Roman Doroszuk

I was in B Coy 7 RAR and was the scout mentioned in the ambush on Coburg on the 28 January 1968 at 10:30 am local time. Another section had just engaged and killed 3 VC before we arrived on the scene and there was a sandy track that you could drive a truck on. the Lieutenant wanted to check out the track and I said, are you kidding? we just killed three VC out there and they are going to be waiting for us.
I was told not to walk the track but near it to see where it went and I remarked that if I do that I am a dead man. I tried to keep in sight of the track and at the same time stay out of sight but that was not easy to do.
I had a premonition of danger and told my Lieutenant as much but was told to shut up and do what I was told to do. 72 paces into the incident the shooting started and the trees were so thick you could not walk through them with out moving the trees and effectively making the tops of the trees wave and attract attention.
I survived the incident by some sort of divine intervention and by rights should have been killed by being shot in the head. instead I heard a popping sound of bullets breaking the sound barrier over my head, fired from an AK 47 My first reaction when I realised what was happening was to return fire and go down to a forward prone position, BUT something or some one (although there was no physical person there) literally pushed me hard in the chest and pushed me over BACKWARDS which is a very unusual way to go down. As I was half way down and about 45 degrees leaning backwards I felt something hit the top of my skull and then I was on my back firing back in the direction of my attacker. The tree in front of me was being shredded and I rolled sideways and then the gravel where I had been lying on the ground on was showering through the air in slow motion and then the machine gunner on the M60 was gutsy enough to come up alongside of me and open up and I say gutsy because he did not shoot from behind me as that would have exposed me to his gunfire as the M60 tends to spray bullets around a bit. He was very brave to have done that and I think he deserves a medal for what he did. next thing the shooting stops and the rest of the section surround me asking if I was allright and said have a look at your hat which was ripped in 3 or 4 places and I still have as a momento of my near death experience. Plus one of the bullets hit the brass vent on my cap and that tore through my hair and ripped a furrow across my skull ripping out the hair but not the skin. That’s a pretty close call.
After the incident we ran across the track firing as we went and found nothing. Then we walked down the track like we owned it for about 400 yards and then came back on the far side of the track and our navigation was so good that we came back across the ambush site. then we found an AK 47 with a bullet hole through the wooden stock, some blood and apparent intestine on the ground, some ho chi min sandals so there must have been two or more and one was badly hit and his mate took him away leaving his weapon behind. i was glad to have survived the incident.

A few months later 7 RAR returned to Australia. and after discharge I did a 4 year civil Engineering course and after graduation I got married and worked all of my career in various and different construction jobs all over Australia and retired at 69 years of age. I Was married after graduation and after 17 years got divorced and had two daughters. I currently live in the Northern beaches area of Sydney and just this year at age 71 I just got married a second time and this time around, being more mature and settled, I intend to make it work this time around.
My experience in Vietnam certainly affected me and made me a different person with the ability to commit to and achieve things and grow up real quick as it did to many of us. At first i did not want to have anything to do with the RSL and reunions and Anzac day marches but over the years I have mellowed and become more easy going but due to having been a forward scout my senses were heightened significantly which over the years have made me somewhat intolerant of noise and i really appreciate my peace and quiet and solitude when ever i can get it.