Long Tan

I want to know about the Battle of Long Tan pretty much exclusively because no one will tell me. This is reverse psychology at its best.

Clearly Long Tan is a battle of tremendous propaganda value. As one writer says, immediately before he moves on to riduicule propagandist Viet Cong accounts of the battle:

"as a result of Viet Cong stupidity in the face of Australian courage and mateship, 108 Diggers were able to defeat 2500 Viet Cong."

Even War isn't as ironic as War Historians.

But moving swiftly on. The Australian platoon was decorated by the US. Several soldiers were awarded individual Commenwealth honours and a recommendation was made that the Australian Government honour the platoon. But it didn't happen.

Now, the Rudd Government (and by the way, does anyone else wonder if the Government is entirely made up of androids - I mean would it really be possible to get so much done if you were sleeping occasionally as well?) has reviewed the case and is awarding the honours after all this time.

Given that every News or Current Affairs program last night ran the story, why didn't anyone report on why the honours were not awarded in the first place?

And more importantly, why weren't the honours awarded in the first place?