When he attempted to enlist under his whitefella name, James Wandin, he was accepted into the army and served in France and is listed under that name on the honour roll in the Healesville RSL.
On returning home, Jarlo Wandoon had to get permission from the police to visit his mother, was escorted onto Coranderrk, and was only allowed half an hour with her before he was sent off to the Lake Tyers Mission in Gippsland.
[4] One of ten children, James left school at 15 in 1949 and played Australian rules football with the Healesville seconds.
[11] The best and fairest award in the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League Division Two competition was called the James Wandin Medal.
[3] He joined the Postmaster-General's Department and worked for 37 years, but continuing to coach football at Healesville and Apollo Bay.
[3] In 2000 James Wandin and Carolyn Briggs, representing the Wurundjeri and Boonerwurung peoples of the Kulin nation, gave historic welcome to country speeches at a sitting of the Victorian Parliament on 26 May 2000.
After his death his partner, Judy Freeman, symbolically passed to Murrundindi a lil-lal, or hunting boomerang, and a sprig of pale yellow wattle.
[14] The Annual best and fairest player award in division two of the Yarra Valley Mountain Football League is called the Wandin Medal.
The inaugural match in May 2008, won by Yarra Glen Football Club, was used to raise funds to erect a memorial at James Wandin's grave and for a perpetual trophy.