This page will be updated with any news re The Quest for Sanctuary for Our Warriors.
That means any relevant info regarding any of the existing or pending safe-havens,
and any special news items.
As they come to hand, we are including feedback and action reports from our politicians and fellow-Australians, telling us how they are helping to keep Billy’s Bargain with our veterans.
Please assist us to stay up to date: if you think we should know, email us.

Most recent item first, following the Call To Arms

All updates will be first posted to the message board then to the relevant page

URGENT !
CALL TO ARMS !

Check the 'Stand To' page and Message Board for the latest on our veterans' quest for sanctuary

TOP

Press Release - March 2004

War veterans are rarely a 'newsworthy' subject.   Aussie vets are lucky enough to have a bloke on board who seizes every possible opportunity for his public profile to help other vets, to spread the truth about veteran rehabilitation retreats. He works tirelessly behind the scenes, campaigning for the fifth consecutive year for the vets who rehabilitate in Pandanus Park, Cape York.  He's a Vietnam veteran, retired Army Major, businessman, author, environmentalist, family man and all round good bloke.  He's Les Hiddins, the Bush Tucker Man, the public face of Project Pandanus.
 
In August 2003, new blood added significantly to the management team of Pandanus Park, taking over the web site running and all the 'on the ground' details for the vet campers - no small feat.  With Les as the Project Pandanus 'front man' (echoes of his forward scout days in Vietnam?) these dedicated volunteers have the privacy they need for their work and they have enabled Les to focus on the complex politics involved in the formal establishment of Pandanus Park and other vet retreats. No, he never ever wants to be a politician himself.
 
Since last August, there has been an escalating awareness of Pandanus Park - articles in "Outback" and "Overlander" magazines to name just two, the official video from Vietnam Veterans' Day 2003 in Pandanus, and the "Pandanus Pilgrimage - The Path To Peace" cd launch, with copies burning their way around the country. Then there's the ABCTV George Negus interview (aired on 27 April) and more media articles in the mill. 
 
Politically, there's been numerous meetings with state and federal politicians, Queensland Parliamentarians and electoral candidates have been lobbied and there's been a comprehensive submission put to all Federal Parliamentarians.  Veterans and their supporters from all over Australia have been deluging pollie mailboxes and phones with support for Pandanus - and receiving supportive replies.
 
Now there are two websites working in tandem - Pandanus Park, still accessible while undergoing renovation into an even bigger and better format, and the new Veteran Sanctuary site, dedicated solely to the campaign for Pandanus Park and National Veteran Rehabilitation Retreats. 
 
Two of the Pandanus "Veteran Elders", Dick Schafer and Jock Kinder, leave shortly to check how plans are going over at the ‘Wilton Hilton’ of the NT.  Last year the vets were offered a retreat site near the Wilton and Roper Rivers, to augment their existing informal and private retreats.  It's not ready yet, but by June Jock and Dick will be sharing 'the gen' via the Veteran Sanctuary website.  The region has a colourful history and diverse ecosystem - ideal ingredients for a rehabilitation retreat.
 
Project Pandanus has also kicked off the "Pandanus Impact Study", under the guidance of psychologists Michael Free and Brian Hennessy (a Vietnam veteran), to formally measure individual veteran’s psychological status on entry to and exit from Pandanus Park.  Psychologists and psychiatrists around the country are also assessing the vets. Results will be published in 2005 and handed to DVA to augment their understanding of why Pandanus is here to stay.  Pandanus vets are asked to contact the Veteran Sanctuary website for details, so that they can help Pandanus keep on helping them. 
 
Pandanus 2004 is shaping up as a bumper year. Several vets and their families started the trek from WA in March, from SA last week, from NSW and QLD this week, all ready for when Pandanus Park opens again for business.  True Blue Aussie John Williamson will be there too, giving a concert for 'the troops' just before Vietnam Veterans' Day, 18 August. John has been dead keen to support the vets in this way and at last his busy schedule allows it.
 
There are a whole bunch of other surprises teed up for the 2004 Pandanus Pilgrims.  With the anticipated crowds, many new campsite-hamlets will be in place for when squadrons, platoons etc gather together after their initial week or so of recuperative retreat, ready again to make the most of time with mates who truly understand. Peaceful afternoons of fishing, exploring the environment and history, comparing medications and management strategies, the renowned bocce comps between Snoopy's Hangar and Dead End Camp, chatting with the locals, emu parades to gather the debris from itinerant 'civvie' campers, spontaneous singalongs, table tennis(!!!) -their activity list goes on and on.  These veterans are a true inspiration.
 
Pandanus Park embodies the spirit of Australia: don't wait for someone to help you - get together with your mates and do it for yourself, for everyone.  Our veterans are claiming their lives.  That's why the last decade has seen differing vet retreats springing up all over the country.  But not one of them is yet created by our government, who seem to have great difficulty understanding the immense positive impact retreat has on many of our vets.  These veterans live - and die - in hope of this healing from their liege - the Australian Government.

LEST WE FORGET

TOP

23 March 2004 - As sent individually to our federal politicians:
On 4 March 2004 the following submission was transmitted to all 225 Australian federal politicians - by fax or small bulk emails.

Although there have been many 'read-receipts' and re-sends, others remain unread. This is too important an issue to be lost in paper warfare, so my apologies if you have already read it - you will find a couple of additions in the Background as your reward. If you've not yet read it, then now is the time.

In the 19 days since first sending you this Submission, DVA's own statistics tell us that over 1,000 Aussie veterans have died. Each was a real person, who lived, who loved, who knew the pain of their country's conditional acceptance right to the end. Each had their own tale. One was a digger who had battled for Pandanus Park right from the beginning.

How many more of our veterans will die before you all make time to read this? Before you all stand up for our diggers' right to peace?

I look forward to your early action

4 March 2004 Submission to all Federal Politicians and Replies

Today all 225 of our federal mp's were sent a comprehensive submission on Pandanus Park and War Veterans' Rehabilitation Retreats. Now the facts are out there - no Federal Politician has any excuse for being ill-informed about this issue. It's their choice - just as it is our choice at the polling booth.

So far 45% of 'read receipts' show as "deleted without being read" - the result of different spam filters for bulk mailings into Australia's Parliament House. These submissions are being re-sent individually as they come to hand.

The revamped Case and background are now on their relevant pages on this site - exactly as received by our elected representatives and now more reader-friendly for you.

Congratulations! Your focussed activity is making a positive difference for our veterans.

Good on you all for exercising your hard-won democratic rights, for demanding that our politicians show some wisdom on this too, for demanding that our Federal Government enact Pandanus Park as a permanent Australian War Veterans' Rehabilitation Retreat and Memorial Reserve - NOW!

So keep hitting those keyboards, go for gold - Pandanus Gold.

Don't even try to sort out their personal allegiances - they all know that they have a far greater responsibility to Australia and her loyal citizens. Write to at least your own federal member, if not all of them. Help them realise the rightness of Veteran Sanctuary, the morality of honouring the living.

Tell them why Pandanus Park is here to stay. Explain the difference it makes to you, and to vets that you know. Tell them what your doctors say about Pandanus Peace and its effect on you and your family - if you can, attach a letter from your doctor. Ask those who are most impacted by your rehabilitation time in Pandanus to write their own letters, sharing with our politicians the healing that they witness. Just because we all know it, doesn't mean that they even have the information, let alone understand yet. It's up to us to help them represent us effectively.

For them to represent us, they need to hear our views. However, before you send your letters or Emails, take the time to sit back and ask your self how you would feel if you were the recipient of your message. Messages that contain abuse, slander or even ill manners will more likely than not be consigned straight to the rubbish bin - don't let your efforts go to waste.

Truth and wisdom created Pandanus Park. Sharing that truth and wisdom will make Pandanus Park a sanctuary for all time.

These two links are the easiest for email addresses and, when printed off, are a perfect response-checklist.Members | Senate
Our suggested bulk mailing size is nine-only recipients. Nonetheless, be prepared to re-send a bunch of them individually. We looked forward to publishing your 'real replies' too.

Alternate contact details for obscure email addresses are:
John Howard ph: 0262 777 700 fax: 0262 734 100
Robert Hill ph: 0262 777 800 fax: 0262 734 118
Amanda Vanstone ph: 0262 777 860 fax: 0262 734 144
Philip Ruddock ph: 0262 777 300 fax: 0262 734 102

AND IN THE MORNING, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

LEST WE FORGET

Jock and myself set off from Herberton on 10 May to check out Elsey Station and also just to relax and get away from things for a while. This trip we took the caravan and really did it hard! First stop Mt Surprise Pub. They support Pandanus and are very friendly people. Camped the night on the side of the road at Einsleigh River. Next day on to Normanton where we spent the night at the Normanton Caravan Park. $19.95 per night for 2 people on a powered site. Very clean, swimming pool, spotless dunnies and abloutions, friendly people. Next stop Mt Isa where we fueled up at the truck roadhouse on the western side of Isa. Fuel then was 94.9c p/l. Free showers and top notch burgers.
Be warned, it is single lane bitumen from Normanton to Cloncurry and the road trains use all of it. The old story. Get right off the road and allow the road train through.
Camped that night on the side of the road just out of Camoweal.
From Camoweal on to Frewena road side stop where we watched 6 prime movers towing 3 double decker trailers each move out at 10pm at night fully loaded with cattle heading east for Isa. You do not need a sign to know when you are in the NT as the roads show where you are. After bouncing all over the place in Qld, once you cross the border it’s like you are on a new freeway AND the roads are wide enough to accommodate road trains and caravans.
Stopped at Barkly Homestead for a drink. Fuel $1.27 p/l for diesel. Small carton of ice coffee $3.30 !! A licence to print money !!
Next stop, 3 ways servo - fuel $1.24 cents p/l. From there to Larrimah where we stayed at Green Caravan Park. There we met up with Carl Roth, our vet contact for Elsey Station.
The bad news was given that the Northern Land Council had got into the act and stopped us from using Elsey Stn. After passing that info back to Jen Sanders we were about to take off again when Val and Matt Lawson, vets from WA turned up, so more cups of coffee and a catch up session. On the road again and finished up at my son’s property at Dundee. Dundee is to the west of Darwin between Bynoe Harbour and Fog Bay and was actually part of the Finnis River Pastoral Lease.
Whilst there we had a call on the HF from Kev (Gonna ) Greer who was at Charter Towers getting his suspension repaired.
As Jock had not been west of the East Coast, the NT was an eye opener for him. For the first time in many years, the land was lush with pasture grass and the cattle looked in top condition. Darwin broke quite a few of its rainfall records this year including rainfall figures for May and June!! We had rain every day we were up there !! Didn’t do any fishing, just bludged and had a couple of rums. Took Jock to the night markets at Mindil Beach, somewhere that everyone should visit. All sorts of articles sold there from Croc skin products to Thai tucker!

We finally headed back toward home, stopping at Larrimah once more to meet up with Gonna Greer. He was heading for Katherine and then Timber Creek. A couple more rums that night, then on the road again in the morning. Finished up at Normanton Caravan Park again and stayed two nights which included a trip to Karumba. No chance of camping there as it was chock a block with the grey hair brigade from down south!!
At Normanton we met up with a couple of vets who were wandering around Australia just looking for quiet places to stay. It was amazing actually to see the number of vets who are permanently on the road just wandering around the country looking for that quiet spot where nobody hassles them!
Finally back home, to be told by my son-in-law that he had just returned from Hanush’s Lagoon at Lakefield where the 4 of them caught their quota of Barra in two days. He said the track is pretty boggy at the moment but you can get through ok with care.
The barra are well and truly on the go and big mobs of cherabin also. Barra were caught both on lure and live bait.
In conclusion, the trip to NT was great, apart from the bad news on Elsey Stn.
Took a few pictures which I will pass on to Jen for publication.

Now, it’s get ready for Pandanus time!!! So, hope to see you all up there in August.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1THU 09 AUG 2001, Page 005
Vietnam vets squat on remote station

A GROUP of 100 Vietnam veterans have taken over a state-owned property on Cape York Peninsula with the aim of establishing a retreat.
The veterans, led by the Bush Tucker Man - television personality Les Hiddins - have occupied Kalpowar Station since May with the task of establishing a veterans' retreat.
They have compared their tactics with the establishment of the Aboriginal tent embassy outside Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Queensland Environment Minister Dean Wells said yesterday he had no intention of evicting the veterans, but had sought a formal report from them stating their intentions.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service workers had been involved in informal discussions with the veterans, he said.
The station is on unallocated state land which was acquired by the Queensland government in 1994 for possible incorporation into a nearby national park.
The veterans' group reportedly used military tactics to secure the site in an operation known as the Pandanus Project, sending in advance parties and scout teams using two-way radio.
The Pandanus Project website says the project came about out of frustration with the state and federal governments which did not provide grants for establishing veterans' retreats.
"If the Australian legislators and bureaucrats can accept and put up with a tent embassy squatting on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra for more than a decade, then they can also accept a group of war veterans camped in an empty cow paddock up in Cape York," the website says.
The website says the retreat is aimed at providing a "suitable outlet which would encourage self-motivated improvement" and needed to be remote to discourage uninvited visitors.

Library Heading: Cape York Peninsula
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1FRI 10 AUG 2001, Page 005
Doctor backs vets' retreat

A PSYCHOLOGIST who has treated Vietnam veterans yesterday backed a move to set up a bush retreat as it would help veterans tackle post-traumatic stress disorder.
A group of 100 Vietnam veterans has taken over a state-owned property on Cape York Peninsula - dubbing it Pandanus Park - with the aim of establishing a retreat.
The veterans, led by Bush Tucker Man television personality Les Hiddins, have occupied Kal-/j powar Station on the Peninsula since May and set up a website promoting the Pandanus project.
Brisbane psychologist Michael Free, who has worked with veterans for more than 10 years, said the acquisition of a property would be an asset for veterans and would help in their fight against post-traumatic stress.
Dr Free said he did not have any comment on the action of the veterans in taking over the property but had sent them a letter of support helping them in their bid for a Government grant to set up a retreat.
Dr Free said the most important thing for Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress was for them to process memories of their war-time experiences.
"The experience of bush camping, by themselves, with wives and families, and with other veterans, is likely to assist veterans to discuss their memories and thereby assist them to process them," Dr Free said in a letter posted on the Pandanus project website.

Library Heading: War
Vietrnam Veterans
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1MON 20 AUG 2001, Page 002
Service honours Vietnam heroes
By Janelle Gullo

VIETNAM veterans shunned the fanfare, honouring their fallen comrades in quiet ceremonies for national Vietnam War remembrance day on Saturday.
Cairns RSL Club president Peter Turner said about 100 Vietnam veterans attended the Mareeba dawn ceremony and Cairns early evening ceremony to mark the 35th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in South Vietnam.
Mr Turner said crowds of around 100 joined veterans to pay their respects to those who fought and died in the unpopular war between 1962 and 1972. He said guest speaker and retired brigadier George Mansford addressed the Cairns crowd, highlighting the challenges faced by surviving veterans and their families.
But veterans attending commemorations at controversial Vietnam veterans' settlement Pandanus Park were reportedly looking to a brighter future for themselves and their comrades.
Cook shire mayor Graham Elmes said about 60 veterans from as far as Sydney camped overnight to join the dawn service held at the park on Saturday.
Cr Elmes said the group marked the day with a traditional ceremony before partaking of their customary drink - gin and milk - and voicing their support for the Pandanus Park occupation as a retreat for Vietnam veterans.
"They were sort of reminiscing and talking about what a great project that was as far as they were concerned," he said yesterday.
"The few I spoke to reckon it does an enormous lot for them that they've got somewhere where they can actually go and relax . . . a place to go and talk and share," he said. Cr Elmes said the Cook Shire Council was happy to support their occupation of the site, intended to allow veterans to escape the pressures of life, arrive without notice and camp free of charge for as long as they liked.
He said most of the veterans present for Long Tan Day commemorations indicated they intended to stay at the campsite for up to a week.
Cr Elmes said he recounted the historical events of the Battle of Long Tan during his speech at the commemoration ceremony held at Pandanus Park.
During the battle, a company of 108 conscripted Australian Diggers held off 2500 Vietnamese soldiers for an entire afternoon, exhausting their ammunition just as their reinforcements arrived and the defenders withdrew.

Caption: PROUD: War veteran Leigh Booth (centre) among those paying respect.
Illus: Photo
IllusBy: Mike Watt
Library Heading: Vietnam Veterans
War
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

2002
The Cairns Post
Edition 1THU 25 JUL 2002, Page 021
Long Tan Day retreat

MORE than 150 war veterans from throughout Australia will converge on a remote Far Northern property next month to commemorate Long Tan Day.
Dick Schafer, one of the event organisers, said the retreat was for all veterans and not just those who served in Vietnam.
"We've got veterans coming from recent conflicts including Timor, Bougainville and even one from Afghanistan," Mr Schafer said.
The veterans, who form part of the Pandanus Project, will camp at Kalpower Station, near Laura in central Cape York Peninsula, and gather for a service on August 18, which is Long Tan Day.
Mr Schafer said the purpose of the retreat was to allow veterans a place to relax and counsel each other for problems they may have.
The ABC is sending a crew from its Australian Story program to tape the gathering, with its story focusing on Les Hiddins - better known as the Bush Tucker Man.
The Pandanus Project has waged an ongoing battle with the State Government to legally use the state-owned land for the veteran's retreat but did not gain its backing.
"I'd like to emphasise that we don't want ownership of it, or money, but we just want access to the land without being hassled," Mr Schafer said.
"We have tried negotiating with the Government even to the point where (television personalities) Normie Rowe and Les Hiddins met with the ministers for environment and natural resources. They had a good hearing and they said they want us there and were going to draw up a list of properties they thought was appropriate."

Library Heading: Long Tan Day
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1FRI 02 AUG 2002, Page 002
Veterans mark day
By AAP in Townsville

HUNDREDS of Vietnam veterans from across Australia will descend on a remote Cape York Peninsula property later this month to mark Long Tan Day.
The state-owned land, known as Kalpowar Station, became an unofficial veterans' retreat after a group of former soldiers occupied it in May 2001.
So-called Pandanus Project spokesman Les Hiddins, better known as television's Bush Tucker Man, said more than 200 people were expected on August 18.
"We'll have a dawn service, then we'll have a few steaks and a few rums and it will be a good day for all attending."
Mr Hiddins said Project Pandanus had been a success, with veterans appreciating the chance to think things through.
They fish, walk, birdwatch, bushwalk and talk.
"They're being physically active, they're not sitting around RSL clubs drinking beer and they're doing something for themselves," he said.
The Cape York station is on unallocated state land acquired by the State Government in 1994 for possible incorporation into a nearby national park.
Last year, the veterans compared their tactics in occupying it with the establishment of the Aboriginal tent embassy outside Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Mr Hiddins said veterans had approached the State and Federal governments about making their occupation official but with no response.
A spokeswoman for Veterans' Affairs Minister Dana Vale said the minister was sympathetic to the Vietnam veterans' need to look at ways to improve their quality of life.
But the Government would not act until land issues were solved, she said.
A spokeswoman for state Environment Minister Dean Wells said talks were being held between several government agencies to solve the veterans' concerns.
Mr Hiddins, who did two tours of Vietnam, said the veterans wanted to share the area with Aborigines.
The website is at: www.vietvets.asn.au/pandanus/ news.htm

Library Heading: Cape York Peninsula
War
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1MON 14 OCT 2002, Page 009
Give land to veterans

IT seems Queensland's Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson is a tad upset with a group of Vietnam veterans - the ones good enough to fight for our country, but not good enough to be bothered about afterwards.
The object of his angst is Kalpowar station, where they have set up a retreat, led by Bush Tucker Man Les Hiddins. The minister said the veterans could not have Kalpowar because it was earmarked for conservation purposes (forgotten and left to rot), and of course was subject to native title claim. What isn't?
The Government acquired Kalpowar in 1995 and the QPWS has had a permit to occupy the property only since 1998, so it was left derelict and vacant for the first three years anyway. Given its size, the Government could easily excise, let's say, 1000ha around the homestead and give it to the veterans.
Ian Noon, Lavender St, Mooroobool.
Library Heading: Letters to the editor
Section: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Type: Letter
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1TUE 15 OCT 2002, Page 009
Retreat for all war veterans

I AM an ex-serviceman, but not a Vietnam veteran. However, I have been to their Kalpowar retreat, and was made welcome. I support what they seek to achieve. All levels of government and the press should hang their heads in shame for disinformation being spread about them.
They are not seeking to gain the use of Kalpowar, which was a World War I resettlement block, for their exclusive use.
They seek to have a small portion of this enormous country allocated as a veterans' retreat for the use of all veterans, ex-service, service personnel and their families.
Remember these are the people who have been or will be sent overseas on a great deal less pay than the average middle manager's wage.
They are asked to put their lives on the line supposedly to defend the interests of our government and our people.
In return we cannot give these brave people a place to relax and get away from the people who showed their appreciation on their return by spitting on them and calling them baby killers. Shame on you, Australia!
P. R. O'Reilly, Punch Close. Kuranda.
Library Heading: Letters to the editor
Section: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Type: Letter
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

2003
The Cairns Post
Edition 1SAT 01 FEB 2003, Page 048
A place where vets can cry
By Margo Zlotkowski

As Australian troops again face the prospect of being sent into battle, Margo Zlotkowski talks to survivors of
previous conflicts about a bush hideaway on Cape York Peninsula where the war-weary never wear out their welcome.

THEY call it "falling off the perch". It's a war veteran's way of saying another vet's in a bit of emotional trouble. The vet could be having terrible nightmares or flashbacks where he wakes up kicking, screaming and punching in windows.
He could be having severe panic attacks where his world spins, he gets short of breath and he feels like he's going mad.
Or he could be suffering such deep depression that suicide becomes all he can think about.
Until recently, there was no place vets could go to try to climb back on their perch.
Now there is.
But the vets' hold on their new bush retreat on a remote former Cape York Peninsula cattle station north of Laura is as shaky as some of the vets who need it to heal their battle-scarred minds and bodies.
As more than 600 vets prepare to converge on what they call Pandanus Park on August 18 to observe the 37th anniversary of the famous battle of Long Tan (or Vietnam Veteran's Day), the State Government is doing its level best to stop them.
The bottom line is the vets have no legal right to camp, fish, bushwalk, birdwatch or spin yarns on the government-owned site - which is under native title claim - and the government wants them off.
However, a spokeswoman for Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson says the government has no intention of removing the vets by force and if the vets are claiming otherwise "it's a stunt".
Instead, the government is drawing up a list of other sites the vets could use in the area that are deemed "more suitable" than the 300sq m tract of Kalpowah Station that symbolically started off as a soldier's settlement block.
"We completely understand the desire of the vets to have a place they can go to up there," a spokeswoman from Mr Robertson's Brisbane office says gently.
"But they are illegally occupying land at the moment. There's no way to get away from that."
The only other option for the vets is to convince the native title claimants from the nearby Hope Vale community to enter into an Indigenous Land Use Agreement over the site - a deal that could give them continued access to the small bit of country on the banks of the Normanby River that they've set their war-weary hearts on.
They don't want to own it and they don't want to build anything. They just want to go there and relax.
Deeral-based Vietnam vet Brian "Chick" Hennessy, a semi-retired psychologist who has treated victims of the digger's curse - post traumatic stress disorder - and now suffers it himself, says he knows of no vet who hasn't been affected by his war experiences one way or another.
"The images never leave you. Believe me, there are not many who escape," he says, sadly.
More than 10 years ago, Chick researched how many of his former infantry company had succumbed to the disorder and found 30 per cent had been diagnosed with it and a further 50 per cent had major symptoms.
Since then, he says the number given a full diagnosis had climbed to at least 60 per cent.
Chick says the purpose of creating Pandanus Park is to provide a place for vets to go - instead of into hospital or on to heavier medication - when they feel their symptoms coming on.
"Post traumatic stress disorder is a delayed stress reaction but the key is self management," he says. "Our idea is that vets should be responsible for their own mental health and, when they find themselves starting to be overwhelmed, they should take some time out in a safe, relaxing and peaceful environment.
"Pandanus Park fits the bill in every way, plus it costs nothing and by going there instead of into hospital, the men keep their self-respect. Afterwards, they can go back to their families, their jobs, their lives."
The vets' cause has some high-profile supporters, among them TV's Bush Tucker Man and Vietnam vet ex-Army Major Les Hiddens who found the site with the help of former Cook shire mayor Graham Elmes and who has become the public face of the project since he started urging the troops to go there two years ago.
Another is fellow vet, performer Normie Rowe, while singer John Williamson and Olympian Dawn Fraser are reported to be keen to attend this year's Long Tan Day service at Pandanus.
The project also has had its share of controversy. In early 2001, when the vets first moved in, the State Government sent the police to check it out after becoming concerned about rumours of armed Rambo-style vets planting explosives around its borders. When the police arrived, they were bemused to find two bearded old Vietnam vets on crutches wondering what all the fuss was about.
Herberton-based Vietnam vet Dick Schafer, 63, who helps Les with registrations through the Pandanus Project website, says more than 1000 veterans from all over Australia went to the park in the dry season last year and more than double that figure are expected this year.
Last year, Long Tan Day attracted about 150 people - a third of which came from the Far North - with some travelling from as far afield as Adelaide and Perth.
Dick, a former Army intelligence officer whose plane was shot down over Vietnam in 1966, is one of those using Pandanus as his escape hatch. Last year, he spent 10 weeks camping and fishing at the park with his Mackay mate Jock Kinder, whom he joined up with in 1959.
"Jock's finished up the same way as me. Totally and permanently incapacitated they call it. It's just from things that happened, things you see, but they don't come back and bite you on the bum until years later.
"It's at the stage where I can't walk too far without a stick and I take pills now - morphine for the pain which started in me back but is now all through me hips and legs, and Zoloft which I call me 'don't give a stuff' pills. But that's bugger all compared to what some of the others copped. There's blokes a hell of a lot worse."
Dick says he knows when he needs a Pandanus fix.
"Les (Hiddens) calls it getting toey. For no reason, you'll take offence at anything. You want to go and punch someone's lights out. The best thing, when you feel it coming on, is to shoot through, go bush.
"I'm as good as gold up there."
Judy, Dick's wife of 42 years, agrees. "He can get very uptight, can't seem to concentrate on things. Then when he comes back, he talks a lot more. Now he knows he's got this (Pandanus) to go to, it's put him on a more even keel."
Judy no longer sleeps in the same bedroom as Dick. It's too dangerous. For the past six years, her husband has been plagued with a recurring dream in which he jumps out from behind a rubber tree and on to one of the Viet Cong.
The dream is so real that Dick, still asleep, enacts it, furiously grappling with his enemy and screaming out loud what he's going to do to him in graphic detail.
In this state, Dick says he's kicked in windows and smashed cupboards, scared the life out of the neighbours and usually ends up flat on his back on the floor.
"I always wake up too soon," Dick grins. "One of these days, I'll get the bastard."
But Dick is quick to point out that while Pandanus was started by Vietnam vets, any veteran or veteran-friendly camper is welcome.
"We want to have this place for the young blokes. It's too late for us (Vietnam vets). We're dying off like flies. We're losing the blokes hand over fist.
"But there are soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Somalia, Namibia and Timor who are starting to go up there now. We've got blokes coming back from Afghanistan and now it looks like we're going into another lot (war), so this sort of program needs to be around.
"We don't want blokes having to wait 30 years like we had to before they can sort themselves out."' It would seem Pandanus Park has already saved lives.
Dick says three vets he met at the park at Long Tan Day last year had all previously tried to commit suicide and had come to Pandanus "as a last resort".
"They're getting help now because finally they realise they're not alone," he says. "The government can pay all the money in the world for psyches (psychologists) but unless they were there (Vietnam), they have no idea how to talk to a vet.
"I went to one young woman psyche and she didn't have a clue what the conditions were like over there and it's impossible to describe. I ended up saying, 'look, love, we're wasting our time here'.
"But a vet will open up to another vet because he's been there and he knows what happened."
Dick says another vet, Mick, who had "hidden away" as a recluse for 30 odd years because he couldn't face people, was brought to Pandanus by a mate last year and slowly started coming out of his shell.
"Just to get one bloke back into some sort of life is everything."
Two other vet mates, who were shot up badly together in Vietnam but lost contact with each other after being taken to different hospitals, met at Pandanus last year for the first time since the war.
"It was pretty bloody emotional. One of them came up to me after the dawn service and said he hoped the (ABC TV) camera crew up there doing a documentary didn't catch him on film because he and this mate he'd just seen again were holding hands. He didn't want anyone to misunderstand but I think that just sums it up."
Former Army engineer Glen Taylor, of Mareeba, is one of the young vets who went to Pandanus for Long Tan Day last year and is returning this year with more mates.
Glen, 44, who helped build refugee camps in the southwest African country of Namibia for seven months in 1989 as part of a peacekeeping unit, says although he didn't see active combat, there are images he concedes he may one day have to deal with.
The most disturbing was seeing up to 15 dead guerilla soldiers at a time brought back from the Angola border in the back of South African Army trucks, all stripped to prevent their bodies being identified and all with a neat bullet hole through the forehead.
"The (South Africans') story was they had been fired upon but my question is, if someone's running away, how do they get a bullet hole in the front of their head? I believe they were lined up and shot. It (the massacre) was just covered up.
"It was this thing of being told one thing but seeing another and having to work out in your own mind what really happened."
But Glen, who left the Army in 1990 and now works as a dog handler at the Lotus Glen prison, says what he saw could not compare to the horrors other vets had witnessed, like having mates die in their arms.
"I'm pretty stable and I can't say anything I've done or seen has affected me personally. I've probably seen worse conflicts in a pub, to be honest, with blokes bashing each other up.
"But that's not saying 20 years down the track it won't be different."
For Glen, who has encouraged other ex-military staff at Lotus Glen to converge on Pandanus this year, says he feels it is a great cause for not only the vets of today but those of the future.
"I'm all right. I'd be a fraud to say I wasn't but a lot of people aren't all right and they need this kind of retreat for the mateship, just being able to feel that they've got something in common.
"I met this guy up there, a Vietnam vet who was an engineer like me. We just sat down and talked and talked for an hour or two and it went by like five minutes.
"It wasn't necessarily about blood and guts. It was just really comfortable. We knew what each other was talking about."
Dick believes public opinion is on the side of the vets. When the ABC's documentary on the park went to air last year, he says the website received 2500 e-mails within two hours and 99.7 per cent were all for it.
"The general message was 'get up 'em', 'you deserve it' and 'don't give up', so we don't intend to," he says.

For Anzac Day this year, veterans are planning to attend a service at Cooktown RSL Hall on April 25, then camp at Pandanus Park (110km to the north) if wet season rains have not made the 4WD-only dirt road impassable. For more information, check the www. users.bigpond.com fieldguide website.

Caption: All in: (Left) Some of the 150 veterans who gathered at Pandanus Park for the Long Tan Day commemorations last August. This year, more than 600 are planning to attend.
Quiet time: (Right) Herberton veteran Dick Schafer takes time out around the campfire at Pandanus Park.
Medals and memories: Former soldier Glen Taylor, of Mareeba, with the Australian service medal and United Nations medal he plans to wear for the Long Tan Day dawn service at Pandanus Park in August.
Great mates: A dog handler at Lotus Glen prison, Glen finds reason to smile when playing with his alsatian workmate Sharky.
What a beauty: Mackay vet Jock Kinder (left) catches his supper during some R & R on the Normanby River at Pandanus Park.
Digging in his heels: (Right and cover) Veteran Dick Schafer says the diggers have earned their right to go bush.
Remembrance: (Far right) Dick Schafer reads the names of some of the fallen at the Long Tan Day memorial service at Pandanus Park on Kalpowah Station last year.
Determined: (Left) Bush Tucker
Illus: Photo
IllusBy: Aaron Francis
Section: WEEKENDEXTRA
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

The Cairns Post
Edition 1WED 13 AUG 2003, Page 002
Vets gather for service
By Margo Zlotkowski

UP to 600 veterans from all over Australia are expected to converge on a remote cattle station north of Laura next Monday to mark the anniversary of a famous Vietnam War battle.
Already, about 150 vets are believed to have arrived on the former soldier's settlement block on Kalpowah Station - which the vets' have re-named Pandanus Park - about 110km north of Cooktown.
Herberton-based Vietnam vet Dick Schafer - who has helped one of the park's more high-profile vet supporters, "Bush Tucker Man" Major Les Hiddens, in his fight to claim the site for the vets - said this year's Long Tan Day dawn service would be huge.
"Just from the emails I've received and what I've heard on the ground, 600 is a fair estimate," Mr Schafer said by radio telephone from the site yesterday.
Last year, about 150 people attended the service and mass campout on the banks of the Normanby River. This year's service will be marked by the dedication of a simple concrete war memorial on the site to veterans from every conflict since World War I.
Mr Schafer said artefacts from every war had been collected - such as ballast rocks from the Burma Railway, pebbles from Anzac Cove in Turkey and "bits and pieces" from Vietnam, Somalia and East Timor.
These would be blessed by a priest before the service and embedded in the memorial.
Meanwhile, he said there was much discussion among the vets about a rumoured handover of the property by Premier Peter Beattie to the Aboriginal native title claimants from nearby Hope Vale.
However, a spokeswoman for Mr Beattie said there was no truth to the claim.

Library Heading: Animals - General
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved

The Cairns Post
Edition 1MON 18 AUG 2003, Page 001
Battleground
Vietnam veterans dig in to hold on to Cape retreat
By Margo Zlotkowski and Jordan Baker

VIETNAM Veterans illegally squatting on a remote cattle station north of Cooktown have hinted at a campaign of civil disobedience if the State Government tries to chase them off.
As an expected 600 vets today descend on the State Government-owned Kalpowar Station, about 400km north of Cairns, to mark the 37th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, the vets' website clearly states they are hatching "a fairly drastic proposal".
"Clearly the Queensland Government is intent on not giving an inch despite the public support backing our movement," it says.
"It is really up to us as to where we go from here."
Although the site reveals the "drastic" proposal is dubbed Operation Taipan, the details are top secret and can only be accessed by members' code.
However, it does say volunteers are being sought with skills in carpentry, chainsaw operation, mechanics, plumbing, water reticulation, household electrical skills, signwriting and mapping.
In an article in this week's The Sunday Mail, camp commander Les Hiddens, who starred in the TV series Bush Tucker Man, admitted the group was preparing to turn up the heat on the government.
Mr Hiddens said the plan would involve infrastructure in the national park.
"We will demonstrate that if we need to, we can take over," the former army major said.
The vets have been using the former soldiers settlement block on the banks of the Normanby River for the past three years as a retreat for those struggling with stress, anxiety, alcohol abuse and depression.
A spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson last week said there were no plans to evict the vets.
Meanwhile at Kalpowar, which the vets call Pandanus Park, the veterans - including some from World War II - will hold a service by the river this morning and build a memorial with rocks from battlegrounds all over the world where Australian blood has been spilt.
The State Government has not yet made an announcement about the fate of the land, which is also subject to a native title claim, but Mr Hiddens said the ex-soldiers were determined to stay regardless of the decision.
The camping retreat, where veterans could escape daily life, discuss their problems with like-minded people or just rest quietly, was making a big difference to their state of mind, Mr Hiddens said.
"Politicians (are) only interested in pensions and pills but this is better than all the pensions and pills in the world," Mr Hiddens said.
One of the organisers, Dick Schafer, suffers from nightmares so violent he has been known to damage furniture and shatter glass in his sleep.
"It's there the whole time regardless of where you are," Mr Schafer said.
"But this is one place where everyone relaxes."
Veteran Jock Kinder from Mackay suffers from severe anxiety which makes him stay away from public areas, watch his back around strangers and pull down the blinds at the first sign of darkness.
He and his wife save all year to allow him to travel to the Cape.
Steve Theodore, who lost most of his fingers in a mine explosion in Vietnam, said it was important for anxious veterans - many of them suicidal - to discuss their problems with people who understand them.
"Greater society doesn't understand what's going on in our brains," he said. Local Aboriginal spokesman Michael Ross said traditional owners were divided over whether the veterans should be allowed to use the land.
"But the ones who live here, we are the ones who feel the biggest impact, and we don't mind them here."

Caption: Remote retreat: Kalpowar Station, about 400km north of Cairns.
Illus: Map
Section: NEWS
© News Limited. All rights reserved.

2004
The Australian
Edition 19 AUG 2004
Long Tan vets stake camp claim
By Ian Gerard

FOR Vietnam veteran Terry Armistead, his annual pilgrimage to a camp on the crocodile-infested Normanby River on Cape York is a time to surround himself with familiar people and familiar feelings.

"If you don't come, you feel like you're going to miss out on something," he said yesterday.
"A bit like when we first went overseas to fight. You felt left behind if you didn't go."
Mr Armistead, who served in Vietnam with the 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment during 1966-67, is one of hundreds of Vietnam veterans who gather at the remote former cattle station of Kalpowar, 400km north of Cairns, to be with their mates.
Mr Armistead's focus yesterday was on the 38th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, and commemorating the 18 Australians who lost their lives there.

More Australians died in this ferocious 1966 firefight than in any other Vietnam engagement. The battle has come to define the nation's involvement in that war.
"It's like a brotherhood up here," Mr Armistead said.
"Everybody here has been through the same thing, so they all understand."
The vets spoken to by The Australian were more concerned with securing the land on which they gather each August than with getting a medal for their involvement in the Battle of Long Tan.
Les Hiddins, better known as the ABC's Bush Tucker Man, founded the camp in 2001, and calls it a "modern-day Eureka movement".
But the Queensland Government has resisted repeated attempts by the veterans to have their claims to the land recognised.
Mr Hiddins said that for many veterans, the camp was the best therapy available.
"You can talk to your mates and it helps them unwind a lot. They don't feel alien," he said.
"It causes a lot of positive thought processes ... it's better than pills and pensions."
Jock Kinder, who had fought in Borneo and Malaya before Vietnam, described Kalpowar as a place of healing.
"I get extremely nervous and have anxiety attacks," he said.
"I can't go in shopping centres without having nervous attacks, but I felt a surge of pleasure walking into this place again and seeing the same faces."