Stories of Vietnam is a weekly publication dedicated to exploring the country, the era, and the impact of the Vietnam-American war on all of us. It is not designed to answer big questions but to spark conversations and, perhaps, create some shift in our relation to these things.
I lived in Saigon as an 8-year-old child the year before the Fall and therefore am forever entwined with the stories of that time and place. As the 50th anniversary of the end of the war approaches, I hope my efforts will contribute to a recognition of that time, if not assist with a reckoning.
This week’s essay is dedicated to those who’ve told me that my words and efforts have touched them these past couple of months.
Over the past couple of months, I had the privilege to speak at a number of sites. On each occasion, I’ve been heartened by the response to my work, at the sliver of light that seemed to break through in people’s faces as I spoke, and as I listened.
At the end of September, Barn Alley Arts studio featured my book release party as their first official public event. After treats of moon cakes and cider donuts in honor of the traditional Vietnamese autumn holiday, I delved into a chapter from my book, For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official and the best evacuation story never heard.
At one point, I felt my heart clutch in my chest.
“So much history,” I thought. “Are people getting bored?”
I looked up. All I saw were faces rapt with attention, eager for more.
A few weeks later, at the Malta Branch of the Round Lake Library, I listened to the stories of those affected by the war. They had not served in battle, yet they were still carrying a heavy psychological burden from that time.
One participant said, with some relief, “It’s a good time to look back now. Enough time has passed. The pain is still there, but we can all look at it without so much painful emotion.”
A few weeks later, I stood before an audience of neighbors and friends. We enjoyed a lot of back-and-forth chatting—or so I thought.
One attendee later confided that she’d hardly heard a word I said.
“I just sat there thinking of my brother. How he’d suffered so much in boot camp and over there in a foxhole. Your stories are fine but they’re all just family stories . . .”
This too, was powerful. This too was the truth of what the Vietnam War wrought for an American citizen. I listened closely to what she was saying. It was the first she’d spoken of that heartbreak in years. She embraced me deeply afterward.
On Veterans Day, I was honored to be a speaker at the Round Lake Veterans Day event. As a former resident, I felt comfortable in the setting and was able to unflinchingly speak through the tears that I knew would come—and had forewarned the audience about.
“I often cry when I speak about veterans,” I said. “It is, I like to think, not so much sentimentality but tapping into the depth and breadth of their—of your—experience of what you had to go through in that time. I cannot hope to know exactly what that was like, but I hope my words help all of us cast some light on what you endured.”
I gifted veterans copies of For the Love of Vietnam and within days, I received an email in response.
I just finished your book. It gave me a new look at the war I detested and could not fathom. I spent a year there in Chu Chi operating on such brave men. It wasn’t a “romantic war” like WW2. After surgery the soldiers were just grateful to be alive. My last six months were Stateside where I saw the returning soldiers treated with such indifference.
Your book has made me feel a bit more charitable with my memories.
Thank you,
John “Jack” Richards
Given the scale of the impact of intractable memories of that time—personal and collective—I am deeply grateful that I can serve in this way.
Another reader, David Woodruff, shared his story with me. Of being spared deployment when the draft ended. That too was a heavy burden and my story allowed him to “temper” his difficult memories and find some relief.
And finally, a Round Lake veteran, Bob Luenello wrote to say “Your emotional speech at the RL Veteran's gathering touched my heart . . . I thought you might like this.” He had blended an image from my August 2nd post with a quote: “A parent’s love is the foundation on which a child’s world is built.”
As I read it I felt a quickening within. It illuminated the terra firma on which I stand and which cannot be taken from me.
I’ve struggled over the years with the contrast of the great love my parents had for me and my six siblings, and with the way things fell apart after the war. Though our family life had its shining moments there were cracks of instability and suffering that affected us all.
Can it be true that our foundations can remain fortified through life’s bereavements?
If so, I think we can only regain our footing when we see clearly, when we are able to permit a “complete and unflinching retrospective.”* If the conversations of the past few months are any indication, I do think we may have reached such an inflection point in history.
*Quote from the final paragraph of Frank Snepp’s Decent Interval, a book whose blood-red title literally stood sentinel over much of my coming-of-age years.
Hopefully, with the passage of time and healing of the national traumas inflicted by the war, we will be able to give history its due, a complete and unflinching retrospective, extending beyond the platitudes and recriminations that till now have blinded so many of us to what actually happened to Vietnam and to ourselves . . .