Barry Peterson and Apocalypse Now

Yesterday The Age wrote an article about Barry Peterson, the man who inspired the movie Apocoalypse Now…

“BARRY Petersen, a 75-year-old Australian dying of cancer in Bangkok, has one of those lives that seems untrue. Yet it is not. He is real. ‘‘I have undertaken a few endeavours,’’ he says, ‘‘but I am nearing the end now.’’

“Petersen was awarded 13 medals for his service in Vietnam, Borneo and Malaysia. He ended up a lieutenant-colonel.

“What he did and how he did it, however, makes him the Colonel Kurtz of Australia – Kurtz being the Apocalypse

“Now anti-hero who  led  an army of hill tribe rebels against the Vietcong, at first with the blessing of his bosses and then, as his messiah status escalated, in defiance of them. The parallels are striking.

“Petersen was an Australian Army captain in 1963. He had already worked with mountain tribes in Malaysia, so when trouble brewed in Vietnam the CIA sent him to lead the Montagnards (the French term for the mountain-dwelling tribespeople of Vietnam) in guerilla warfare against the Vietcong. This was two years before the official start of the war.

“At first, the CIA left him to it. But as he got the Montagnards on side – ruining Vietcong supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail,  and  kidnapping, ambushing and killing Vietcong agents – his aura as leader of a unit called the ‘‘Tiger Men’’ grew.  By 1965, he had fostered, according to his CIA bosses, a ‘‘personality cult’’…”

To read the rest of the article from The Age, click here.