Over Sexed, Over Paid and Over Here … Again? Americans on R&R in Vietnam-Era Sydney

Abstract

Between 1967 and 1971, 280,000 US military personnel visited Sydney on ‘Rest and Recreation’ (R&R) leave from the conflict in Vietnam. During the period in which the R&R program was being negotiated, Australian authorities, along with correspondents to daily newspapers, worried that the presence of large numbers of ‘cashed-up’ Americans would see the public repudiate the R&R scheme, the war and the relationship with the United States. These concerns proved largely unfounded as a majority of Australians welcomed the visiting Americans as both the human face of an alliance deemed critical to the nation’s security and a return of a ‘long lost friend’ from World War II.