Students commemorate the Battle of Long Tan
On Saturday 18 August, four Darwin High students joined around two hundred members of the general public at the annual Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Service. Year 10 student Liam Harwood, Year 12 students Kiara Hind, Zoe Heath and Paris Rahul represented the school at the event.
This year the Veterans commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, when 108 teen-aged members of D company, 6 Battalion RAR, held off a determined attack by 2,500 enemy troops in a rubber plantation, during heavy driving monsoonal rain. Their courage, tenacity and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, was a decisive Australian victory that changed the course of the Vietnam War. This is all the more remarkable because most of the troops fighting in Vietnam were conscripted National Servicemen, not volunteers as in World Wars 1 and 2.
Among those who served in Vietnam, were a number of boys from Darwin High School, and they really appreciated the presence of the Darwin High students who distributed poppies for members of the public to lay on the Cenotaph.
Darwin High School teacher, Judy Boland thanked the students
Thanks ever so much for your magnificent contribution to the Vietnam Veterans Remembrance Service last Saturday. You did yourselves and the School proud. I received a number of compliments on how smart you all looked and how well you carried yourselves, handing out the poppies.
