Legend has it a Hippisley has served in every battle since Waterloo. They certainly served in World War I, World War II and Vietnam. To be a man in Mark Hippisley’s family, the 41-year-old has long believed, you must go to war.
And Mark certainly tried. An Air Force Cadet as a child, he went on to full-time RAAF service. However, a workplace injury cut short his military career and rubbed out a life-long ambition. Slowly, steadily, it widened the gap that already existed between him and his father.
Terrence ‘Hippo’ Hippisley, a boisterous, larger-than-life Vietnam veteran with a healthy dose of mischief, is the opposite of his quiet and reserved son. But beneath the tough, larrikin exterior are wounds of war that have never really healed and have fractured Hippo’s family.
Join Mark as he walks in his father’s footsteps; from the battlefields of a rubber plantation to the busy streets of Vung Tau. It is an extraordinary journey - from the heat of battle to a deeper understanding of the cost of war and, ultimately, of his father.
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