“There was hours of boredom, broken up by sheer hell. And you didn’t know when it would happen.”
That is the way Shepparton’s Norm Groves describes the 366 days he spent in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
A field engineer with the Royal Australian Engineers, his job was mainly in mine warfare — looking for mines and either defusing them or blowing them up.
Much of his time was spent working on booby traps, and he would go out on missions with the infantry where he would be called on to make safe any bombs they came across.
Sometimes these missions would last a day. Other times they could go for three weeks, with the Australians sleeping rough on the ground at night-time.
Obviously it was a dangerous role and when Mr Groves was asked if there were any close calls, he was philosophical.
“I think everything is a close call in a situation like that,” he said.
And the mines that remain unexploded still worry Mr Groves, who has visited Vietnam many times in more recent years.
“It still worries me when I go back over,” he said.
“I’m still on guard.”
There was no such thing as an “average day” while at war.
“The only thing you cold be positive about is that you’re still alive,” he said.
Mr Groves was conscripted into the army to go to Vietnam as a 19-year-old, but was able to defer his service for two years while he completed an apprenticeship.
It saw him head to Vietnam when he was 21.
Mr Groves said he did not have any problems being called on to serve his country.
His father had served for Australia in World War II and his grandfather in World War I.
“I don’t know anybody who had a problem with being conscripted,” Mr Groves said.
When he was sent to Vietnam, Mr Groves said he did not even know where it was.
“We were just flying for a day to get there,” he said.
Now, Mr Groves has a great group of friends who are also Vietnam veterans.
They meet every week for coffee, while the Vietnam Veterans Association, which he is also involved in, meets regularly for lunches.
“I’ve got a great group of blokes. That’s the silver lining,” he said.
“Everybody’s had issues that still remain — physically and psychologically.
“When we catch up, we laugh. It’s the only way to get through.”
Mr Groves has returned to Vietnam a lot in more recent years.
Currently Mr Groves and his wife are planning their 18th trip to Vietnam.
Visiting was something that initially surprised Mr Groves, but now he loves it and goes for several months each visit.
About 20 years ago the couple initially visited Thailand, rather than Vietnam, and Mr Groves said he found it similar to how Vietnam had been, so decided to head back himself.
They now have what they call “an extended family” in Vietnam, after they befriended a girl who organised tours for them on one of their earlier trips, and have now been taken in as part of her family.
“I could never have imagined that ever happening,” Mr Groves said.
“I had hatred for the Vietnamese when I got home (from the war). But that went.”
Mr Groves credits that girl he met all those years ago — who now has children of her own — with changing his views.
Now the people of Vietnam are one of the main drawcards for him to repeatedly visit.