Land mines and little kids

I spent Wednesday down south at the Currumbin RSL at a fund raising luncheon organized by Mine Victim and Clearance Trust (MIVAC). Normie Rowe played MC and sang a couple of numbers and all had a good time for a good cause. MIVAC do wonders in Asia delousing mine fields and UXBs left over from various conflicts in the region. Graham Edwards, the retired ALP MP from WA came over for the lunch and as we were in the same company in Vietnam I attended along with a couple of other Support Company 7RAR mates. 7RAR’s second tour of Vietnam is remembered as much for it’s mine casualties as for it’s honourable service with the two fighting and recce platoons of Support Company suffering a disproportional number of these casualties. Graham Edwards is one of them and well known but there were several others less known publicly but remembered and honoured within the battalion. Having has such an intimate relationship with mines it is not much of an extension to want to help others similarly inflicted, particularly when they are mostly civilians – woman and children – in countries where the Department of Veterans Affairs has no charter to help. The kids go looking for scrap metal to supplement the families income and often find the metal contains explosives. They are blown up and killed or de-limbed. No one helps..no government department gives them artificial limbs..they just crawl around. Have a look at the web site, you may be moved to help. I was.