The
following is a transcript of Ron, taped by a Veteran
who was very suspicious of his stories.
"Is
wearing several decorations including the Order of
Australia, Distinguished Conduct Medal, Military
Cross, Military Medal, several Vietnam Govt
decorations, American decorations, The National
Service Anniversary Medal, South Vietnam Cross
of Gallantry and bar, plus several others not known to
the writer.
He claims the VC winner, Arthur Sullivan, was his
grandfather and that his father won the Military
Cross.
He himself went into the army as a National Service
conscript in 2nd intake 1956 where his number was
1/729700. His number later became 9269423.
He transferred to the Regular Army (date not known)
and was originally with 21 Construction Squadron and
then later transferred to 6 Battalion, The Royal
Australian Regiment [6 RAR].
With 6 Bn he did two stints in Malaya and whilst there
was trained by the British in covert operations.
He was sent into Vietnam as one of the first 16
Australians to go there. They were all sergeants and
above and were there well before the Australian Army
Training Teams were there. What followed was three and
a half years living in the jungle on “behind the lines
operations”.
As an NCO he won the Military Medal.
He returned to Australia and joined the elite SAS
where he gained commissioned rank. He then did another
stint in Vietnam, when he won the Military Cross and
the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
He claims that his army number
by now was 9269423 When asked to explain the “nine” in
front he explains that it was a number given to a very
select and secret group by ADIO and DSS.
As well as serving in Malaya twice and Vietnam three
times he has also served in Borneo, Sarawak, New
Guinea, Rhodesia, Lebanon, the American Expeditionary
Forces in Granada and Panama, and was part of an
Australian SAS group guarding a CIA listening post on
top of the Andes Mountains in Chile as part of the
Falklands War. (Their job was to let the British know
when Exercet Missile carrying aircraft were leaving
Argentine air bases.)
He has two children in the Army, one who is a girl
signaller serving in Afghanistan and another is his
son, Aaron, who is a Brigadier.
The five generations of the family are or have been
military people – the Sullivans, Murphy's and Roberts.
When asked if his name is really “Ron” he replied :
“No, Fred”.
During
conversations the following was said:
“What really sat hard with me was those boys that had
done their time in National Service – and they were
only boys - who had done their time in hell, and came
back to Australia expecting to be returned servicemen,
and the RSL said they were not. Wouldn’t let them join
the RSL. Eventually they realised – and I really
respect Bruce Ruxton, who was one of the main one’s
who really got stuck into that attitude – that if they
didn’t let them in then they weren’t going to have any
bloody members.”
My boy Aaron, he’s 41 and he’s a Brigadier.
When asked if anyone had ever done a story on his
exploits, he replied “No. I can’t. I’m a signatory of
the Official Secrets Act. I can only tell you basic
and –oh – simple information. I only recently got into
awful trouble. Joy’s brother is David Sproule who’s
the head photographer of the Australian Newspaper in
Brisbane, and he rang me in Gippsland on a cell phone
because he’d heard that there was more than one
Australian mixed up in the Al-Qaida.
The ASDIO is based in Gippsland, of course, and I’d
just been to visit some old mates of mine there, and
found out a lot of information and didn’t know that it
was classified, and didn’t know that at that time the
hierarchy didn’t want it known how many Australians
were involved and what have you. And like a fool, on
the cell phone I said to him – or he said to me -
that he’d heard that there was a second one and that
he was from Queensland, and I said ”Yeah, his name’s
Dewey, he comes from Mooloolaba.”
The next day I was in big shit. I can tell you – I was
really in bad trouble.
But I can talk about the family
– the history of the family – no problem. But actual –
a lot of combat operations – and things like that in
my term in the ADIO and the DSS – the DSS not so much.
That was the Diplomatic Security Service. It’s now
called Federal Protective Service. It started off as
the Embassy Guards and went to the DSS.
Question: But after 30 years, doesn’t the freedom of
information come in ?
Ron Roberts: “No. Mine’s lifetime. If you talk to Joy,
she gets very upset about it because she reckons that
all they want is for us blokes, all of us who were
involved in these things, they just want us to die.
And– so that we take to the grave all the stuff that
we’ve got. An awful lot of them have. Those that
haven’t killed themselves have died from other causes.
We lost very few in battle. The only guy we lost in
Brunei was killed by an elephant – by a rampaging
elephant.
So that’s the problem. A lot of that stuff I won’t
talk about. The ordinary army stuff – yeah – but
there’s plenty of that sort of information on the
market.
A lot of the stuff that we did in Central America and
South America – there’s a lot of that that can’t be
spoken about, only in general sort of terms. General
terms I don’t mind
Tape ran out
Well there you have
it. The tales of a true Australian war
hero...........now for the facts as we know them.
Ron, I've got as many
names as bravery medals, Roberts was indeed a National
Serviceman in the 1950's. He spent a grand total of
three months service in this role. During this time
he would have been issued a uniform and
boots.......adequate time to learn how to do up the
buttons and tie the bootlaces.........a true Veteran
and hero. He may have even seen a photo of a
rifle.
In addition to the
current list of medals he wears below, Ron was
originally exposed wearing the items at medal list 2.
It would seem that when run out of town [Woody Point,
Redcliffe, Queensland] by the AATTV Ron lost his
memory and couldn't remember what medals he thought he
was entitled to. Ron's vast knowledge of medals
is not good as you can see from his photo on the
opening page. Here he wears bravery medals but
nothing to represent the campaign he won them in.
No wonder this bloke came undone [again].
Ron's
complete collection of medals he wears today are:
Order of Australia,
Distinguished Conduct Medal,
Military Cross,
Military Medal,
several Vietnam Govt decorations,
American decorations,
The National Service Anniversary Medal, and
South Vietnam Cross of Gallantry and bar
Medal List 2
-
Distinguished
Conduct Medal
-
Mentioned
In Despatches three times
-
United
States Silver Star
-
Vietnam
Cross of Gallantry With Palm
-
Plus
other military accoutrements and unit emblems.
-
The
civilian awards he claims are:
-
The
Order of Australia, and
-
The
Star of Courage.
Ron may have
children but after they read this story he may not
have them claiming him as their father any more, and
they certainly aren't in the Army. There is no record
of there ever having been a Brigadier Aaron Roberts,
past or present. As for a daughter serving in
Afghanistan, again false. No servicewomen from
Australia have been posted there. Further to
this no Australian service persons served in the
Falklands war and he certainly didn't get posted to
all other areas he mentions during his hectic three
month career.
His knowledge of a soldier on active duty being killed
by an elephant is correct, however the location he
provided is way off the mark. Ron should have
memorised the book he read a little better.
His vast array of
bravery awards and medals mentioned above,.........we
will reduce them to one. The National Service medal,
he can retain that for learning to do up his buttons
and tie his bootlaces during the hectic three months
basic training he did. He can also retain the right
to be a member of the services side of the Returned
and Services League and the National Servicemen's
Association........that's if any will accept him for
what he has claimed in the past. Hang on here....RON
IS THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COFFS HARBOUR NATIONAL
SERVICE ASSOCIATION!!!! Now the story
takes a little twist as the past president of this
association also seems to have been telling a few
porkies of his own and he quite rightly deserves a
special place on these pages too. Stay tuned to
these pages and you will see his amazing story in the
near future.........meanwhile back to Ron;
The medals Ron has claimed for his fictitious service
are some of the highest awards for bravery that a
serviceperson can be awarded. To even consider his
name in conjunction with those that have been awarded
these medals should be considered a crime in itself.
Currently resting
in the Australian Parliament is an amendment to the
legislation on Servicepersons and their medals.
Please refer to the opening page of this site and read
it. If you agree that these penalties should be
imposed then we ask you, as Veterans or Civilian
readers of these pages, to email all federal
politicians and voice your outrage of people such as
Ron and all the other we have exposed and will expose
in the coming months. We need these new fines in
place to ensure that legal action is taken against
these bogus veterans and until such time as the fines
are of sufficient penalty nothing will be done. Email
addresses for all your political representatives can
be found here.
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/EMail.asp email
them after you have finished reading these pages and
ask them to support the implementation of this
legislation during the current sitting of Parliament
so that we might be able to rid our ranks of the likes
of Ron and his ilk.
To add
further embarrassment to our Veteran ranks this make
believe hero punched out two young girls for sniffing
flowers in his front yard. He was charged with
assault and then claimed Viet Nam Veteran status for
leniency in court. It worked, as the legal system
took his word for his service and didn't check to see
if this liar was lying. He was awarded a paltry 200
hours community service for this assault on two young
15 year old teenagers. See
Roberts newsclip
Ron Roberts
