Keith Payne says the Victoria Cross he earned in Vietnam in 1969 was the signal honour of his long and decorated life.

At 90, he is the doyen of Australia’s living VC recipients, the soldier’s soldier who never doubted where his duty lay.

“What happens in war, stays in war,” Mr Payne ­insists, and on this day of days for our veterans and service personnel he has come out with guns blazing in ­defence of fellow VC holder Ben Roberts-Smith.

Until now, Mr Payne has kept his distance from the claims and counterclaims swirling around Mr Roberts-Smith’s conduct in Afghanistan that led to him launching an ill-fated Federal Court defamation case against the Nine newspapers last year and being branded a war criminal by the trial judge. Mr Roberts-Smith is appealing the decision.

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