The former ACT senior citizen of the year who led rifle companies during the Indonesian Confrontation in 1965 and later in Vietnam, has been made a Member of the Order of Australia for his 21-year campaign to erase the stigmatisation of Vietnam veterans as dishonest and greedy in volume three of the official history of the war.

The Agent Orange entry also wrongly claimed a Royal Commission inquiry into the controversial defoliant which has been linked to birth defects and a wide range of illnesses did not cause any harm he said.

"It (the entry) was flawed and insulting when it was written and it has become even more blatantly incorrect with the passage of time."

Mr Walker shared carriage of the Vietnam Veterans' Federation campaign to either have the original volume withdrawn or a supplementary history written with several others including the former president of the VVF, Tim McCombe, who died recently.

"Both of us had been campaigning about Agent Orange since 1981 and about the claim veterans seeking compensation were dishonest and greedy since Volume III was released," he said.

AWM Director Dr Brendan Nelson wrote to the VVF in April last year to say that action was being undertaken.

"At its meeting on March 5, 2014, the memorial's council approved the proposal for the memorial to initiate a scoping study, preparatory to commissioning an independent single volume history of the post-war medical and health issues affecting Vietnam veterans," he wrote.

"This work will have particular relation to the impact on veterans' health of exposure to herbicides while on active service in South Vietnam.

"It will… be informed with the knowledge gained about this important and complex issue over the past 20 years."

Dr Nelson wrote to the VVF again in August last year to advise that Dr Peter Yule, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne's history department, had been selected to carry out the scoping study.

Mr Walker said the purpose of the study would be to take a detailed look at the available material, interview veterans and ultimately to ascertain if there was sufficient data on which to base a book.

Although Dr Yule's study was due to go to the March meeting of the AWM council Mr Walker has heard nothing more.

"That makes me hopeful the scoping study has found there is the basis for a new volume of history and that the AWM council is giving this favourable consideration," he said.

"The basis for my hope is the report has been with the council for some time. It always takes longer to say yes than to say no."

Mr Walker said he also believed the strength of the case mounted by the VVF over the years was compelling.

"I think our case is very strong," he said. "Yes, I realise people will say `of course you'd say that' but I've worked on this for 20 years and subsequent events have confirmed F.B. Smith's (the author of volume III of the Vietnam War History) account should not be the last word on this subject.

Born at Mareeba in Queensland in 1939, Mr Walker graduated from Duntroon in 1962 and by 1965 was leading a company of Ghurkas against Indonesian forces in Sarawak.

"I was only 26, very young to have a company of my own," he said. "I was a temporary captain for the duration".

He was Mentioned In Dispatches and awarded the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star for his service in Vietnam with 8th Battalion RAR in 1969 and 1970.

The Australian War Memorial did not respond to a request for a comment.