Vietnamese Community in Australia - SA Chapter Inc is with Mayor Angela Evans and Joe Szakacs MP.

30/04/2024

🇦🇺3️⃣0️⃣🌹0️⃣4️⃣🌻2️⃣4️⃣💛
Black April "Fall of Saigon"
49-Years "Lest We Forget"
Vietnamese Community in Australia - SA Chapter Inc

Today, as Australian and Republic of South Vietnam flags wave freely under South Australian skies, we commiserate:
🇦🇺 49-years since the “Fall of Saigon”
🇦🇺 49-years since our motherland lost her soverignty to Communist Occupiers.
🇦🇺 49-years since 49M Vietnamese people lost our Sovereignty, Basic Human Rights, Freedom of Speech and Democracy.

This is almost double Australia’s current population and highlights just how precious, but fragile “freedom and democracy” can be - as we stand in solidarity with sovereign nations around the World today, fighting for democracy and peace.

Please allow me to share a poem I improvised, inspired from Dorothea MacKellar's "I love a sunburnt country":

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains.
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea.
Her beauty and her terror,
The wide brown land for me.

My heritage is Vietnamese,
Our boat was 10 by 3m wide.
84 people crowded on board,
We prayed and cried, and cried.

I was one of ten toddlers,
My brother two weeks old.
Two days and three nights adrift,
In severe wind, wet and cold.

We refuged in Malay Bidong,
Until SA opened her doors.
Thank you to Australia,
For welcoming us, to your shores.

3,000 troops wounded,
Across - our yellow land.
59 of them - South Aussies,
Freedom forever stands.

I'm grateful to this sunburnt land,
Who's heroes fought for me.
Three red stripes in their honour,
Fallen soldiers – five hundred & twenty three (523)

Lest We Forget 🥀🥀🥀

#RSLSouthAustralia
#Vietnam50
#VietnamVeteransAssociation #VietnamVeteransFederation #VietnameseVeteransAustralia
#AustralianVeterans
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