Anzac Day 2020: Vietnam veteran Geoff Maynes will think of family and army mates on April 25

"I didn't know much about the war, I didn't even know where Vietnam was," he said.

At just 19, he was working on a remote cattle station in the sunshine state, but somewhere else in Australia, a marble with his birthday on it was drawn from a barrel.

It was a twist of fate that would send him into a war.

Mr Maynes sat on the letter from the Australian government for six months, nursing a broken foot which delayed his entry to the army. After an x-ray in Brisbane cleared him for duty, his journey began.

He was trained for the infantry in Singleton, for jungle fighting at Canungra, radio operations at Shoalwater Bay, and had more training at Ingleburn.

He even spent a period with the Special Air Service, pretending to be the enemy and setting up ambushes to train the Aussie soldiers.

Eventually, he was sent to Vietnam.

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It was here that Mr Maynes joined the First Battalion as a reinforcement officer.

He stayed overseas for about 10 months during 1968 and 1969, taking on the duties of machine-gunner and then scout.

He said Anzac Day is a chance for him to reflect on past wars and family members who have fought in them, as well as mates that fought alongside him but didn't make it home.

It's been more than half a century now since he returned to Australia, but Mr Maynes said catching up with "old army mates" is how he likes to spend April 25.

"I come into Tamworth every year and I've got two mates in there that I served with and were friends with that were in other battalions," he said.

"We go into the march, then we generally go to one of the hotels, have a few beers and have a bit of lunch somewhere and carry on and maybe play a bit of two-up, spend the day together and then our wives come and pick us up," he said.

But for the Vietnam veteran, it hasn't always been that way.

Back in his home country, Mr Maynes headed back to remote Australia, working in the Northern Territory and Western Queensland.

He didn't make a big deal of Anzac Day for many years.

"When we first came back from Vietnam, there was a lot of bad feeling about the Vietnam soldiers, there were a lot of protests, it wasn't a popular war," he said.

"It took a long while for a lot of the fellas to sort of come back to it, you know.

"When I got back and got back in contact with ex-Vietnam fellas, we tended to go to Anzac Days more then."

Anzac Day is going be different this year.

Mr Maynes won't be marching, going for beers, or playing two-up. He won't even see his mates.

But the Anzac spirit is still well and truly alive, and he plans on watching televised services and spending the day ringing around his army friends to reminisce and catch up.

And for younger people, who may not have had a brush with war, he had a clear message.

"It would be good for the younger ones coming along to remember those, just to remember the sacrifice of people that have gone before to have the freedom that we have now," he said.

"I think it's good that they respect the memory of the soldiers that have gone before and people that have served, and probably a big percentage of the community would have had family members who have been to wars."

Mr Maynes said this Anzac Day, he'll think about his family, his mates, and the "tens of thousands of others" that lost their lives fighting for our home, Australia.

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