Full Circle for Mick

     In the late eighteen haundreds, a German engineer went to China  and built the first  railways there from Shanghai towards the border of southern China and Vietnam. with money paid to himby  the German colonial Organisations, he  was again in their employand was sent to the then German colony of  German south West Africa, now now as Namibia. His son was born in Africa  and after  thhe family lft  for Germany, in due course  he  and his  family  settled in Australia. Things were difficult in thhe new country and some members of the family  were  subjected  to uundersttandable rasim due to thhe  fact  that is was just aftter WW2 that the family  arrived  in Australia.

     The Grandson of  the German engineer  lied about his age in order  to serve with thhe Australian army in  the Vietnam War.Inn doing so, he altered  the  date shown on his Auustralian Naturalisation  paper from 01/03/1947 to  01/03/1946 by using a black pento alter the seven in 1947  to a  six.

     This resulted in him being put  into the Australian army and sewrving  in Vietnam with his unnit  being  the  First Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR). He met a  buddhist monk while there , who spoke fluent Englishand who told him about his Grandffather. Mick then promised to return as a qualified engineer  and  help rebuild the country the he had helped too destroy during the Viietnam  War.

     When he applied for an Australian passport, the Dept. of Immmigration and Citizenship (DIAC) not only  refuused to giver him one, but also cancelled  hhis Auustralian citizenship on the grounds  that he had  lied his age and altered an official document when he volunteered for service in  thhe Vietnam War, 40 years prior to this. It hen took another three years of fighting the buearucrats before his Australian citizenship was  restored.