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Mr
John C Atkins
President
HMAS Sydney, Escorts and Vietnam Logistic Support Veterans
Association
Dear Mr John C Atkins
I am writing to advise
you of progress with the expanded Vietnam Nominal Roll.
You may recall that
the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon Bruce Billson MP,
launched an interim Vietnam Nominal Roll website on 15 August 2006.
He also announced that an expanded Vietnam Nominal Roll website
would be published in August 2007.
I am very pleased to say that the
development of an enhanced website is well in hand and will present
many features for people to access. For example, the site will
contain additional fields of information. As well as being able to
search by service number and name, information on the website can be
obtained by searching by the unit name, dates of service in Vietnam
as well as dates of birth, place of birth,
honours and awards received. I should mention that the
Department has received a number of enquiries from veterans and
their families about the lack of availability of this feature on the
current website. The website can also generate a printable
Certificate of Service for each individual highlighting their
Vietnam service. It will also be possible to view an photo for each
of the 520 official commemoration plaques dedicated to the war dead
from this conflict.
Particular veterans may not wish to
have their details displayed on the website. These veterans can now
request, in writing, that some of those details be suppressed from
publication. This is a major policy change from the current website
where it was an 'all or nothing' situation. Any veteran who may wish
to avail themselves of this option is best advised to contact the
Nominal Rolls Team on 1300 780 133 (local call charge) or email
nominal.rolls@dva.gov.au
and the new procedure can be more fully explained for them.
Building the expanded version of the
Roll has required that approximately 60,000 service records and
thousands of other original service-related documents be manually
checked. These records and documents are located in three different
states and territories and are held by four different Australian
Government agencies (DVA, Australian War Memorial, Department of
Defence and the National Archives of Australia).
Despite this volume of work and the
logistic challenges, we estimate that we will have at least 97 per
cent of the details complete by the relaunch date. All Vietnam
veterans will be on the Roll, except those who have requested that
their details not be published. A small percentage will not have
full details until their remaining information is confirmed. The
outstanding details will likely be those where, for some groups,
there are quite complex documentation to search for relatively few
members. These details will be published on the website as they are
completed and I will write to you again when we are satisfied that
the task is finished.
You should also be aware that we will
remove the names of about 20 people from the Nominal Roll who were
found, during the examination of service records, not to have
Vietnam service. The bulk of this group is made up of part-time
members of the then Citizen Military Force who were scheduled to
visit Papua New Guinea (PNG) as part of their training. The PNG
visits were mistakenly included as Vietnam visits. Where it is
considered that a name has been shown in error, the Department will
attempt to contact each person to advise them of this situation and
to discuss and settle any contrary view.
The enhanced Nominal Roll of Vietnam
Veterans has been a significant undertaking by the Department of
Veterans' Affairs, honouring those members of Australia's armed
forces who served during that conflict. It is an accessible tool by
which the veteran and general communities can easily research
information on that part of Australia's military history.
Yours sincerely
signed
W Rolfe
Brigadier (rtd)
COMMISSIONER 18
July 2007 |
