ARVN & Australian War memorial, Dandenong

From a lay person's point of view, the two bronze soldiers, the centre-piece of the Vietnam Memorial of Victoria to be unveiled at the Dandenong RSL this Saturday, are magnificent works of art.

The soldiers, one Australian, one South Vietnamese, will stand side by side, united in comradeship and dwarfed by a helicopter - a former medical evacuation chopper donated by the RSL - which will hover above them at the top of a six-metre-high pole.

But their Melbourne-based creator, Lis Johnson, who has been making figurative bronze statues for two decades, is humble about her role in the project, the culmination of 10 years' fundraising by a handful of Vietnam veterans, to mount a memorial commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

"It's their baby - they've been wanting this for a long time. My role in this public commission requires little artistic input, but lots of technical skill," Johnson explains.

Her part in the Vietnam memorial began last July with numerous discussions with the veterans, who initially wanted the soldiers standing back-to-back. Subsequent drawings and emails followed, and it was agreed they should stand side by side

Then their "drapery", another point of debate, was brainstormed. Johnson is referring to the water bottles, backpacks, grenades, bayonets, torches, ammunition and bandage packs, coiled rope, trenching tools, rifles and webbing (belts and straps) that soldiers carry in battle.

Two "real" soldiers then came to her studio to dress her models for photographs on which she would later base moulds. What was inspiring, Johnson says, is that when the models appeared in full armour, "they looked harrowed, as if they could have been at war".

"I wanted to convey the hardship and vulnerability of these soldiers' lives. I wanted the sculptures to evoke sympathy, and here they were, standing in a studio in West Footscray, hot, exhausted-looking, with sweat trickling down their faces."

From the photographs, Johnson made clay moulds of the soldiers' anatomy with and without drapery, which was moulded separately in plasticine and cast in plastic, "because there was so much of it, if I'd cast it in clay it would have fallen off".

Describing the brief as "one of the more difficult and challenging" of her career, she admits "one of my least favourite tasks was sculpting the shoelaces, which had to be threaded a special way so they could cut them in one go to remove the boot quickly, then re-touching them in wax".

from "The Age" newspaper, 26 April 2005

ABC Stateline Transcript Broadcast: 29/04/2005 Reporter: Lisa Whitehead

Vietnam War Memorial to honour Vietnamese soldiers and civilians

ANDY NGUYEN, VIETNAM WAR MEMORIAL COMMITTEE: When we was invited to march on Anzac Day, we was very delighted because with us is South Vietnamese soldier, we have nowhere to go, no-one recognise us. Now Australian soldier, Australian veteran remember us and ask us to join, very good. We love it, so we join, we march every year, every year.

LISA WHITEHEAD, REPORTER: On Monday, veterans of the South Vietnamese army and their families marched with Australian ex-servicemen and women to Dandenong's Pillars of Freedom. For Andy Nguyen the invitation to march in the Dandenong Anzac Day parade each year is recognition that the Vietnamese community also made great sacrifices and they too needed time and place to remember their fallen comrades.

JOHN WELLS, SEC. DANDENONG RSL: These guys see themselves as Australians first and Vietnamese second, and it was their determination that the Australian flag should precede them down the road. It's good to see them here.

LISA WHITEHEAD: These men represent some of the 10,000 veterans of the South Vietnamese army who fled their country after the war and eventually settled in Victoria. Andy Nguyen, now 59, says he will always be grateful for the opportunity to start a new life, a chance denied to the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in the war. He says their sacrifice deserves to be remembered and the Victorian Vietnamese community must have a place to honour them.

ANDY NGUYEN: We need somewhere just for us so I had the idea we build the memorial. We come out there, just burn the incense and just pray for them, yeah, I remember you; you die for us to survive.

LISA WHITEHEAD: During the war, Andy Nguyen qualified as a lawyer then served as a ranger with an air borne division of the South Vietnamese army. After the war was lost, he scraped together a living selling spare bike parts on the street and lived in constant fear of imprisonment.

In 1981 he escaped Vietnam in this wooden boat. Forty people were expected to make the journey. Instead, 118 people crammed aboard.

ANDY NGUYEN: We tried with the family, but so many times, we failed and so the last time I tried, I escaped by myself first. After four days on the sea, yeah, luckily we went to Malaysia and been accepted as a refugee to Australia.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Three months later, Andy's wife Kim and their three year old son Ian also made the dangerous journey by boat. They were then re-united with Andy in Melbourne. Twenty-four years on, son Ian is qualified doctor and Andy Nguyen runs an accounting practice in Footscray.

JOHN WELLS: He's a sincere man, he's driven by this project. He likes a bit of fun. He's also a man who came here as a refugee, who is fantastically passionately patriotic about Australia, to the point where I said to him, "Would you let your son join the army here?" And he said "Not if there was a war here, I would join the army." And he said "I had nothing when I came here." He's done very well. As he says he's been very lucky but he's been very lucky by working seven days a week and ten hours a day.

LISA WHITEHEAD: The Vietnam Memorial Committee has worked hard running raffles and fundraising dinners to collect most of the $170,000~needed to build the memorial but in the early days for Andy Nguyen, it seemed money was the least of their worries. After knock backs from five local councils, he still hadn't found a home for the bronze statues of an Australian soldier and a South Vietnamese soldier standing side by side. Then, in late 2002, Andy met Dandenong RSL secretary and Vietnam veteran John Wells and the dream became a reality.

JOHN WELLS: Andy wanted a memorandum for Vietnamese who have died and remember that we now have many Vietnamese ex-service many out there. They wanted a memorial, they had nowhere to put it. He was having trouble finding the space from any of Melbourne's municipalities. We had a space, we had a vision, he had a vision and he became a great mate.

ANDY NGUYEN: John said "We have a small land but if you like it." I said "I don't need a big land, what I need is your heart. Anywhere we can put the monument is enough."

LISA WHITEHEAD: John Wells already had a can-do reputation. After all, he just persuaded the US army to donate a chopper to the Dandenong RSL's own Vietnam memorial.

JOHN WELLS: Huey was the one~- is the one thing that links all Vietnam veterans. If we needed food, water ammunition, they brought it. If we needed someone up on top to have a look at what was going on, they did it, and significantly with that one, if we were hurt, that's the one that came and got us. That sound still sends shivers up my spine

LISA WHITEHEAD: This potent symbol of the Vietnam conflict will now hover above the bronze statues of an Australian digger and a South Vietnamese soldier at the entrance to the Dandenong RSL. The bronze statue started taking shape in this Footscray foundry six months ago. From the clay models to the final life size figures. Sculptor Liz Johnston and the Vietnam War Memorial Committee sweated over every detail.

STEVE LOWE, VIETNAM VETERANS' ASSOCIATION: I can't wait to see it finished and - -

LIZ JOHNSTON: Under the chopper.

STEVE LOWE: Now we embrace the Vietnamese community, the veterans in particular, but not exclusively, they again are our brothers, side by side. I mean, they come from a society which is so bound to their ancestors and so to be able to pay the respect in a special way and in a special place, they can do this for the first time.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Tomorrow morning on the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the Governor-General will unveil the memorial at a dedication service and this soldier can report his job is finally done.

ANDY NGUYEN: It's a big day for us and we could not, we'd never, never forget that time.