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75-year-old Aussi W. fought in Malaysia in '65-'66, before coming to Vietnam in '67. He was supposed to leave just before the Tet Offensive of '68, but after the fighting started, he was told he wasn't going anywhere. He survived that and was returned to Malaysia, but by then, that country's Communist rebellion was over.

He then ended up in Holland and the UK for nearly five years. An illegal in Europe, he mostly worked on an oil rig off Scottland.

He's been in Asia for 30 years, with seven of those in Vung Tau. "It took me more than four decades to return here," he said of this seaside city of 500,000. On his tenth day, he met a Vietnamese woman at a bar, and they're married now, with two kids, 6-years-old and 11-months-old. She also has a 16-year-old daughter with a Vietnamese man, but W. has no idea if this was out of wedlock or not.

W. rents a three-bedroom house for $216, in a nice part ot town, and there he lives with his wife, their two kids, her 16-year-old, her parents and her brother, though this man chips in $43 a month. He's not sure what his brother-in-law does for a living, only that he often leaves the house in a green uniform.

Though his wife wants to go to Australia, he tells her they can't afford it. When he dies, she'll get a war widow's pension of about $2,500 a month.

When I talked to W. today, he had had six beers by noon, so it was nearly time to go home for a nap.



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