By Luke Voogt
Vietnam veteran Jimmy Holze never forgets the mates who loaded the guns of 106 Field Battery beside him as bullets cracked overhead.
“They become your family because you depend on them,” the Corio 82-year-old said on Anzac Day.
The artillery gunner fired shells in heat and rain, in support of 7th Battalion infantrymen as they patrolled the Vietnamese jungle.
“They (7th Battalion) loved the guns,” he said.
“The guns saved a lot of lives.
Often Viet Cong infiltrated the forces protecting the battery and fired at the gunners, with one firefight lasting three days.
Mr Holze remembered a grenade rolling into a trench and killing one of his fellow gunners when it exploded.
“You just can’t stop firing the guns because lives depend on it,” he said.
“Everyone’s afraid but with your mates there next to you you’re not going to show it.”
Mr Holze’s dad, Ronald, sustained wounds in Greece during World War II, while his father-in-law John Benjamin O’Brien was wounded in World War I.
The Germans captured Ronald as lay in hospital and he spent the next five years the Stalag 18 prison camp in Austria, then Nazi Germany.
“He’s lucky he was caught – he couldn’t get shot at,” Mr Holze said.
Ronald never talked about the war but it still affected him long after, Mr Holze said.
“He would fly at the drop of a handkerchief.”
Mr Holze also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as he struggled to return to civilian life.
“I almost destroyed it,” he said.
“It was one of the hardest things I had to do but some doctors helped me through it.”
Mr Holze and his grandson Ben Noonan joined thousands around Geelong at Anzac Ceremonies on Wednesday, remembering those who served and gave their lives.
“We leave a beer on the bar for all the people who fought for my freedom,” Mr Noonan said.
“I don’t have to go to war because they went over for me – they deserve this day more than anyone.”
About 7000 people attended the Eastern Beach dawn service in its second year, according to Geelong Vietnam Veterans president Rieny Nieuwenhof.
Other Geelong services had similarly “huge“ crowds, he said.
“From where I was standing the whole of Jonhstone Park looked packed out.“
About 8000 attended Torquay’s dawn service, said local RSL secretary Darryl Topp.
