Assessment 3: Factual Storytelling

Bob Copley – Officer, Grandfather, Hero

I

n the dry, brown Canberra suburb of Weston, retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert (Bob) Copley would look over his manicured grass tennis court and bounce his grandchildren on his knee.

“More, Grandad,” they would giggle and he would happily comply. His little bambinos, as he called them, had him wrapped around their little fingers.

 

 

Though forty years earlier, instead of tennis whites and picture books, Bob wore the khaki uniform of an officer in the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery and served in the deadly jungles of Vietnam in 1967 as a forward field observer. Through dense jungle, open grassland and war-ravaged towns, Captain Copley travelled deep within hostile territory with the infantry soldiers, targeting and engaging the enemy. When the first shots rang out and the cacophony and chaos of battle ensued, Captain Copley would have to identify the coordinates of the enemy. This would be radioed back to the artillery so as to wreak large firepower upon the Vietcong. Getting it wrong could prove to be a fatal mistake for the Australian troops. 

 

Being in the forward teams, there was no leniency given for errors of judgment and the troops were constantly on edge, never knowing when they may stumble across the enemy. Recalling his time in Vietnam, Bob said, “I was scared sometimes though I was mostly very busy. And I felt tired as I never got much sleep.”

While on patrol, the Vietcong ambushed Captain Copley’s regiment as they passed through a wide clearing. With nowhere to hide and certainly no opportunity to run, the Australian soldiers hit the ground, propped on their elbows so as to return fire, with only the top of their helmets visible above the tall grass. Captain Copley’s shoulder pressed up against a sapling, his elbows grazed against the coarse ground as he shot into the ranks of the Vietcong soldiers. After receiving back up and the enemy had cleared, Captain Copley drew himself to his feet and noticed that the sapling had been sliced clean in two by a bullet that had missed his head by mere inches.

 

“Keep your head down and don’t do anything brave,” Bob’s wife Anita had demanded of him before he left for Vietnam. At home with their two young sons, Anita was always faced with the looming nightmare that he may not make it back. Anita opened the newspaper one day to find Bob mentioned in despatches for extreme bravery in action. She was riddled with emotions; anger, pride and overwhelmingly sick with worry.

Captain Bob Copley was a hero. His regiment had been trapped under enemy fire for an extended period of time and the Australian troops were being battered down by the enemy. Bullets shrieked through the thick, jungle air and the earth shuddered with explosions. The enemy was literally close enough to touch and the troops had to fight tooth and nail for survival, grappling with the Vietcong soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Despite this, Captain Copley remained calm and collected enough to continue calling the artillery fire onto the enemy. There is no doubt that he turned the tide of the battle in favour of his regiment.

 

After a year of service in Vietnam, Bob was able to return home to his family. Anita was fearful that her eldest son, Bob Junior who was now three, would not remember his father. Anita waited at the airport buzzing with anticipation, Bob Junior’s tiny hand clasped in her own. Dozens of soldiers, all dressed identically, flooded towards the eagerly awaiting families. Bob Junior slipped from Anita’s grasp and ran amongst the sea of soldiers straight into the arms of his father.

“I don’t think there was a dry eye that day,” Bob Junior laughed. “I think this was the turning point, perhaps a critical moment of closure for Dad. He was able to put what had happened in Vietnam behind him and slip back into family life.”

The remainder of Bob’s military career saw him promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and travel all over the world with his wife, two sons and his daughter. Bob has travelled down many walks of life as an executive in an automotive business, an accomplished author and poet and established his own e-book publishing business. Aetherbook Publishing even received an iAward along with other such companies as Foxtel, recognising his business as one of the best Australian information and communication technology innovations. Yet, his most treasured job and pastime was that of being a father and grandfather.  

“The ‘sliding door’ moments in Dad’s life are what made him such a dedicated father and grandfather,” Bob Junior stated. Growing up without a father from age 7, Bob had thrown himself into being everything a father and grandfather ought to be. Certainly, serving throughout the Vietnam War was scattered with pivotal flashes of fate and life changing moments.

“I don’t remember him talking about his experiences in Vietnam until my children were old enough to start asking about it,” Bob Junior explained. Bob’s love and focus on his family grounded his perspective of his service and near misses in Vietnam and his greatest sadness is that of his fallen mates who never got to have grandchildren.

 

Bob Copley - an officer, author, poet, loving family man and hero - joined his beautiful wife Anita in Heaven on her birthday in 2009.