The service will be held at the Moama RSL Memorial Garden as part of a national day of remembrance; the end of our longest war — and Moama RSL Sub Branch president Ken Jones says everyone in the twin towns is invited.
It started in 1962 with just 30 military advisers. It ended 11 years later, with 521 killed, and more than 3000 wounded.
And has lingered down the decades, as young boys plucked from suburban streets and country towns were sent to a war about which they knew very little, often nothing — but from which few, dead or living, would ever escape.
Trapped between the horrors of the frontline in Vietnam and the home front, where many reviled the role of our military, the Army regulars and the Nashos (soldiers conscripted into National Service) fought and died alongside each other.
And then the nightmares which have dogged them ever since.
Mr Jones says Vietnam’s place in Australia’s history made the war last much longer than 11 years.
He says it was an ugly war, you never knew who was a friend or an enemy; it was mostly a war of ambush, surprise attack or booby traps.
“All war is ugly, but this time it was a bizarre reality, one moment these 19- and 20-year-old youngsters were in Australian camps and suddenly found themselves on planes —often a Qantas plane — and disembarking in a war zone in the energy-sapping tropics,” Mr Jones said.
“They were there because the law said that’s where they had to be, but so many people, too many in fact, at home were so brutal in their criticism and their attacks on them.
“And when they came home after surviving their tour of duty, it did not let up — even the RSL didn’t want to know initially. We weren’t even allowed to march until the late 1980s.
“These days, more often than not, we are the lead marchers, because the others are all but gone.”
Mr Jones says Long Tan is the Vietnam battle most recognised today, but the most serious action, and the biggest fights, were in 1968 at places such as the battles for the firebases Coral and Balmoral.
He says they are yet to make movies about those, but they have for Long Tan.
“But that’s not what the Vietnam Vets ever wanted,” Mr Jones said.
“They just wanted the respect for a job they had to do, and a job that was well done, and to be given the same rights as every other Australian, and that’s what we will be acknowledging on Friday so I urge as many people as possible to join us on Friday and be part of the service.”
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