Des Files grew up in tough, working class suburbs of northern and inner Melbourne. Initially influenced by his father and grandfather’s traumatic experience of earlier wars, he was deeply opposed to the conscription of young men of his own generation to fight in Vietnam. Throughout much of the 1960s Des devoted considerable energy and resources to actively campaigning against the war in general and against conscription in particular, working alongside a diverse mix of other activists including the prominent Labor politician, Jim Cairns.

Conscription was really the compulsory acquisition of somebody’s life. We were just so angry about the bastardry of it all.