"Post World War Two communism was the up and coming monster in those days.

"Stalin and his regime were spreading all around Europe and what have you and there was a lot of fear and also communism was very strong in Australia. The Union movement particularly was very staunchly communist and there was a lot of ill feeling both ways, pro and anti communist. Anyway [cough] when the Korean War broke out and it appeared that communism was going to spread through Asia a lot of young fellows like myself who were definitely anti communist enlisted to fight the communism or the spread of communism.

"That was an ideological thing but there was also the sense of adventure too with I have to say all of us really because if you didn't have a sense of adventure you wouldn't go over there, someone might kill you.

"So there was both the anti communist belief and the sense of adventure that sent us there. We had our eyes opened quite considerably of course.

"We found that the democracy in South Korea wasn't all that crash hot anyway and the conditions we were fighting weren't quite what we were used to living back in Melbourne or Sydney or wherever but I think basically that we all had a genuine belief, I did anyway speaking for myself, I had a genuine belief that we were trying to prevent communism and its evil roots from spreading down through Asia and possibly into Australia.

"Indonesia was having terrible trouble with communism at the time. So it was literally knocking on our front door and it wasn't a pretty thought so we went to try and stop it."

CORPORAL RON CASHMAN