aggression against countries in south-east Asia, especially Malaya and Singapore.
Australian involvement in the region was in fulfillment of the Government policy as stated by Prime Minister Robert Menzies that, “if there is to be war for our existence it should be carried on as far from our shores as possible”.
Kevin’s next time in the jungle was at the Canungra Training Camp in 1966 in readiness for his posting to Vietnam to join the Task Force based at Nui Dat. Kevin reinforces the opinions of others about the quality of training and capability of Australian forces in jungle warfare:
“Our experiences in New Guinea and Malaya taught us how to live in the jungle. We patrolled by stealth. We could be out there for between 12 and 18 days. We wouldn’t shave, we wouldn’t shower and we wouldn’t cook, because the enemy could pick up sounds and smells for a couple of kilometres in the jungle.”
When they were sent out on patrol in Vietnam, there were no useful maps. “All the aerial surveillance did was give us photographs of tree tops, the jungle was so thick. We had to go on guess work. But I can’t speak too highly of the ‘nashos’ we served with. They were brilliant. We had cooks on machine guns, we were ready for anything.”
Kevin volunteered for a second tour to Vietnam in August 1969 and went on to serve nearly six months with the Australian Army Training Team as an adviser to the South Vietnamese. On his return he switched from Infantry to the Aviation Corp, where he saw out his service at the Army Aviation Centre in Oakey, Queensland. By then he had been promoted to Warrant Officer. He retired from the Army after 23 years’ service.
He and his wife Val stayed in Queensland, where Kevin first got a job with East West Airlines as an aircraft re-fueller. From East West he moved to Shell, before starting a travel agency. Asked about adjusting to life outside the army, the only hint Kevin gives that the transition wasn’t all that easy, is to say that for the first 15 years he gave Val “a hell of a time” and laughs that “she is getting her own back now.” He also describes her as his best friend.
Kevin and Val moved south after their son was diagnosed with melanoma at the age of 30. They’ve been residents at the Vasey RSL Care’s Bell P
ark Independent Living Units for 16 years and are active in the life of the community, but as Kevin says, “we don’t live in each other’s pockets”.
“Everyone gets on. And occasionally we sit down and have a beer and talk about our experiences.”
Kevin has kept in touch with his former comrades from the Vietnam days. He says he approached the war with “a positive mindset” and describes it as “an experience”. “It was what we were trained for. It was conscripts who had the hardest time,” he says.
He and Val plan to travel to Queensland for the 50th anniversary of Long Tan and to mark Vietnam Veterans Day on 18 August. They are going to back to Oakey, outside Toowoomba, where their daughter lives. They also plan to attend a reunion concert for 6RAR at the Brisbane Convention Centre, starring some of the original Vietnam entertainers including Denise Drysdale. Kevin remembers being at concerts with her, Lorraine Bayly and Johnnie O’Keefe. At the time Kevin was a member of B Company in 6RAR and jokes that they were known as the Phantom Company of Bribie. “No one knew where we were, including us!”
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With our grateful thanks to Kevin Brady for sharing his wartime experiences.
Vietnam War Commemoration
Around 60,000 Australians served in the Vietnam War between 1962 and 1972. There were 3,000 casualties and over 500 died. A ceremony is held at the Shrine each year on Vietnam Veterans’ Day on 18 August to remember those who served and those who lost their lives.
This year it is the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan which will be commemorated with a service at 10.45am on 18 August at the Shrine. Service details