Interesting things from Down Under

From a piece in The Australian News via Castle Argghhh!

Honouring Long Tan
Veterans of the battle at last get the recognition they deserve

ALMOST exactly 40 years ago this weekend, the men of Delta Company, 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, left their base at Nui Dat, southeast of Saigon, and entered hell. As the patrol pushed into a rubber plantation, with the 29 men of 11 Platoon leading the way, the Diggers suddenly found themselves in the midst of a huge encampment of North Vietnamese troops. What happened next was a battle that represented the most important contribution of Australia to the Vietnam War. Officially, Delta Company took out 245 Vietcong; unofficial reports suggest the enemy death toll was far higher. Yet the Vietnamese did not acknowledge their defeat. After the battle, Radio Hanoi broadcast that communist troops took out an entire Australian battalion. It was a slap in the face to the men who were there, but as Cameron Stewart reports in The Weekend Australian Magazine, times have changed. The Vietnamese, specifically the men who commanded the troops, who brutally outnumbered Australian forces and by all rights should have eliminated them, recently uttered the words Australia's Long Tan veterans had waited 40 years to hear: "You won."

The gist of the article is that not only did he Aussies win a battle during the Vietnam War but their nd our presence there has been deemed a good and even necessary thing. WOW!