Vietnam veterans wore wattle on their lapels.
Vietnam veteran and Esperance resident Hugh Knight laid a personal wreath for his mate John McQuat on Sunday.
“I was called up with John and we both went to Victoria in the same plane,” Mr Knight said.
“We went through basic training together, through infantry training together, and went in the same plane to Vietnam.
“I ended up in the Sixth Battalion and he was in the Eighth.
“He was killed at an enemy engagement just after Anzac Day a fortnight before I came home in 1970.”
The wreath was a home made from local wattle flowers, which Mr Knight is campaigning to have recognised as the floral emblem for Vietnam veterans.
“I first saw the wattle used on John’s grave in Albany,” he said.
“A woman put it on there because she had nothing else and I thought, ‘it is our national emblem’.
“With further research it pops up all the time.
“We have rosemary for Anzac day and poppies for Remembrance Day but the wattle was ignored, it even features on our Esperance war memorial.”
Veterans at Saturday’s ceremony all wore a sprig of wattle on their lapels.
