Ripples of Wartime is a series of twelve short interviews with Australians involved in and affected by the Vietnam War.
Ripples of Wartime is a series of twelve short interviews with Australians involved in and affected by the Vietnam War. Filmed by Malcolm McKinnon for Brink Productions, they were made in association with the stage production Long Tan, which premiered in Adelaide in 2017. These interviews have now been accepted into the National Collection at the Australian War Memorial.
Recording servicemen and servicewomen, conscripts and volunteers, families of those who served, anti-war activists and protestors, displaced people and post-war immigrants – the project truly reflects the complex and divisive nature of the Vietnam War.
Neville Sinkinson served in Vietnam as a RAAF helicopter crewman.
Former RAAF helicopter crewman Neville Sinkinson reflects on joining up: “I was all for it, I volunteered for it. I was a firm believer in if there was going to be any trouble in the Asian countries, that it be over there and not closer to home.”
He also considers his troubled post-war experience. “You’ve got to [seek] treatment. If you don’t, you suffer. It’s a bonus to talk about it and I think that is the downfall of vets. They don’t talk about it. If you don’t talk, you bury yourself.”
On the other side, anti-war activist Lynn Arnold recalls, “I found myself deeply troubled by what I was seeing of NOW! and I felt wrong about the war. I was very keen to get directly involved in the opposition to the war.”
Later in life, he reflects on his actions.
“What it took me some years to really appreciate was the disparaging of those who went to war. I was never conscious of that at the time … They were being ignored at best, and disparaged at worst, and that was quite an eye-opener to me, to learn of that years later.”
The series also represents many who, though not directly involved in the Vietnam War, were affected by it.
The daughter of a returned National Serviceman, Ruth Clare, shares a powerful story of her troubled home life, remembering her mother saying, “‘I wish you’d known your Dad before he went to Vietnam.’ She knew straight away that he was different. I think the impact of war on families of veterans is a secret history. I don’t think you can talk about the cost of war unless you talk about the cost to families, and about the trans-generational impacts of that, ad infinitum.”
Di Fairhead worked as a physiotherapist in Vietnam, 1969.
Lynn Arnold, Anti-Vietnam War Activist
Ruth Clare, daughter of a Returned National Serviceman
Frank Clarke served in Vietnam
Trung Nghia Ton, whose parents fled Vietnam to Australia, recalls: “I never really understood the sense of loss, until one day my parents said ‘We lost our country’ … the culture, the sense of belonging.” And beyond that, “Everyone suffered. Everyone who participated in it – South Vietnamese soldier, North Vietnamese soldier, a civilian, an Australian soldier – everyone is human and everyone who participated lost something and suffered something.”
