A high decorated elderly Vietnamese army veteran proudly displays his war medals and battle honours as he sits in a street in central Hanoi, Vietnam. It was Tet, or lunar new year, and this gentleman was sitting on the sidewalk and dressed in his best dress uniform. Seeing me walking by, he called out and invited me over. I sat with him and we chatted for a while before he asked me to take his portrait. As with so many Vietnamese people he was proud yet gentle, good-humoured and kind. In his life he has witnessed the full horrors of war and saw active service between 1966 and the end of the war in 1975.