Forty years after the withdrawal of the last New Zealand troops from South Vietnam in 1972, the Tairāwhiti Vietnam Veterans and Whānau Association have undertaken an oral history project to record the experiences of members and their whānau.

Recording the impact on veterans – the trauma of their war experiences, the public response on return, and the effects of Agent Orange on veterans and their whānau - are issues central to the project.

Since its inception in 2007, the Association has been meeting monthly with veterans and their whānau to discuss any issues that may be affecting them. With support from Te Puni Kōkiri, they worked with Taina McGregor, Oral History Adviser (Māori) at the Alexander Turnbull Library to learn the tikanga and technical expertise involved in recording oral history.

“The Association wanted to conduct the interviews within their own group, face to face, so rather than having people who they didn’t know well interview them, they were more comfortable opening up to those they were more familiar with,” explains Taina. “I helped them with the structure of how to conduct a project like this; the kinds of questions to ask and type of equipment you need. Once they had the information they were able to have complete control over how they wanted the project to roll out. ”

The Association chose to extend the interviews to the wives and children of the veterans so that a range of experiences on those impacted by the Vietnam War is reflected by the project. Only a handful of interviews with wives and children have been completed to date but include wives interviewing each other.

The whānau has been involved in other aspects of the process too. Keith Niwa has been working writing an abstract, or small description of each interview, so that once it’s archived it is easier to find. Keith, whose father Ross Niwa is one of the Tairāwhiti veterans, has found the experience of being involved in the project a real insight into both the Vietnam War and his own father’s experience.

“I’ve been lucky to hear the stories of the men who served alongside my dad in the Victor 2 Company and get a sense of the era, what they went through and how they operated. The interviewees share a common language which is connected to their shared experiences. As someone who has never been to war it’s sometimes hard to follow the slang both from that time - and the army slang - but I feel like I’m privy to a really valuable piece of history.”

The group has completed 75 interviews to date with the project still continuing. It is intended that the project will be put into the Turnbull Oral History collection to lay the foundation for an accessible education resource for the Tairāwhiti Vietnam Veteran’s mokopuna, tamariki, whānau and other interested parties.