National servicemen are to receive a $100,000 government grant to help build a memorial fountain at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Announcing the grant today, Veterans Affairs minister Bruce Billson said more than 290,000 Australians undertook national service in the 1950s and from 1965 to 1972 at the time of the Vietnam war.
"Some 20,000 Nashos as out national servicemen were known served in Vietnam and 200 lost their lives," he said in a statement.
Mr Billson said the money would go to the National Servicemen's Association as part of the government's Saluting Their Service commemorations program.
He announced the grant at the Association's 55th anniversary reunion on the NSW central coast.
The initial national service scheme was launched in 1951 and ran until 1959 when the government decided it was no longer needed.
It changed its mind in 1964, introducing the controversial selective scheme in a bid to build defence numbers at a time of strategic uncertainty. That scheme was abolished as one of the first acts of the Whitlam government in December 1972.
Mr Billson said national servicemen had played an important role in the defence of Australia.
"We are indebted to the courageous Australians who put their lives on the line in the service of Australia and the government remains resolute in its commitment to honour them and their place in history," he said.
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