‘A matter of principle’: Veterans march on Canberra in fight for recognition
Hundreds of veterans who say Australia has failed to properly recognise their service will march on Parliament House on Wednesday, taking a decades-long fight to Canberra.
The Rifle Company Butterworth diggers were deployed to Malaysia during a communist insurgency.
Hundreds of veterans are taking their decades-long battle straight to Parliament House tomorrow, with former commander Mickelberg vowing they will keep fighting for their men. A Current Affair
There, they guarded an Australian air base and say they were briefed they may need to use lethal force.
Yet, their deployments were classed as peacetime service, leaving them without the medal and veteran entitlements they believe they earned.
Last week, the federal government accepted a three-year-old tribunal recommendation to recognise the service as non-warlike.
The veterans say it’s not enough.
“Victory is total and full recognition,” former machine gunner Private Stan Hannaford told A Current Affair.
The Rifle Company Butterworth diggers were deployed to Malaysia during a communist insurgency. Supplied
For two decades, Australian troops rotated through Butterworth, protecting Royal Australian Air Force personnel, their families and a base housing two of Australia’s three Mirage fighter squadrons.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Graeme Mickelberg, who served in the Army for 47 years, said there was no ambiguity about what troops were walking into.
“We were sent there to defend the airbase ... the air base was at risk of attack,” he said.
Asked if there was any doubt he was entering a warlike zone, Mickelberg said: “None whatsoever ... I mean, our soldiers were all briefed, as were the officers, that there was an active insurgency under way.”
Hannaford remembers it the same way.
“We were left in no doubt that we were going into an active zone,” he said.
Their campaign has become a race against time.
At least 35 Rifle Company Butterworth veterans have died since the tribunal delivered its recommendation three years ago.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Graeme Mickelberg served in the Army for 47 years. A Current Affair
Some veterans joining Wednesday’s march will arrive in wheelchairs, with the group hoping to confront Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh and possibly Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“We’re not asking for the world ... we are asking for our full entitlements,” Hannaford said.
Mickelberg says he will keep fighting for the men he once commanded.
“It’s a matter of principle,” he said.
“We’re going to fight on.”
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