The Whitlam government’s decision to lay out the welcome mat to communists we had been fighting in Vietnam for almost a decade was a shameless act of betrayal of our veterans. As the enemy was welcomed to Australia thousands of our allies from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were sent to persecution and death in communist ‘re-education camps’. Thousands more were drowned at sea as they tried to escape. Those who reached the shores of other countries languished in refugee camps for years.

Communist sympathisers are an insidious cancer within our midst.

During the darkest days of WWII, they refused to load ships for our troops in New Guinea and sabotaged vital equipment. They did it again in Vietnam and then whipped up public dissent with moratorium marches around the country. As a result, the Vietnam War was not lost on the battlefields where our veterans fought heroically – it was lost on the streets of our capital cities where they were betrayed.

The scars of this betrayal still run deep for many Vietnam Veterans who ‘went bush’ and never returned. Others ended their lives by their own hand.

Fifteen years after the war veterans organised a ‘Welcome Home Parade’ for their mates to help heal the psychological wounds they carried. It was a memorable event with tens of thousands of flag-waving Australians turning up to cheer them home. Prime minister Bob Hawke turned up to take the salute, which was returned by an erect middle finger as many gave him ‘the bird’.

Fast forward 30 years and we are now preparing to welcome home another group of veterans from Iraq and Syria. Unlike our Vietnam Veterans, these cowards hate our guts. They have spent the last couple of years beheading infidels, raping women, destroying ancient historical sites and killing innocent civilians in a barbaric fashion the world has not witnessed for thousands of years. They are the personification of evil.

Now they want to return ‘home’ to the bosom of our welfare system so they can do their best to bang, blow, blast and behead Australian men, women and children who do not subscribe to their barbaric brand of Islamic extremism.

Our sanctimonious do-gooders – Liberal wets, Labor left and Green trolls argue that the greatest crime against humanity is to make a terrorist ‘stateless’. Never mind that they have rendered tens of thousands of infidels headless!

Meanwhile, the greater majority of Australians are gobsmacked by the fact that our political leaders are now debating whether we should allow terrorists who have committed treason to the bosom of our welfare system.

When they arrive we will have to commit millions of taxpayer dollars to monitor their every move and utterance as they commute between their local mosque and Centrelink to spew hate against Australia and everything we value.

It is surely time for the onus of proof to be reversed. If a terrorist ‘known to our intelligence agencies’ suddenly leaves for the Middle East and disappears off our radar for longer than a month without a valid reason their Australian citizenship should disappear with them.

Under a reverse onus of proof parasitic legal sympathisers supporting the restoration of Australian citizenship for terrorists would be required to visit Islamic State strongholds in Iraq and Syria to gather evidence in support of their applications to reclaim citizenship. Islamic State witnesses would be required to attend court in Australian for cross-examination as part of the process. All at their own expense.

Welcoming terrorist home is not the only sell-out of our troops. Australia’ sycophantic membership of the International Criminal Court means that troops we send to fight against terrorism in the Middle East could end up in an international court presided over by a sheikh, a Somali judge or a radical terrorist from Hamas.

The uniform our diggers once wore with pride has been hijacked by gays, lesbians and transgenders. The country they served so proudly now welcomes terrorists they fought against. They have been sold out by a legal system that is supposed to protect them in their fight against terrorism.

So how do our returned troops handle this betrayal?

Some go bush as Vietnam Veterans did 45 years ago. Hundreds wander streets without food, shelter, friend or hope. And sadly, others die a lonely death by their own hand with a pauper’s grave as the only record of their existence.

But our political leaders will argue that it is better for hundreds of our veterans to be homeless, lifeless or suicidal rather than render a single radical, bloodthirsty, Australia hating terrorist stateless.

Lest We Forget indeed.

Vietnam Veteran Charlie Lynn retired as a major from the Australian Army after 21 years service. He later served in the NSW Parliament for almost 20 years. A veteran of 84 Kokoda Trail crossings he was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Logohu in the 2015 PNG New Years Honours List.

Image: YouTube.

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