1RAR Vietnam veteran with incurable cancer to read ode

Cameron Bates, The Herbert River Express

April 12, 2019

A former Australian combat solider from North Queensland whose unit discovered the famed Cu Chi tunnel complex during the Vietnam War is braving a new battle.

Sergeant Major (retired) Gordon Stephensen, 73, of Hinchinbrook Shire has advanced and incurable brain cancer, with loving family members fearing the Anzac Day commemorations on April 25 will be his last.

The Herbert River Express can confirm that the Lucinda man will be given the honour of reading the ‘Ode of Remembrance’ at the Halifax service on Anzac Day.

Mr Stephensen’s daughter, Kelli-Leigh Stephensen, one of three children, said the family were planning a reunion to coincide with the commemorations.

She said her father, who has previously beaten bowel cancer, was diagnosed with grade-four brain cancer after his 73rd birthday last year.

Typically, Mr Stephensen fought back, undergoing brain surgery in Townsville Hospital and a month of radiation and chemotherapy.

Despite the treatment the cancer has returned, and Mr Stephensen, a grandfather of 10 scattered around Australia and New Zealand, said he had just finished a third round of treatment that had knocked the stuffing out of him.

He was considering whether or not to undergo a fourth round.

“Now I’m just taking it one day at a time, you can only play the hand you are dealt.”

Mr Stephensen said that at the time of the Vietnam War he was the first Australian solider from the district to see action since the Korean War.

He said the local RSL sent him care packages that contained Christmas cake, biscuits and XXXX beer.

He said had a couple of close calls during the war but made it home unscathed.

“People quite often ask ‘did you kill anyone in the war?’, well they didn’t spend all that money for us to miss.”

He said he was in the thick of things during Operation Crimp, a combined United States-Australian military assault on what was believed to be an underground Viet Cong headquarters in South Vietnam in January, 1966.

“We found them,” he said of the massive, multi-story tunnel complex that is now a major international tourist attraction.

“We were dropped off basically as a cut-off force for the Yanks but they dropped us right in the guts of where everything was and we were right in the thick of it.”

Mr Stephensen said one of the members of his unit accidentally discovered an opening to the complex containing more than 100km of tunnels during the engagement.

He said he entered the complex armed with a 9mm pistol and fired upon a Viet Cong soldier who rushed him, emptying his magazine, although he believes his foe escaped.

Mr Stephensen, who still enjoys a punt and a beer or two at the Halifax Hotel most days, has led a colourful life.

Born in Townsville at the end of World War II to mother Thelma Furber and an unknown gentleman, Mr Stephensen said he had three or four last names by the time he was 14.

He was the eldest of eight siblings.

“My father’s unknown so they’re all my half brothers and sisters.”

He said his mother met World War II veteran Donald Stephensen, a builder from Cordelia near Halifax, in Cloncurry in the 60s and moved to the shire with her family, eventually working at Macknade Mill for two years.

He said that in a “spur of the moment” decision, he joined the Citizen Military Force, now known as the Army Reserves, at the age of 17 in 1964.

Mr Stephensen underwent basic training, including jungle warfare, found the love of his life, the late Desley Stephensen, got married, and ended up in Vietnam in late 1965 for a 15-month tour of duty with the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR).

“When you’re 19-year-old going on 20, I had my 20th birthday over there and I can’t even remember where I was, when you’re young and full of piss and vinegar you don’t worry about that, you just do your job,” he said.

“I had some good mates over there, a fair few of them got killed, a fair few of them have died since, it was an experience, put it that way.”

The father of three remained in the Army for a total of 22 years, saying that as a Sergeant Major he was “firm, fair and flexible – you weren’t there to make them hate you, you weren’t there to make them love you, you were there to do your job.”

He said of his time in the Army that, “I loved it, if I had my time I would do it all again.”

After the Army, Mr Stephensen worked at Macknade Mill for about two decades before contracting bowel cancer, retiring and “helping mates out on fishing boats and trawlers”.

He said he had enjoyed his life and had no regrets.