A personal odyssey by a Vietnam veteran to honour all who died during that war has revealed a Katoomba-born casualty whose background is a mystery.
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Rob Eade, who is riding around Australia leaving flags at the birthplace of every dead soldier from Vietnam, travelled to Katoomba last Wednesday to remember Kenneth Raymond Houston.
Mr Eade, with members of the Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans & Associated Forces, laid a flag at the cenotaph and saluted Private Houston.
Details about Mr Houston are scarce. He was born in Katoomba on April 7, 1945, and served as a constable in the NSW Police Force before being conscripted into the Australian Army in July 1967.
He was sent to Vietnam with the 3rd Battalion of The Royal Australian Regiment, where he died aged 23 in October 1968.
The Department of Veterans Affairs notes only his service number and dates of birth and death. An Australian police document is a little more detailed. It reads: “The private with 3RAR died in Phuoc Tuy of heat exhaustion, severe shock and suffocation on October 25, 1968.”
Private Houston is buried in Katoomba cemetery in a grave marked “in loving memory of our beloved son and brother”. Next to him is the grave of Raymond Reginald Houston (died 1983 aged 72) and Clarice Irene Houston (died 1984, also aged 72).
Mr Eade, who conducted the brief service at Katoomba cenotaph, is on a mission to plant flags for every Australian serviceman or woman killed in Vietnam and all subsequent wars.
He has already travelled through Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria and is now moving up the east coast.
“I've got almost 600 flags to be laid all around Australia,” he said. Mr Eade, 72, a Vietnam conscript himself, started his mission in June last year and expects to take about three years to complete the task.
He is travelling on a motorised trike with his red heeler, Ginge, sleeping in sheds, horse stables, sometimes on a stretcher in people’s lounge rooms.
Mr Eade leaves the flags at the city or town closest to where the soldiers were born.
“I only do birthplaces,” he said. “I don’t do graves – I get too emotional, it’s too sad.”
Two other local veterans are better known. Private Ronald Field – killed by a sniper’s bullet aged 22 – has a Hazelbrook bridge named after him. His remains, along with Lawson Corporal Bob Bowtell, were repatriated from Vietnam a year ago.
The Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans & Associated Forces would like to find out more about Private Houston. Please email jennie.curtin@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
