Interest rates had soared to 18% and we were now in real danger of losing our house. This just added pressure to our already rocky relationship. I gave up 20 years in the Public Service and took a redundancy package to save the house. We paid all our debts and owned the house. Life was a bit easier now.

I took a number of part time jobs until I ended up at BP Fyshwick. I ran the Service Station with an option to buy, but although I turned it around to be making a profit, I was working 13 to 18 hours a day. I won an award for excellence from BP and Sharon and I jetted off to spend two weeks in Penang, Malaysia. It was wonderful, the romance almost rekindled ... but not quite. Still it was the trip of a lifetime and we were treated like royalty.

The 90's also brought the Welcome Home Parades and the opening of the Vietnam Memorial in Canberra. I kept away from everything. I was watching the memorial in Canberra on television, when I saw Charlie Company's banner on the screen. On the spur of the moment I charged down to ANZAC Parade ... I missed 3RAR but marched with 7RAR. I went to where 3RAR was holding their reunion ... I knew it would be a waste of time ... there would be no-one there that I knew. We were lining up for lunch, when across the room I heard the words that I will never forget,

"Fuck me dead! It's Elvis Fucking Wood"

Chatty as usual had a wonderful turn of phrase. Chatty was actually 8 Platoon, but he was a real ratbag and fitted right in with 7 Platoon. Rumour has it that Chatty got the first confirmed kill in Vietnam ... although it was in Vung Tau while we were on leave. Chatty was the bloke who stopped the ref sending me off when I coat hangered that big monster in Nui Dat.

It was a great weekend catching up with Dixie, Ginna, Chatty, Big Wally and some other blokes that I can't for the life of me remember now. I do remember crying ... just couldn't help it. Apparently a lot of them had come to Canberra, specifically just to try and find me. Old stories were told and we had a boozy weekend. Dixie came to my home and we spent time alone just talking. It was great.

That weekend spurred me on to find Boodgie Barrett. I found him, but he was in a bad state ... he had never left Vietnam ... I wished that I had found him earlier. He was guarded at first, but eventually it was just like old times. I took 8 weeks off and went down to Melbourne with Sharon, Robbie, Michael & Yvonne. We met up with Boodgie in Melbourne, then to Adelaide to spend time with Dixie. It was a great family holiday ... our last.

I got out of the service station after that holiday. Spent the last of my money adding an extension to my house for Mum & Dad to live with me. Two years later I was back in the Public Service working for Defence Housing. Boodgie turned up on my doorstep one day unannounced. He lived with us for 9 months and then one day disappeared again. Last I heard he was in the Phillipines.

In 1997 Dad died at home.
In 1998 Sharon kicked me out.

The 90's were ending, and everything that I had known or loved was doing the same. Coxy from 8 Platoon was getting Charlie Company back together. On 20 March 1999 we had our first Company reunion in Adelaide, the anniversary of Patterson's death. Most of the Rats got there and it was brilliant. Four days with some of the best blokes on earth.

By the end of the 90's Dixie was divorced, Boodgie's third marriage had fallen apart and I had lost another family. Fifty years of age, no money, no house, no family and no future.

Vietnam was 10 months of my life. Ten months that has affected every moment of my life for 30 years. It has been a high price to pay ... but a price that I would willingly pay again for the mateships that have endured since those heady days.

We fought for what we believed in. We fought for an ideal, that one idealogy did not have right to impose itself on a population by force of arms. We fought with courage. We had the courage to stand up and be counted. History will judge us however history will ... but regardless of how history judges us, regardless of how the facts are twisted, regardless of how people will abhor what we did ... regardless of all that ....