Glengarry’s Dorothy Harris knew what trauma does to the family of those who served in the war.
A daughter and a wife to two former Diggers, Mrs Harris believed that she was prepared for her own battle in the home front.
Mrs Harris’ father served in Papua New Guinea and grew up on a farm together with 10 other siblings.
She saw how the war affected her father and how being stationed overseas for years took him away from his children.
“Because he was away so long from us he found it very hard to come home and be with us kids. It still hurts me,” Mrs Harris told The Express.
She said the war also took a toll on her mum who struggled to keep the family together while her father was away.
“I could remember seeing her sitting down crying and we tried to get her to talk but she wouldn’t talk,” Mrs Harris said.
When her father finally came back to Australia he was so traumatised by war that he would hide under the bed when a truck passed near their home.
“My dad became an alcoholic which was very hard for mum to cope with but us kids [we] got used to it,” she said.
In 1950 Mrs Harris married her husband Albert who came back to Australia after serving in the Balikpapan War in Borneo.
He too had issues to battle after coming back from the war but kept most of them from his wife.
“He didn’t talk about it until he was quite elderly … I think it was too traumatic for him,” she said.
Mrs Harris said being a spouse of someone who endured the horrors of war was very challenging.
“You have to watch what you say … he was traumatised because he used to talk about seeing snipers up in the trees,” the mother of four said.
Seeing the trauma that both her father and husband endured, Mrs Harris said she knew what to do when her husband showed some temper issues.
“I probably knew how to handle him if he got uptight I could talk him down,” she said.
Mr Harris died in 2010, leaving her with four children, seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
Mrs Harris said she would like Australia to remember how her husband sacrificed for the country.
She admitted shedding a tear every time she attends an Anzac Day memorial service.
