Top RSL Honour for Peter
BY JEM ANSHAW
Peter Houlahan said he could have throttled Tim Seymour when it was announced at last week’s Muswellbrook Anzac Day service that he had been given life membership to the Returned Serviceman’s League of Australia.
“I didn’t expect that, he said it at Calvary the other day in front of a war widows service and I thought well that’s okay, because there’s only a few there, but getting out in front of everybody that was here and saying it – I just feel I was gonna hide under the chair for a while,” Peter said when The Hunter River Times managed to catch him.
“I just more or less plug along doing what I do best, I do the funerals and try and look after the grove that we started representing everybody who was killed in Vietnam.”
So humble is he in receiving the honour his own daughter only found out when the Muswellbrook RSL Sub-branch posted about their vice-president’s recognition on Facebook.
Peter’s contribution to returned servicemen, their families and their memories is something he does out of respect for his mates that didn’t make it home.
“I just go and do it in remembrance of my mates that we didn’t get to bring home, and that will always be there,” he shared.
Peter joined the Merriwa RSL Sub-branch in 1967 on his return from a tour in Vietnam with 6RAR before he moved to Muswellbrook and continued his ties with the organisation.
He has played a significant part in establishing the Vietnam Memorial along Aberdeen Street and the Muswellbrook War Graves.