Thousands of Australians are in Vietnam for the memorial, but were only able to visit the site of Australia’s bloodiest day in the Vietnam war in small groups, with no ceremony, no uniforms, and no medals allowed.

Mr Le, 60, who spent more than three years in a re-education camp after Saigon fell to the northern forces, said Vietnam’s communist government had been vengeful at every turn.

He was 17, a military cadet, when he was sent to a labour camp not far from Long Tan in the country’s south.

After 10 hours’ hard labour each day, the internees would then, by candlelight, have to write down their life story from childhood, every day, and if variations were found in their story, they would be interrogated about what they must be hiding.

Upon release, there was no forgiveness. Those who had been in the camps or were known to have supported the South in the conflict, were stopped from getting jobs.

Eventually Mr Le and some friends built a boat and tried to sail it to freedom. But “we were not carpenters” and it fell apart at sea, leaving 10 people floating. They were picked up by a Danish ship and taken to Singapore, where Mr Le met Teresa Tran - who he would later marry, once resettled as refugees in Australia.

Many countries move on from past wars and welcome former soldiers to commemorate their dead. Not Vietnam.

“They always think of vengeance, and they don’t want anybody to remember those soldiers who fought against them,” said Ms Tran, president of Wollongong’s Vietnamese Community.

This helps explain why expat Vietnamese have for years pushed for space for a memorial to the 250,000 South Vietnamese who died from 1961 to 1975. The memorial has now been approved by council and the site in MacCabe Park, behind the Cenotaph, is finally under construction.

Mr Le said almost every family he knew in 1975 had lost their men – dead or sent to camps. The memorial is for them, and it’s not one you’d find in Vietnam.