Anzac Day: Geraldton-born Vietnam veteran’s letters home to his daughters turned into a book

Journals and letters a Geraldton Vietnam Vet sent to home to his young daughters from the trenches — describing war time for a child’s mind — have been turned into a book. The book, Surveyor: Printer Behind the Lines, consist of Major Edward ‘Peter’ Constantine’s letters and journals and was compiled by one of his five daughters. That daughter, Margaret Constantine, said she was honoured to march with the Survey Corps Associations ex-members on Anzac Day to represent her father and launch the book. The middle child of five said her mother fortunately kept the letters sent to her and were handed down when her father passed away. “In the book, he writes a lot of letters to me because I was about five or six going into school,” Ms Constantine said. “My little sisters, the twins, just turned two. So there’s a lot of that picture imagery that you see. “My older sisters were quite a lot older than me, so they probably got letters but not in the same format. “He writes about what’s going on in Vietnam — and what’s going on with the war — but from a very basic kind of child version, when you put them into the diary it really is quite moving with how he keeps a five-year-old child informed about what his life was like over there.” Major Constantine included drawings of a helicopter, his tent and soldiers playing volleyball in his letters, and wrote about going on flights, seeing squirrels and mongoose around camp, always sweating in the hot weather and drinking Vietnamese tea. Ms Constantine described her father as a character with a great sense of humour. “Unfortunately, he passed away in 1998 with dementia, which was quite devastating. But it took us a long time to actually realise there was something wrong because my dad was a very eccentric, interesting man,” she said. “My feeling about it was that the letters home really helped keep him connected with his family and also helped with the mental stress of being in a war and a commanding officer.” Major Constantine was popular in Vietnam with plenty of friends in the taskforce at Nui Dat and the United States 66th Engineer Company at Long Binh. Born in Geraldton, he grew up on his family’s property where he always had a strong connection to the bush. He went to Geraldton High School and worked as a clerk with the Commonwealth Bank in 1945 before returning to work on the family farm in 1947. He served in the Army for 33 years and retired to a farm near Albany in 1982, spending many years there before he developed Alzheimer’s disease. Joining the army in 1950, Maj. Constantine had become an experienced topographic surveyor by 1955 and in 1975 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed commanding officer of the regiment. In 1976, he was posted as commanding officer and chief instructor of the School of Military Survey — a position he held until he retired in 1982. He was the only officer to have commanded both the regiment and the school. Lt-Col Frank E. Thorogood described Major Constantine as “an outstanding leader of men” with an “engaging personality making him right at home among the tough cattlemen”. Major Constantine was scheduled to go to Vietnam in 1969 with Lt-Col Thorogood to be his second in command. “His career and his contribution to the Royal Australian Survey Corps were recognised when he was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1981,“ Lt-Col Thorogood said after Major Constantine’s death. “I am privileged to have known Peter over so many years, I am grateful for the times we shared and I mourn the passing of a real friend and comrade.” The book will be launched on Sunday, May 1 at the Vietnam War Memorial at Kings Park.