Community
7 April, 2023
Nasho Fair Go fight continues
SOUTH West Victorians are behind a high-profile fight to provide equal access to support for national servicemen who have fallen through the cracks.
The group Nasho Fair Go was launched in 2022 to lobby for recognition and medical support for those who did not serve in a war zone but were conscripted to national service after 1965.
The initiative is led by south west exports including president Geoff Parkes from Naroghid and vice president Ross Murrihy from Camperdown.
Their advocacy centres around the eligibility requirements of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (DVA) Gold Card, which covers the treatment of all medical conditions and provides access to a wide range of services and support for Australian veterans. The Menzies Liberal Government introduced National Service in 1964 to bolster Army numbers due to the rise of conflicts in south east Asia.
Around 870,000 young men registered for national service, affectionately known as Nashos, with 63,375 conscripted between 1965 and 1972 – of which 642 would die from various causes, including 210 in Vietnam. Of the Nashos only 15,100 who served in Vietnam would go on to be eligible to receive a DVA Gold Card at age 70.
However, around 48,000 members conscripted to National Service were deemed ineligible despite serving their nation, both domestically and overseas, due to not serving in a specific operational area (war zone), during specific periods of operation. An estimated 31,000 of those ineligible men remain today,
enduring the physical and mental scars of their conscription, and feeling they have fallen though the bureaucratic cracks as their benefits are short-changed in the name of government savings.
For Mr Parkes, he feels the imbalance in support based on if the Nashos were conscripted to an active war zone or not was an injustice.
“We are the only men in Australian history who have been forced in to military service in peace time – the Vietnam War was never a declared war which Australia was in,” he said.
“Men had to spend years of their lives to fulfil their obligations, and it ruined a lot of lives. “We’ve got the Prime Minister standing in Parliament delivering a big, emotional speech about the guys who went to Vietnam.
“But Cobden boy Graham Parlour spent 15 months in Malaysia and was shot at; Ross Murrihy, whose dad was the barber in Camperdown, spent 15 months in Malaysia and was shot at; I’m a Naroghid guy who spent time in New Guinea; Peter Gannon from Camperdown fell off a chopper two weeks before being sent to Vietnam has struggled with back surgeries ever since – we didn’t go to Vietnam, but it impacted our lives greatly.”
Mr Parkes said many members have struggled since leaving the army, acknowledging his own life had been “turned upside down”.
“My job of three years disappeared when I got out and I was told I would need to move to Canberra to get it back,” he said.
“My girlfriend had gone, I was without my friendship group, and I went off to Canberra but quickly became an alcoholic. “The depression and the sadness of being out of my comfort zone, being out of the army, I was just cast outside like ‘Bugger off’ and we got no help whatsoever to get back in to civilian life.
“While we understand the terrible things that happened to the blokes sent to Vietnam, it doesn’t mean Nashos who did not go had it easy.” Mr Parkes said a recent survey among members highlighted 20 per cent of Nashos Fair Go members had battled depression, 21 per cent suffered from anxiety and 70 per cent had a medical ailment attributed to their time in the army.
“Despite that we’ve not got a single bloody cracker; nothing,” he said. “The only thing we got was a DVA white card, which everyone who served even one day in the defence force gets.
“The medical and psychological wellbeing of those conscripts who did not serve in Vietnam or a declared operational area has been neglected by successive governments.
“We are concerned that our plight is not being taken seriously and we urge the government to address this matter with generosity of spirit, compassion and an understanding of the long-term impact that being conscripted during the Vietnam conflict had on all those who served.”
Mr Parkes said he had travelled to Canberra to meet with Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel Matt Keogh and presented him with a 25,000-signature supporting the movement.
“We’ve gone up and down the country banging the drum, but the only positive indication we’ve had is the Minister has heard what we’ve said and may get some of what we want but won’t get a DVA Gold Card,” he said.
“In a nutshell, that’s where we’re at, but we don’t accept that and we’re not just going away quietly. “It ain’t over until it’s over, as the baseball great Yogi Berra once uttered.
“We just want some sort of compensation that at least two years of our lives were taken, and some kind of acknowledgement that we too served our country.”
