The Search For MIA Diggers Continues...

What an amazing time in Australias Military history. Years after wars ended, Soldiers previously listed as Missing In Action or Killed In Action, Body Not Recovered are being found.

These articles over the last couple of weeks...

Pit may be grave for 160 Diggers Mark Day June 09, 2007 GROUND-PENETRATING radar will be used to investigate the suspected grave of more than 160 Australian soldiers near the Anzacs' bloodiest World War I battlefield of Fromelles, in northern France. The suspected grave site has been identified after a scientific survey confirmed the presence of a series of pits. Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson yesterday described the evidence as "compelling". He said it was possible more than 160 Australians had been buried by the Germans after the Fromelles battle on July 19, 1916. Mr Billson said ground-penetrating radar could provide additional evidence as to the presence of soldiers' remains. Military historian Colonel Graham Fleeton (ret), one of the leaders of The Australian's Our Other Anzac Day tour of the Western Front next April, said the Fromelles battle represented the blooding of Australian troops after the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. "It was a tragedy of astonishing scale, not only because of the 5533 casualties we took in a single night - more than the entire Boer, Korea and Vietnam wars put together - but also because the whole battle was utterly unnecessary," he said. Additional reporting: AAP

Hard to find more Diggers Paul Maley and Ashleigh Wilson June 06, 2007 THE bodies of the four Australian servicemen still missing in Vietnam will be much harder to recover than those of two Diggers whose remains were returned to Darwin yesterday, an expert on the conflict says. Australian War Memorial senior historian Ashley Ekins said the four were lost in circumstances that would make finding their remains, if they still existed, very difficult. Mr Ekins's comments came as the bodies of Lance Corporal Richard Parker and Private Peter Gillson, killed in Vietnam in 1965, arrived in Darwin to be met by members of both families. Of the four still missing, Pilot Officer Robert Carver and Flying Officer Michael Herbert were believed killed when their Canberra bomber disappeared off radar during a night mission in 1970. Mr Ekins said the reason was probably a mid-air explosion caused by a hung bomb caught in the plane's release rack, a finding rejected by an air force inquiry. "There'd be very little chance of finding any remains from 20,000 feet," he said. In 1969, SAS trooper David Fisher fell 30m on a helicopter mission. An air and ground search failed to find him, although unconfirmed press reports said his radio was found two years later. The fourth MIA, Lance Corporal John Francis Gillespie, was lost in a fiery helicopter crash in 1971. Jim Bourke - founder of Operation Aussies Home. the organisation that led the search for Parker and Gillson - said it could still be possible to recover the four. Searches of Vietnamese and US records could yield new information, and the remains could be in better condition than expected. Mr Bourke said his team had found Gillespie's crash site and had expert advice that some remains could have survived. "Five years ago people said we had no hope on Parker and Billson. You don't know until you try," he said. Yesterday, the families of Parker and Gillson spent a quiet day away from the spotlight ahead of an official ceremony today at Richmond air base, west of Sydney.

Moving ceremony for repatriated diggers John Stapleton June 06, 2007 TWO Australian soldiers missing in action for 42 years after being killed during the Vietnam conflict have been offically welcomed back to Australian soil in a moving repatriation ceremony at Richmond airbase in Sydney. After being transported on board a Hercules military aircraft from Hanoi via Darwin, the coffins of Lance Corporal Parker and Private Peter Gillson, who both served in South Vietnam with the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, were carried through a guard of honour to be placed before tearful family members, officials and hundreds of Vietnam veterans. The coffins were draped with the Australian flag and decorated with a reef of banksias and an army slouch hat. Both men were posthumously awarded Infantry Combat Badges. Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson said the day of collective mourning, denied for four decades, provided closure for family and friends. "For the soldiers involved with that tragic contact, bound by an enduring brotherly bond known best by those who have served, made vital and vivid by the unconditional interdependency of mortal combat, this was not and could not be the end of the story," he said. "Mates lost: battles passed. But soldiers carried the weight and worry, without respite, of an invisible and unimaginable 'backpack' of unfinished business, of mates not returned." Mr Billson said a grateful nation could now fulfil its moral obligation to those who had done all heir country asked of them and in doing so, had paid the ultimate price. He paid tribute to the many people who had worked tirelessly to locate and then repatriate the bodies, thus allowing the country to fulfil a mission more than 41 years in the making, to return two soil of their homeland "back amongst the mates whose thoughts and brotherly bond never left them or faded." An emotional Lieutenant Robert Gillson, who was four months old when his father died and said to have an uncanny resemblence to him, never thought he would be able to bring his father home. He described the event as "a great day for the family, the country and for Vietnam veterans". "The family are just so happy that someone stood up against insurmountable odds to find this needle in a haystack, my dad." A lone bugler played the Last Post as two Iroquois helicopters flew over the coffins, followed by a minute's silence. An army band played Waltzing Matilda as hundreds of serving and former servicemen along with family members formed a guard of honour as the coffins were taken off the base in silver hearses. The funeral for Lance Corporal Richard Parker will be held at Woden in the ACT on the 12th. Private Peter Gillson is to to be buried in Melbourne the following day

I have lost track of how many times I have asked the question 'How long is forever'?? When a Soldier see's a mate fall and calls out they wont leave them behind, they will come back for them one day, who really would have thought they would return 40 years or even 90 years later?? Every day, every minute someone comes into or leaves our lives. Let's face it, sometimes we miss them like crazy, sometimes they come and go and we barely notice. But sometimes, sometimes a promise made is so important to a person that they will stop at nothing to keep it.

In the case of the Vietnam Veterans, it is their mates who chose to continue the search until they could fullfill their promise to their fallen mates. I can not for a second imagine what it felt like to bring Private Gillson and Lance Corporal Parker home after all those years. But I will remember for a long time watching one of those Vets tell a reporter the exact amount of time he has waited to do this, down to the day. Exactly how many days it took him to keep a promise to a fallen mate.

With the finding of the grave in France, it is possible that a story that had been passed down through generations of families may finally come to an end. A fallen Soldier who never returned from the foreign soil where he fell may be given the chance to be honourably laid to rest.

From where I sit, when a Soldier makes a promise to a comrade, then forever truly is forever. They will not stop until that promise is fullfilled.

We could all learn a lesson from this...

AC