By David Ellery
Bill Rolfe, the president of Canberra's 87-year-old Legacy branch, clearly remembers lying in a bed at the Ingleburn Military Hospital wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
It was 1970 and the then 24-year-old army lieutenant had just had both legs amputated below the knee after being badly wounded in a booby trapped bunker in Vietnam.
Legacy Canberra president Bill Rolfe pictured at home in Nicholls with a cartoon of him drawn by cartoonist Warren Brown that was gifted to him when he retired from the Repatriation Commission. Credit: Jeffrey Chan
"I'd never really thought about what would happen if I was wounded," he said. "At that age you think you are bulletproof."
The reality, that his army career might be over, hit home when a mate looked him over and said: "Well Bill, you're too short for the infantry".
Mr Rolfe's second good break came when the army, aware it had spent big dollars putting him through Duntroon, decided he was a keeper. It sent him to the Australian National University where he studied law and joined the Army Legal Corps. His first good break had been getting out of the bunker alive.
"We had been patrolling in Phuoc Tuy province," he said. "We located a bunker system and mounted a quick assault. It was abandoned but had been left booby trapped."
A hidden bomb exploded, catching four men in the blast. Mr Rolfe and two others were badly wounded but survived. The fourth man did not.
"[Despite what happened to me] I was lucky," he said. "I came home. Many others did not."
This sentiment has always been the heart of the Legacy ethos.
Mr Rolfe, who retired from the army as a brigadier in 1997 to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs, does not use his title because ranks do not matter in Legacy.
"For me the terrible thing [in 1970] was leaving the men I had trained with and fought with; the men who got me out," he said.
"We had a reunion recently. We were talking about how we looked after each other then and still look after each other now. We were living Legacy values long before [any of us] joined it.
"Legacy is the formal recognition of the obligation every soldier feels [towards their mates and their mate's loved ones]. It does not create that obligation."
Mr Rolfe said Legacy's spirit had found expression in thousands of random acts of kindness long before the organisation was formally established in 1923.
With the Governor General, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, due to launch Legacy Week in Sydney on August 31 the Canberra branch is experiencing its busiest time of the year.
"The administrative effort [in organising collectors and distributing materials to the dozens of places where badges will be sold] is phenomenal," he said.
"We have 140 volunteers from the Australian Defence Force Academy, 16 from Accenture and people from Thales helping out."
About 5500 Legatees assist more than 90,000 Legacy widows and almost 2000 children across Australia each year.
The ACT branch's 155 active Legatees help more than 1180 Legacy widows and 33 junior legatees.