Graham Walker's story

Graham Francis Walker AM was born on 6 September 1939 in Marabee, Queensland.

Graham joined the Australian Army in 1959, a year after he finished school. After 4 years at Royal Military College, Duntroon, he graduated as a lieutenant in the infantry.

In his early career, Graham served with the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) at Holsworthy, New South Wales. In 1964 and 1965, he served in New Guinea with the Pacific Islands Regiment and was attached to the British Army's 2/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Regiment. During this time, he undertook 2 periods of active service during the Indonesian Confrontation.

Back in Australia, Graham returned to the Pacific Islands Regiment as an intelligence officer and Company Commander before being posted to the Portsea Officer Cadet School, Victoria, as an instructor.

In preparation for deployment to Vietnam, Graham served with the 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (8RAR) in Malaya. Then he deployed to South Vietnam in 1969 as a Company Commander.

Graham recalled the personal impact of the Vietnam War. When he came home, it took a significant period for him to readjust and settle down.

After the war, Graham returned to Lae, New Guinea, with the Pacific Islands Regiment to help establish the Military Cadet School. Then he had a long posting in Canberra at the Air Force Staff College.

Graham retired from the Army after 21 years of service. That's when he shifted his attentions to supporting returned service personnel. He worked with the Vietnam Veterans' Federation of Australia (VAA) to advocate for veteran entitlements and advise the Australian Government on veteran wellbeing.

The VAA was trying to gain recognition of diseases and disabilities linked to the wartime herbicide Agent Orange. In 1983, the Royal Evatt Commission was established to review the use and effects of chemical agents on Australian personnel in Vietnam.

Graham also campaigned for the official history of the Vietnam War to recognise the harmful effects of Agent Orange. The Australian War Memorial commissioned Peter Yule, a historian from the University of Melbourne, to write a more accurate account of the use of Agent Orange. The Long Shadow: Australia's Vietnam Veterans Since the War was published in 2020.

Alongside his post-career achievements and his immense support for the veteran community, Graham was honoured with numerous awards. He was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star for his service in the Vietnam War. He made ACT Senior Australian of the Year in 2014 and became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2015.

See also

Vietnam War 1962 to 1975
The Indonesian Confrontation 1962 to 1966

Further reading

Graham Walker (Australian Army), Agent Orange

Transcript

Graham Walker was a company commander in Vietnam.

"I'd been in an infantry battalion and we'd had a lot of people killed and wounded and so on. So, I was affected and it took me quite a long time to settle down."

In 1981, Graham met Phil Thompson, the president of the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia. The VVA was trying to gain recognition of the effects on veterans of a herbicide sprayed on the countryside in Vietnam. It was called Agent Orange.

"There were people in there at desks, and piles of paper and I said to Phil, 'Look Phil, I don't know anything about the Vietnam Veterans' Association and I know even less about Agent Orange, but what I can see is "" you need a filing system'. And so for the next three or four weeks I set up a filing system in the office and of course, setting up a filing system you have to read every document. And what I read really troubled me.

There were sixty-six million litres of herbicides sprayed over South Vietnam. And there was a significant portion of that over the Australian area of operations, Phuoc Tuy Province. What is not in doubt, is that every soldier had the potential for exposure. And under veterans' law, if you like, repatriation law, veterans are given the benefit of the doubt."

Graham and the VVA fought hard against bitter opposition to their claims. Finally, in 1983, a public inquiry in the form of a Royal Commission was established.

"The Royal Commission had identified that there were cancers that under veterans' law should be accepted for compensation. And so did the Appeals Tribunals. So the Appeals Tribunals and the Royal Commission seemed to be on one side and the department on the other. And then the U.S. Academy of Science put out its first mega study on the effects of Agent Orange and they came out with a list of cancers.

And that changed everything. Of course now there's a long list of cancers that are accepted for compensation. One of the reasons why the Vietnam Veterans' Association and other such organizations exist is because it's enormously stressful for somebody to put in a claim. And people are very easily put off. They say, 'I can't take it anymore.' You know, they're knocked back, 'Oh, OK, you know, I'll forget about it.'

I mean I've known several people who've committed suicide and known of a lot more. And what you're doing is desperately trying to get the system going so that such people are given hope, you know.

Vietnam veterans were seen as angry. We're probably no more angry than people from any other war, but we expressed it publicly, and didn't resile from harsh criticism of whoever we felt should be criticised and that included governments and bureaucrats and anybody."


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Cite this page

DVA (Department of Veterans' Affairs) ( ), Graham Walker's story, DVA Anzac Portal, accessed 26 November 2024, https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/stories/oral-histories/graham-walkers-story
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