WHEN Keith Payne returned to Brisbane from Vietnam in September, 1969 he was feted as a hero. The details of how he single-handedly saved 40 of his men from overwhelming North Vietnamese forces were published in every newspaper in the country. He was handed the key to the city, sent on a week-long all-expenses paid holiday with his wife Flo and five sons and presented with his medal by the Queen on the royal yacht Britannia.

It was when he began work as an instructor at Duntroon in Canberra a month later that he saw the other side of the coin.

“I came home one day to see someone had painted ‘Baby Killer’ on my fence,” he recalled. “My boys virtually had to fight their way through school because their father had been in Vietnam.

“What went on when we came back was disgraceful. We had nothing to do with the politics. We just did the job the government gave us but we came home to a hostile public and it hurt.

“We were told that if we wanted to walk down the street we had to wear civvies so that we wouldn’t get attacked. When you can’t wear your country’s uniform on the streets of Australia things are in a pretty bad way.

“It wasn’t until the Welcome Home Parade in Sydney in 1987 that things turned around. For the first time people started coming up and saying they were sorry for what had gone on and thanked us for what we had done.

“It makes you feel real good, I can tell you.”

Payne, 85, was speaking about the importance of the #ThanksForServing movement, a campaign backed by News Corp Australia, the RSL and Legacy and supported by the Department of Veteran Affairs, that encourages members of the public to acknowledge the contribution of our servicemen and women.

The movement, also backed by Payne’s fellow VC Dan Keighran, is not aimed at changing legislation or putting pressure on any department or organisation. Rather, as we approach the end of the World War One Centenary and the Invictus Games, it will focus attention on the importance of letting our service men and women know that they are appreciated.

For Keith Payne, who joined the Australian Army aged 18 in 1951 and saw action in Korea the next year before serving in Malaya, PNG and Vietnam, the importance of the word “thankyou” cannot be underestimated.

“It is just important. So many soldiers come back from serving overseas suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I did myself when I came back from Vietnam, so I know what they’re going through.

“In recent times I’ve gone over and visited the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. I look into their eyes and they’ve got the nine mile stare and I think, ‘you poor bugger’. I know they’ve got a hard road ahead of them, and for them to know that people are behind them and appreciate what they have done means a lot.

“Sometimes that’s all they need. To have someone to talk to, someone who understands what they are going through.

“For them to know that the public are behind them is a good start.”

It could be by inviting ex-servicemen or women to speak at schools, using the #ThanksForServing hashtag on social media, filling in our online form at (insert masthead here) or just going up and saying ‘thanks’ to someone in uniform, but Payne says whatever form it takes will have the desired effect.

“For me the best thing is to see how many people come along to the Anzac Day marches. Every year it’s getting bigger and it’s the young people who are driving it.

“That’s just bloody fantastic. It makes me feel so proud to be an Australian.”