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Ken Graham
THIS weekend to me has me filled with mixed emotions.
Firstly, getting together after so long brings satisfying closure.
When we returned from Vietnam we were officially told to go and get lost in the community and no-one will know where you've been.
The downside of this has been 43 years of a lack of closure to our time in Vietnam, serving our country.
Until now, there has been no opportunity to catch up with those we served with, to wish each other "all the best".
We didn't know where anyone was.
So now we have closure.
It's been too long.
Chris Bean
THIS journey has completed the final chapter of my time in Vietnam.
It took me over 40 years to learn what had happened to Ross Benton after he was medevaced home the same week I returned from my tour of duty.
I had always searched for a Ross Benson until I contacted Neil Daw, who told me that Ross was alive and was living in Bendigo district.
I then made contact with Ross and Jan and during a recent get together we identified that the fourth person in our tent was Brian Pender, who also was medevaced home at the same time.
I would like to thank the Bega District News who took up the challenge to contact Brian and from there we all arranged to meet in Canberra for what has turned out to be a very memorable reunion.
Neil Daw
I was a "resident" of Tent 28 when Ross arrived in Nui Dat in 1970.
The reunion this weekend has been a great occasion, to have a "farewell drink" with each other, even though it was 43 years in coming.
I wasn't aware of the rumours of Brian being dead, but the fact we are all still alive is even more special.
It was a very emotional moment to visit the Vietnam Monument, and extremely emotional to visit the new Vietnam War section of the Australian War Memorial - many mixed feelings.
Hopefully we can get together regularly in the future and continue to share our special friendship, both for the friendship and the therapeutic benefits.
Chris Bean bought a blow-up doll (life-sized) at one stage and she was duly inflated.
She was ugly with the seam off centre, so we decided to tie a string to her ankle and she was then sent aloft above our tent.
Some officers had a fit about this "object" floating above the trees as a target for the enemy, so she was duly dragged down and deflated.
Hopefully we can share many more laughs and good times in the future whenever we can get together.
Ian Palfery
I am a bit of an interloper actually since I was not an occupant of the illustrious Tent 28.
However, I like to think I did have a small role in the whole reunion thing coming to fruition.
As the Victorian rep of the HQ 1 ATF Association I have been responsible for organising the association's Anzac Day March in Melbourne.
The year before last I happened to check in to the HQ 1 ATF website (which I do not do very regularly) and came across Ross's post on the guest book inquiring about locating Ken Graham, one of the Tent 28.
Not having heard anything about Ross since he was medevaced from SVN all those years ago, I was delighted to respond to his post and get in contact with him again and catch up on the last 40-plus years since our SVN days.
He duly came down to march with us that year and we have been in touch ever since.
He says that contact and the aftermath of marching motivated him to renew his efforts to track down Ken back in Queensland, which he ultimately did successfully and in turn kept him going with his efforts to find the elusive Brian Pender.
I have been delighted to have been included in this reunion as I served with Ross and Ken closely through our National Service as well as in SVN.
It has been a terrific experience to meet up again and renew old acquaintances and reminisce about old times - the good, the bad and the amusing - and to find out how everyone has been travelling over the past 40-odd years.
The friendships have certainly been revived and maintained, significantly because of the shared experience of Vietnam and all that has meant to us.
We all agree it is something difficult to put into words and while a bit of a cliché, "you had to have been there and lived through it" to understand the bonds that this developed.
As a result we have all (including our long-suffering partners/wives!) had a lot of laughs and will definitely be keeping in touch in the future.
There's even talk of perhaps tracking down some other long-lost comrades!
The whole reunion has been an outstanding success and I am grateful to have been part of it.
We are all now looking forward to attending the Association's biennial reunion at the end of next year in Tasmania.