KEY POINTS:
At the Manurewa RSA, five not-so-old-soldiers gather around a table to explain why they are calling a truce. There is not a celebratory beer in sight.
Like 3500 other Vietnam veterans, they came home in the late 60s and early 70s to begin the war at home. They
returned to a country which didn't want to know about Vietnam.
They were not welcomed back - unlike earlier conflicts, there were few parades before flag-waving crowds. Instead they were spat at, abused and punched by protesters who knew little of what they'd been through.
"We were ordered to march down Queen St and the public told us we were a bunch of arseholes," says Ken McKee Wright, a career soldier who spent six months in Vietnam in 1967.
They were left to fend for themselves by a system which didn't recognise post-traumatic stress. They were shunned by many RSAs because the Government had not declared war.
Then they started dying.
Exposure to dioxin-laden Agent Orange and other defoliants has sent hundreds to an early grave from cancer and left others with health problems ranging from respiratory and heart disease to arthritis and skin conditions. Many of their children and grandchildren were born with spina bifida, cleft lip and cleft palate, foot and limb deformities, heart and lung defects.
You might think few New Zealanders, as a group, have more reason to grow bitter, to hate their government, to demand compensation, than our Vietnam veterans. Many think they protest too much.
Some brought back psychological problems now recognised as conflict-related. Zac Harris, who did three years in the Army including a year in Vietnam, saw mates get "into shitloads of trouble" when they came home.
"Someone would drop something behind you and you'd turn around and drop them, says Harris. "You didn't know why."
What most of these veterans exhibit more than anything is the capacity to get on with life, even to forgive, despite injustices which can never be put right. About 1000 are converging on Wellington next weekend to hear Helen Clark say "welcome home". Clark will speak from the steps of Parliament during Tribute 08, the Government's belated apology for decades of ill-treatment.
They will take their children and partners with them - those that have them. Lasting relationships eluded many of these veterans.
They will attend the formal events and performances and commemorative services and collect the medal - but most of all they will get together over a few beers. A highpoint for many will be the "whakanoa" - a spiritual cleansing ceremony to remove the warrior spirit from a fighter returning from battle.
It may be late, but organiser Tamahou Temare predicts an emotionally-charged ceremony, given the 35 years of deep-seated hurt these warriors have retained.
Of around 3300 New Zealanders who saw active service in Vietnam, 38 were killed in action; 616 (nearly 20 per cent) have died since returning home. These fit, disciplined men started dropping like bombs from cancer in their 30s and 40s. Others developed debilitating health problems.
About 1400 are now on war disablement pensions, which recognise a far wider range of conditions, including prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, myeloma (bone marrow) cancer and type 2 diabetes.
Harris, who spent a year in Vietnam from May 1969, has spots on his right hand which flare up unless he applies ointment every few days. Alongside him, Bill Compton talks of mates with rashes on their faces that won't go away "and no one can explain what they are".
McKee Wright was with Victor 1 company in 1967. Of his group of 160, 40 have died. "Two had natural deaths - all the rest had cancer.
The veterans' campaign for recognition fell on deaf ears with successive governments. Harris recalls a younger Helen Clark wondering aloud why they wanted compensation when they had volunteered to go. By this time, the Defence Ministry knew that the defoliants the soldiers were exposed to could kill. But there were lies and cover-ups.
In 2004, the Government finally admitted our soldiers were exposed to a toxins and appointed ex-State Services boss Michael Wintringham to head a working group to hear the veterans concerns and recommend recompense. But the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Government, RSA and Ex-Vietnam Services Association in December 2006 left out several key Wintringham recommendations. The memorandum went down like a cocktail of dioxin. There were calls for a boycott of the Tribute event and some dissenters, the Vietnam Veterans Action Group threatened to take the Government to court.
Many are staying away, and the VVAG is still investigating a class action in Australia, where one in five of the NZ veterans now live.
The veterans are also fighting public misconceptions about the compensation package. When the memorandum was signed, the media initially bought Government spin that the package was worth $30 million. The public assumed all veterans were in line for $40,000 lump sum payments. In fact, the lump sums are confined to victims of five prescribed conditions - a narrow range of cancers and a skin condition. Children and grandchildren with certain conditions qualify for $25,000 payments. To date, 66 payments totalling $2.3 million have been made.
Despite it all, more than a third of the survivors are expected in Wellington, testament to the progress made in building on the memorandum framework and the veterans' growing awareness of the fine print.
FREE comprehensive medical checks are getting underway, the veterans armed with a letter to GPs listing conditions which the US National Academy of Sciences associates with exposure to herbicides. The list covers a range of cancers, skin conditions, diabetes and hypertension and is likely to lead to many more veterans receiving disablement pensions or increased payments.
The Law Commission's Sir Geoffrey Palmer is overhauling the War Pensions Act and veterans allowances and pensions will be brought under one roof.
And veterans are seeing evidence of a better deal from the 30-year trust fund for veterans and their families, set up with a $7 million Government grant. In its first six months, it has made 50 payments totalling $500,000, from 108 applications received. At current interest rates, the fund is expected to generate about $500,000 a year.
Even so, Wintringham - who now chairs the trust - has had to dampen expectations of "high five-figure" payments and stressed that the main object of the trust is the relief of poverty and hardship. Applications likely to be quickly met include repairs to a roof or plumbing, replacing faulty appliances or rotten fences. But these gains are not why many veterans are going to Wellington. The key to their participation in Tribute 08 is that despite everything - the suffering, the lies, the cover-ups, and the let downs - their experience in Vietnam forged unbreakable bonds.
Another career soldier, Garry O'Neill, says, "Hearing Helen Clark, or anyone, say sorry - it's too late for that. I want to go because a lot of those guys I'm never going to see again. It was a small deployment - we all knew each other."
When the Prime Minister speaks, they will hang on her every word.
What they don't want is an apology for being sent to Vietnam. They want Clark to say "I'm sorry" for what happened after they came home.
"Two words I hope that she does utter to us are 'welcome home', says Geoff Dixon.
"We've had 11 prime ministers since we committed to Vietnam and not one New Zealand politician has done it."
VIETNAM VET: TRUST FUND A STEP FORWARD
When the Memorandum of Understanding was signed in December 2006, Brian Wilson had just retired because he feared time was running out.
"My goal is 10 good summers - a lot of guys are doing the same," he says.
By then, 10 of his 35-strong platoon had died from Agent Orange-related conditions; more have died since.
When the Weekend Herald caught up with him last week, the North Shore-based veteran was recovering from a knee operation and awaiting a further operation on his ankle. He's hoping they might improve his golf.
Wilson was critical 18 months ago of the MoU package - especially the Government spin that it was worth $30 million and public perceptions that every veteran would get $40,000.
Now he's impressed at the effort to finally do something for the veterans.
"The trust fund is a big step forward, with the interest being applied correctly to needy causes.
"The widow of one of the guys from my crew got a grant out of the blue and it really helped her.
"The trick is to get guys to apply. A lot of them are not plugged into the system."
He's delighted by the concessions in the Government's covering letter to GPs specifying free health checks.
"It shows empathy and that they finally understand and accept that all the things we said for years were correct."
The effort to get survivors to register with Veterans Affairs, so their health needs can be assessed, is another step forward, though Wilson says the latest figure - 1285 registrations - suggests many more may have died than authorities believe.
Wilson is off to Tribute 08 with surviving members of his platoon, including Graeme "Topsy" Turvey and James "Dinga" Bell.
"A big drawcard to go to something like this which costs a lot of money is 'who are you going to see?' It's a bit like classmates going to a school reunion.
"It's a little bit of recognition from the Government at last. Like anything in life, it's not everything I would have wanted, but at least its being done. If Helen [Clark] does it right, it's a tribute."
FROM HEROES TO VILLAINS
Career soldier Ken McKee Wright was one of the first New Zealanders who served in Vietnam to come home, in 1967.
"When I left the country three years previously, if we'd driven down the road the kids would have lined the street and waved at us.
"Three years later they hurled abuse at you. We didn't know what had happened in New Zealand.
"That was the difference for us - coming back as bad people. You never really get over that."
In that environment, the soldiers also had to cope with the hangover of white-knuckle conflict and their exposure to chemical poisoning.
For some of his mates, life became very hard, he says. Some found alcohol, others went bush.
"The best description I can give is they were depressed. They couldn't hold jobs. Some of them screwed up their interviews.
"They had nowhere to go and nobody recognised what was wrong.
"Earlier, we would have called it shellshock."
When Garry O'Neill went home to Christchurch he would walk home from Burnham base in battle dress with his ribbons on. One evening he was walking with a female friend whose brother had been wounded in combat when a woman came up and spat on him.
"I just recoiled but Devon took it to heart and dropped her."
Most soldiers resorted to changing into civilian clothes off base to avoid confrontation.
Early last year, O'Neill lost a daughter to breast cancer.
He remains dismayed at the narrow range of conditions, in veterans and their children, recognised as due to the chemicals absorbed in Vietnam.
Yet, he says: "Some positive things have been done. It's going in the right direction."
What hurts Zac Harris most is the denials. In the 1980s, veterans' children were being born with deformities including spina bifida and their parents were spending thousands on health care. Other veterans were dying young.
"At that time they were denying we were in the spray zone.
"The evidence was in Defence headquarters all along.
"I remember Helen Clark on TV saying I don't know what these Vietnam vets are groaning about - they all volunteered.
"I nearly smashed my TV."
