Malcolm Anthony Player (Mal) Hundt was born on 7th May 1948 to parents William (A serving policeman) and Thea (Who had served in the WAAF during World War Two). Mal was the middle son with Howard born in 1947 and Kevin born in 1951. His family lived at Willoughby NSW and Mal attended East Lindfield Public School and then Chatswood High School.

After leaving school Mal started work at McDowell’s men’s store in Sydney (By coincidence his Mother also worked there) and just before his 18^th birthday he enlisted in the ARA on the 7^th March 1966.He completed recruit training and was allocated to the Royal Australian Artillery (RAA).

He was sent to the School of Artillery in Manly to learn about Artillery and that was where I met him as we both commenced training on the 5.5 inch Medium Gun. We were both posted to 104th Medium Battery at Holsworthy on 29^th June as gun numbers and spent a lot of time socialising together. One particular funny incident happened on Exercise ‘Barra Winga’ which was being held at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland in September 1966. We were both being driven to a sentry post and we were standing on the tailgate of a Land Rover holding on to the canopy when the canopy suddenly snapped and we started to swing out backwards, our eyes were as big as saucers as we were dumped into knee high dust at the side of the road, complete with our webbing and rifles. We could not stop laughing as we appeared out of the dust.

Mal was posted to Headquarters Battery 12th Field Regiment as a Regimental Policeman and was deployed to South Vietnam on 7^th May 1968 (his birthday). It is well documented about Mal’s involvement at Fire Support Base Coral on the morning of the 13^th May where he was wounded by both enemy and friendly fire. After a traumatic casevac by helicopter to hospital and then being transferred to a United States hospital, he was initially given the Purple Heart by a visiting American General, which was subsequently taken back when they realised, he was an Australian.

Mal was medevacked to Australia on the 25^th May and after further hospital treatment was posted to 7th Field Regiment at Willoughby followed by a couple of years at Headquarters RAA 1st Division and then back to 7th Field Regiment on the 17^th March 1971 in transport. Mal married Marie on the 7^th January 1972 and their son Keith was born on the 18^th January 1979. Keith is married with 2 daughters and a son. After nearly 3 years he was posted to 2nd Army Recruiting Unit (2ARU) and again after another 3 years he was posted to “A” Field Battery at Holsworthy as the Transport Sergeant. on the 24^th January 1977, which is where we  caught up again. Mal’s final posting before retiring was back at 2 ARU. He retired on the 7^th March 1986 as a Sergeant.

Both Mal and Marie worked at ADI St Marys until his medical conditions ended his working life and they moved to the NSW Central Coast 1998 which is where we again caught up. We both purchased caravans and with another Vietnam Veteran we spent many weeks travelling to northern NSW an Qld. Mal had another passion and that was medal mounting, many ex-servicemen and women benefitted from his mate’s rates. We both served on the Committee of the Doyalson Wyee RSL Sub-branch and Mal also was a Trustee for the branch. His other commitment was maintaining (with Marie) the very extensive memorabilia cabinets. He was diagnosed with Prostate cancer and bravely fought it without complaining for many years until he died on the 18^th April 2019 aged 70. A large commemoration service was held at Palmdale Crematorium attended by family, friends and many ex-servicemen and women. Mal will be remembered as a towering figure, a generous man with wicked sense of humour.