Australian journalist Bruce Montgomery, Vietnam veteran Don Killion, and geologist Tony Brown went to Vietnam in October 2001 to see what they might be able to do to help.
Killion had been a medic working with the Americans in Hue in 1969. Like many vets, he had experienced difficulties adjusting to normal life after Vietnam. He had never felt comfortable about going back. However, he had been a stoic supporter and leader in organisations such as Legacy, an organisation established to help the families of ex-servicemen and women.
Don Killion with a young Agent Orange victim near Hanoi
The three Australians have set up an Australian trust, the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange Trust, to raise money for children in that part of central Vietnam, Thua Thien Hue province, the area around Hue, where Killion had spent his war years.
In 2003 and 2004, working in co-operation with the Vietnamese Embassy in Canberra, the Vietnamese Department of Foreign Affairs and the local Red Cross, they raised enough money to buy 30 wheelchairs for the victims.
The next two projects have been to buy breeding cows to help them make some money from calves.
