VIETNAM War veteran Rob Brown has gone from having felt shunned by his country to being officially celebrated by the nation.

The president of the Cobram-Barooga RSL sub-branch has received a Medal in the Order of Australia for his service to veterans and their families.

"I was a bit overwhelmed a couple of months ago (when told of the nomination) and I'm still overwhelmed, I'm still trying to come to grips with it," Mr Brown said.

"I'm very humbled and emotional because I've got there with a good team from the RSL and Legacy and Vietnam veterans.

"I've found if you have positive people to assist you then you can move mountains."

Mr Brown grew up in Melbourne and was conscripted into the army during the Vietnam War and as a 21 year-old spent 11 months in the Asian country from April 1967 to February 1968.

Upon returning he taught plumbing and run a roller skating rink but felt alienated.

"I know when we came back they didn't want to know and that's why I didn't join the RSL then," Mr Brown said.

"They were marching up and down the street, saying we're killing kids."

In 1991, Mr Brown and his wife Jan moved to a Yarroweyah dairy farm and he became a member of the RSL sub-branch.

He has also been president of the Cobram Yarrawonga Legacy Group and Goulburn Valley branch of the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia.

Mr Brown was president of the Cobram-Barooga RSL from 1999 to 2003 and resumed the role in 2008.

"I've introduced a few things like getting all the children involved in Anzac Day and I had a lot of opposition from the older generation of the sub-branch, saying you can't do that," he said.

Mr Brown gets emotional describing the loss to suicide of mates as well as the trauma still experienced by soldiers he helps that have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also is passionate about the work wives do to support servicemen.

"Some say the wives are behind us, well they're not behind us, they're beside us," Mr Brown said.

IT'S been more than 30 years since Jim Hislop left the army but that does not mean his concern for the welfare of soldiers has eased.

The retired lieutenant-colonel has been doggedly determined to fight for superannuation entitlements of defence personnel.

That striving has been rewarded with a Medal in the Order of Australia for service to veterans and their families.

Mr Hislop has been at the helm of the Australian Defence Force Retirees Association which has been campaigning for what he describes as justice in retirement benefits for ex-servicemen.

Membership of the group went from six to 4000 within six months.

In addition to that work, Mr Hislop was part of Albury Legacy from 1983 to 2010 with terms as president and vice-president and been a part of Jack's Rags which recycles material for charity.

Mr Hislop said his drive to help others with defence ties was related to his family's experience.

"My uncle was a Changi prisoner and when they came back they weren't well treated and my aunt, I had seen what happened with her," he said.

Born in Bunbury in Western Australia, Mr Hislop joined the army as a 16 year-old apprentice.

He did officer training in 1967 and was in Vietnam as a staff officer and then headed a taskforce at Nui Dat where he was responsible for 40 men largely involved in the repair of tanks and weapons.

Mr Hislop moved to the Border in December 1982 when he became the first commanding officer of the army apprentices school after it was transferred from the Mornington Peninsula to Bandiana.

His wife Bernadette's family ties to Wodonga prompted them to spend their retirement in the city.

IN nine decades of living at Finley there would not be a part of the town's life that has not been touched in some way by Marj Kable.

The 91 year-old has been involved in a multitude of organisations for decades and now has a Medal in the Order of Australia to cap her service to the southern Riverina town.

"It's absolutely a surprise," Mrs Kable said.

The life member of the Finley Hospital Auxiliary said her community contribution was not premeditated.

"You do things because you're part of Finley and I never gave it a thought," Mrs Kable said.

"It just grows on you and as you do little things and join some organisations it flows on.

"Nothing was a trouble and I've always been healthy and just kept going."

Mrs Kable's civic commitment began in 1948 when she was a founding member of the women's auxiliary of the Finley RSL sub-branch.

She was its senior vice-president as recently as 2018.

Mrs Kable was a member of the Finley Hospital Auxiliary for 31 years, president for 16 years, and is a life member of the United Hospital Auxiliaries.

A key part of that ongoing role has been working at an op shop.

Mrs Kable is also a life member of the Finley and District Historical Museum and has been part of the Finley Self Help Group, Berriquin Regional Care Management Auxiliary, Finley Red Cross, Finley Pioneer Railway Group and Rotary Club of Finley.

When Albury councillor David Thurley was told via email that he was in line for a Medal of the Order of Australia he thought the correspondence was spam.

"I knew nothing about it until the end of March this year and I got an email asking if I would accept it and I thought it was someone spamming me," he said.

"I was thinking 'is this true or not?' and then I started reading it and realised it was true."

Cr Thurley has received the award for services to local government and the community of Albury.

He was first elected to council in 2012 and has served as deputy mayor, with his proudest moment coming at a citizenship ceremony when he was acting mayor.

That was when he oversaw the naturalisation of a Bhutanese family he had helped settle in Albury.

The former technical manager at Australian Newsprint Mills decided to stand for election after watching Albury councillors and "thinking we could do better than that and what's all the arguing about".

He nominated the council's focus on renewable energy and shift to having solar panels on its buildings as top achievements.

Through his council role, Cr Thurley has become part of the Murray Darling Association and held its presidency since 2016 as well as being on a basin community committee.

"The issues are so different all over the place and to have such an ambitious plan to manage resources and manage the environment was always going to be tough, but without the Murray Darling Basin Plan we would be in deep trouble," he said.

Cr Thurley moved from Tasmania to the Border when the paper mill started to operate at Ettamogah in 1980.

He said his father, a truck driver, and mother unconsciously passed on the need for community service, with the latter knitting countless babies bonnets to help single mums.

Cr Thurley has also been president of the Astronomical Society of Albury Wodonga and taught science to school students.

OVER 130 years Alison Walpole was the only woman to be a councillor on Oxley Shire.

Now, more than 25 years after that municipality was merged into the Rural City of Wangaratta, the Whorouly South resident is receiving an OAM.

The accolade salutes her service to the community, which includes nine years on the Oxley Council from 1981 to 1990 and a term as shire president.

"It's an honour to be able to represent Whorouly people," Mrs Walpole, 92, said.

"I'm the only woman who ever served on the council, I'm rather proud of it."

One of six siblings, including five sisters, Mrs Walpole grew up a farm near Geelong.

She moved to the North East in 1952 after having met her husband Bob, who hailed from Whorouly, at a young farmers' camp.

Mrs Walpole's community work began through the Whorouly South Mother's Club and the 1st Whorouly Brownie pack which she led from 1959 to 1969.

She has given long service to the CWA and Red Cross and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby.

Since 1989, Mrs Walpole has been part of the Whorouly Senior Citizens group which she helped form.

"It's important that when you get older you get out and talk to people and we're missing it at the moment (with COVID-19 restrictions)," she said.

Nearly 120 high school students have had the opportunity to trek the Kokoda Track thanks to Bruce Wright.

The Tumbarumba resident decided his Rotary Club needed to foster the youth of the town and since 2006 he has helped year 11 and 12s make a biennial trip to the World War II scene.

The success of that project is acknowledged in Mr Wright being presented with an OAM for services to the community of Tumbarumba.

"I don't know who the hell would have nominated me, it's really quite embarrassing," Mr Wright said.

"I can't quite understand it, you just do what you do."

Mr Wright moved to Tumbarumba 37 years ago with his wife Colleen and two children and took up the post of maintenance manager at the town's saw mill.

In addition to having been the Rotary club's president, treasurer and secretary, Mr Wright is a director of the Hyne Community Trust.

That involves him helping to decide how $60,000 is distributed annually on community projects.

He has overseen money go towards a barbecue for the Scouts, a pump bicycle track, changerooms for the football club and swimming pool lane dividers.

Since 2017, Mr Wright has also been the sole Tumbarumba councillor on Snowy Valleys Council which was controversially formed by the merging of Tumbarumba and Tumut shires.