John Schumann didn't really need any special effects to assist him at the Australian War Memorial yesterday when he sang his medley of famous Vietnam War songs (ending with his uncompromising Only 19) at the unveiling of the Long Tan Cross.
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But it just so happened that the sun came out at last and lit up dramatically the raindrops in the bare trees in the courtyard beside us.
After the speeches and as Schumann began singing in his distinctive, unpolished Aussie voice, the Governor-General Quentin Bryce and other dignitaries went to be the first ones to see the cross in its memorial display place.
The plain, rugged, concrete cross was installed in 1969 at the site of the 1966 Battle of Long Tan, where 18 Australians were killed and 24 were wounded in a fierce battle in a rubber plantation.
The youngest Australian killed was 19. The oldest was 22. At least 245 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were killed in a battle in which the Australians of D Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) were outnumbered 10 to one. Yesterday was the eve of the 46th anniversary of the battle.
Ms Bryce told the room, packed with Long Tan and other Vietnam veterans and family members, that the cross was ''a powerful, evocative symbol of Australians' Vietnam experience''. She said: ''The Vietnam veterans are very special to me. They belong to my generation. I watched them go to war, and I saw those who came home.''
Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Smith, commander of D Company at the battle, said: ''The cross is very dear to my heart. It's a memorial to 17 of my company family. As the years go on I almost feel like the father or the grandfather [of the dead], and very sad about the young men we lost.''
He remembered how: ''The next morning [with the battle over] we went back. It was like the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy. There were trees down everywhere and there was carnage. There were bodies and bits of bodies everywhere. It was a terrible sight. It lingers in my mind.
''The Long Tan Cross is a symbol that enshrines the spirits of those 18 young men. But since the Vietnam Veterans' Association took Long Tan on board as as the icon of the war, of the whole war, its been elevated … It now symbolises the 520 young men we lost in Vietnam and the 3000 wounded. And I must say that I personally have feeling for the young enemy soldiers who were lost, and for their families and loved ones. I know the role of infantry, our infantry's just the same as the enemies, is to locate and kill the enemy. It is a terrible fact of life that's enslaved the world ever since man was man, and is still going on all around the world.''
