FACT is more incredible than fiction they say, and such was the life and times of Leongatha’s favourite son, Robert Anthony Fennell, 79, who was farewelled by a proud and grateful community at the Leongatha Recreation Reserve on Thursday, December 19.

At his side, for this final tribute to a Vietnam Veteran, prodigious sporting talent, enormous community contributor and great family man was his best army mate, Stan Whitford, formerly of Wonthaggi, the man who saved his life during an eventful tour of duty in Vietnam, between April 8, 1967 and April 18, 1968.

Rob, in turn, had done the same for Stan.

According an indebted Fennell family, a group of soldiers from 5 Platoon, B Company, 7RAR, were on patrol out of their base at Nui Dat, Stan in front of Rob carrying his bulky M60 machine gun, when a Claymore anti-personnel land mine exploded right in front of the pair.

Stan caught most of the shrapnel, sheltering Rob, and was medevacked out while Rob and the rest of his mates secured the area after an enemy ambush.

Stan sustained extensive injuries, but apart from a few floating bits of metal, made a full recovery.

The pair survived 26 major operations and numerous one-to-four-day “search and destroy” missions, as well as some eventful times on R&R in Hanoi, including one time when their regular boxing bouts came in handy during an altercation with some US Army MPs, before returning home changed men.

It was during their active service that both men were exposed to Agent Orange, a nasty herbicide mix, much of it a dangerous chemical contaminant called dioxin.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recognizes Parkinson's disease as associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service.

Rob was diagnosed with Parkinsons in March 2013 and has staged a battle with its debilitating impact for the past 11 years.

There’s little doubt that the friendship these two local men struck up while training at Puckapunyal, Singleton, Canungra and Shoalwater (as the Redgum tune played at the funeral ‘I was only 19…’ goes), saw both men return home, if not safely or in one piece, at least ready to try and resume their lives in civies.

Six weeks after arriving home, Rob married his teenage sweetheart, Margaret Hickey, left his bank job after only one more week back behind the teller’s window and launched a new career, ultimately as a highly successful insurance agent and financial planner.

Marg’s life had also been on hold for almost two years while Rob trained and served, partly sustained by daily letters from his wife-to-be.

A family of four arrived; Scott, Travis, Brock and Bree, and subsequently nine grandchildren with plenty of twists and turns along the way.

While Rob threw himself back into work when he got home, it was sport and his family life that helped him return to some sort of normality, with Vietnam Veterans offered no assistance in an unsupportive political environment.

As well as being a top country footballer, including being selected to play in an underage Victorian team at one time with the likes of Carl Dieterich, and being asked by Allan Jeans to come and try out for the Saints, it was revealed at the funeral that Rob was a highly talented tennis player in his youth.

In fact, on one occasion he even beat Aussie great Neil Fraser, whose State funeral was held during the week, in a tournament in Traralgon, and formed a successful doubles partnership with Leongatha resident Allan Stone who’d lived locally while his father Harrold ran the Leongatha Star newspaper.

Stone implored Fennell to go on the circuit with him but Rob preferred to stay at home. Stone went on to win two Australian Open Doubles titles, a Wimbledon mixed crown and made it to the semis in the Australian Open as well as having an unblemished career in Davis Cup.

Rob won a premiership with Leongatha in the old South Gippsland league, playing with them as a junior, and then formed part of a formidable backline in 1970 when Leongatha won its first senior premiership on its return to the main Gippsland league.

Rob’s involvement as a footy coach, especially providing the youth of the area with a great start to their careers, is legendary, also being embraced by the Fish Creek community when he and his brothers Greg and Daryl went out to lead that great local football netball club.

A letter read out at the funeral from a former Under 14s player attested to the Rob’s role in changing the man’s life.

Rob was a fine cricketer and also contributed many years as a sporting administrator, particularly with the LDCA as a recording secretary, and on the Leongatha Recreation Reserve Committee of Management where he played a pivotal role in the extension of the grandstand and the development of the social rooms where his funeral service was hosted on Thursday.

He was a life member of the Leongatha Football Netball Club, the Imperials Cricket Club and the Leongatha and District Cricket Association to name a few, and the recipient of numerous other sporting and business awards during a stellar career

Not only was the grandstand social rooms at capacity on the day, but the overflow crowd also filled half of the grandstand watching a big screen outside.

A feature of the service were the tributes paid by family members, especially the grandchildren, and the RSL service at the conclusion, led by Stan Whitford with a strong attendance by local and visiting Vietnam Veterans who laid poppies at the end.

In a touching ceremony, the Australian flag which covered the funeral centrepiece was folded up and presented to the family.

In an incredible turn of events in Rob’s life, his son Travis made the move to Vietnam in 2001 in his work as a tour guide for Intrepid Travel, married a North Vietnamese girl and started a family there.

He ultimately encouraged Rob to make a trip he never wanted to take, back to Vietnam, which he did with his wife Marg, Stan and his wife Robyn, an enormously cathartic experience for them all which saw the four of them sit down to dinner with Travis, his new wife and her family.

It wasn’t lost on Rob and Stan that these may even have been people they crossed paths with more than 30 years earlier.

However, as highly regarded as Rob Fennell was and is in his own hometown and district, his image, if not his name, will be forever etched into the psyche of generations of Australians as part of the symbol of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War in that famous photo by war correspondent Mike Coleridge which now adorns the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial on Canberra’s Anzac Parade.

Incredibly, of the more than 60,000 Australians who fought in Vietnam, who might have been pictured in that photo of seven members of 5 Platoon B Company 7RAR, waiting to board an Iroquois helicopter to take them back to Nui Dat at the end of Operation Ulmarra on August 26, 1967; two of them were South Gippslanders, best mates Rob Fennell and Stan Whitford.

“How well Rob served in Vietnam and in Australia will be known to his mates, how well he served his community is known to you all. Rest in peace my dear friend," said Stan.