Although the weather had been a bit crook over most of the State for a few days, it didn’t deter a good number of people from attending the Commemoration of the 45th Anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan hosted at Pearlbrook by the NSW Chapter of the VVMC. Of significance on the day, was, that earlier in the week at Gallipoli Barracks in Enoggera, Her Excellency, the Governor-General of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce AC presented a Unit Citation for Gallantry to Delta Company, the 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment for acts of extraordinary gallantry in action at the Battle of Long Tan in 1966.

Although it is 43 years after the US presented their own citation, and, a similar one was awarded by the South Vietnamese President to the Diggers involved, it does at least acknowledge that our Government has finally recognised, that, a lot of hard yards were put in by those 105 Australians and 3 Kiwis at Long Tan, and hopefully it also brings one step closer the realisation that the 61,000 Aussies who served in Vietnam deserved a much better deal than they received when they finally returned from serving their country.

All the usual culprits were in attendance and as an added extra there was a fly over by Squadron Leader Tony Blair who laid out some pretty impressive smoke as he did a few acrobatics for the appreciative crowd underneath him (many thanks to Col Parkinson for sending in the photos of the fly over).

Music on the day was provided by a very talented bloke by the name of Mike V. who in addition to a damn good repertoire of songs, knocked out an entirely new version of  ‘I’m a Believer’, although, I am fairly sure that the Monkees would not appreciate the subtle changes to their somewhat iconic song as much as the crowd did. Brien McVernon played a solo number as part of the Commemoration Service, and later that evening rejoined the other members of one of Pearlbrook’s favourite bands, the Retro Rockets, to entertain the crowd for the rest of the night.