The 2008 Peacers after completing the 96km Kokoda trek, at Owers Corner.
Raising awareness of PTSD is a two-headed monster – so wherever appropriate our projects are designed to get our ‘early detection, early treatment’ message to those who need to hear it, and to raise funds so that we can more effectively spread that message further.
One such project is trekking the tortuous, symbolic Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea. Our first trekkers completed the 96km track – 130km if you flattened it out! – in July 2008. A number of places have already been booked on next year’s team.
The following article gives an idea of why Kokoda was selected as our symbolic journey, why it inspired the image in our logo, and what it’s really like.
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Our 13 Picking Up The Peaces for PTSD trekkers completed their nine days on the Kokoda Track in one piece… and in awe of the efforts by Australian Diggers in those beautiful, deadly Owen Stanley Ranges in 1942.
As we pulled ourselves to the crest of yet another near-vertical razor-topped ridge, rivers of sweat waterfalling from our noses, team-mates and porters applauded and offered jelly beans, fruit, or water, and we sank to the ground for rest and recovery.
We could only wonder at the Diggers of Maroubra Force 66 years ago.
They reached those same ridges starved, wracked by dysentery, malaria, long-term sleep deprivation, with festering feet, loads weighing up to 65kg, many carrying multiple wounds, and the hypervigilance required to stay alive in a battle zone. We had it easy!
Total casualties of Australian soldiers on the Kokoda Trail from July to November 1942, numbered 1,680. Of these, 625 were killed. Casualties due to sickness exceeded 4,000. The Japanese are believed to have lost over 6500 killed.
What beggars belief is that not one of those 1055 wounded or the thousands – from both sides – who returned home after the war, was advised or recognised or treated for the mental anguish they all endured.
Since the aftermath of battle was first recorded, the signs and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder have also been noted. Yet until recently, little was done to alleviate the suffering of those whose lives were irreparably altered by their invisible wounds.
As part of preparation for the trek, many of us read histories of the Kokoda campaign. Arguably, Australia’s victory there prevented the Japanese from invading Australia. Had they succeeded, Australia today might have been a very different country.
And noticeably, throughout those histories, wherever authors mention trying to locate Kokoda veterans, or speaking with family, the recurring theme is how many of them ended their lives as alcoholics, recluses, and social misfits.
Several members of our party with family links to the campaign could name relatives with exactly those traits, and traumatic post-war lives that suggested they carried deep unhealed mental scars from the days they put their lives on the line for Australia. The Vietnam Veterans Federation reports that they’re still getting World War 11 veterans seeking mental help, nearly 70 years after the original trauma.
Against that background, walking Kokoda today has a significance well beyond the magnificent scenery, heart-warming people and challenging tracks.
Our four veterans – Peter Kercher and Laurie Drake (Vietnam), Phil Larkam (Timor-Leste) and Bernie Nihill (Solomons) – perhaps experienced it differently, but we were all struck by the overwhelming support of the local Koiroi people. They supplied most of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels in 1942, and our porters today. Incredibly, 19 trekkers (we adopted six rascals from Adelaide and the Sunshine Coast) required 34 porters, even though three of us carried all our own gear!
The personal porters were incredible. They pitched and packed tents, cleaned boots and washed and folded clothes, filled water containers, gave concerts, and anticipated their trekker’s needs to the point where some even seemed telepathic. On the track, they pushed trekkers uphill, held out supportive hands during log and river crossings, and clutched packs to prevent their charges crashing down the slippery descents.
And, oh, the track! Its 96km is well-travelled – 5000 (mainly Australians) trekked it last year, and each day we passed other parties travelling north, in the opposite direction to us. But its surface is narrow, precipitous, tortuous, ripped by slippery roots and ankle-turning rocks. Parts are perpetually wet and greasy, deeply pocked by quagmires of black mud and slick clay.
Navigation is generally not difficult, although the trail is actually a network of tracks used by local villagers to reach their gardens, or friends, or destinations. Many of those tracks have nothing to do with the ‘major thoroughfare’, so a guide was very useful.
But the overwhelming sense is of the steepness of the ridges, up and down – have a look at this elevation profile. At times we would climb for hours or descend knee-wrenching ‘undulations’ for hours through features that in wartime were known by such names as ‘the Japanese Ladder’ or ‘the Golden Staircase’ – one of which reputedly had 4000 steps.
Although how anyone counted them, I’ve no idea. To take your eyes off the ground for any reason invited disaster, with one of our number tumbling down a cliff, many a ‘touchdown’ and ricked knee or ankle. We learned quickly that walking and looking at the scenery were two totally different – and separate – tasks!
We paused for memorial services at two of the most prominent battle sites – Isurava and Brigade Hill. Our Kokoda Spirit trekking company guide Wayne Wetherall issued a eulogy, prayers, poems and honours lists to various trekkers to read, and then our Rural Fire Services representative Lindon Kinder played Last Post on a bugle. And our porters sang. Very moving.
There’s a monument to the Australian troops at Isurava, overlooking the magnificent Yodda Valley – four granite pillars engraved with the words Courage, Endurance, Mateship, Sacrifice. And a small stone on the peak of Brigade Hill.
At Myola, Oribaiwa and Imita Ridge the monuments are in the form of rotting weapons and ammunition dumps, the remains of Japanese and Australian fortifications, mountain gun positions, ordnance and weapons pits. Plus plaques to trekkers who have died on the track in the last couple of years.
There is an eeriness, and a splendour to these key points along the track. Even beyond the physical exhaustion, you feel them in the air. At night the fireflies may be the ghosts of warriors still flitting through the jungle, but there’s a peace about the place too, a satisfaction of a job done hard, but well.
The time passed remarkably quickly. We managed to spread awareness of post traumatic stress disorder and attract financial and medical support for the Picking Up The Peaces campaign. We laid the foundations for growing awareness in the year ahead, and cemented a team to carry it forward.
The contribution of Vietnam Veterans Federation ACT Branch was inestimable – and is the vibrant seed of a lot of worthwhile future benefits for younger veterans of Australia’s military and emergency deployments.
And for the curious – ‘Kokoda Trail’ and ‘Kokoda Track’ have been used interchangeably since the Second World War. ‘Kokoda Trail’ was adopted by the Battles Nomenclature Committee as the official British Commonwealth battle honour in October 1957. In 2008 the Papua New Guinea Parliament established a Place Names Commission which endorsed the use of ‘Kokoda Trail’. However, the sign at Owers Corner has Trail on one side, and Track on the other, and old Diggers invariably refer to it as the ‘Kokoda Track’.
