Interview with Paul Ham

Paul Ham: I'm just going to read from Chapter 47 of my book 'Vietnam The Australian War'. It's entitled 'Totally and permanently incapacitated' and it's about the repercussions of the war on the soldiers.

'Have you ever looked into their eyes? It frightens me' says Diane Poulton, who was the wife of a Vietnam veteran.

'I ran the house like the Gestapo' is a common veteran's remark.

Terrifying mood swings, blinding aggression, drunken binges, paranoid inertia and explosive silences composed the little hell they made of their homes. Such were the components of the sandbagged mind. 'I can't hold a job'; 'I've got no future'; 'I'm stuffed, rooted, finished ...' etc. Their wives and children walked on eggshells around these seething, self-pitying old brutes who would contemplate the world from inside their living room perimeter with the ineffable loathing of the chronic alcoholic. Shakespeare's Lady Percy knew the half of it: many Australian wives lived in terror of their husbands' tantrums and violence.

'I was the enemy,' said one wife.

'He's walking around like a time bomb,' said another.