Vietnam vets remembered

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Publication title: Kapiti News

They were the only Kāpiti servicemen to be killed in Vietnam and the first of 37 New Zealand troops to lose their lives in the seven years of that war, with 187 wounded in action

The new plaque now includes Sergeant Alastair (Al) Don, one of the first two New Zealanders killed in action — the other being a Bombardier from Auckland — when their Landrover was blown up by a Viet Cong landmine in September 1965.

The story will be told at the dawn parade by war correspondent Chris Turver of Waikanae, the last surviving member of the four-man crew who was wounded.

In Vietnam, the bodies of New Zealanders killed in action were flown to Malaysia for interment at the military cemetery at Terendak and there Don remained until repatriation back home in August 2018 and interment at Paraparaumu’s Awa Tapu cemetery in April 2023.

The original Vietnam plaque on the Memorial Arch carrying the name of Staff Sergeant Richard (Dick) Grigg of Reikorangi, killed in a Viet Cong bomb explosion at his V-Force billet in Saigon in December 1965, was unveiled in 2018.

Grigg was not only a soldier but a humanitarian who mounted an appeal for orphaned Vietnamese children which, after his death, had brought large consignments of clothing and toys from New Zealand donors between 1965-73 and raised $12,000.

It had not been known that Don’s scattered family had a base in Paraparaumu and discovery of their whereabouts last year led to a...