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.