I replied, “I, too, had returned home in 1968, in November, then came back to Vietnam in January 1972, and was stationed at Bien Hoa during the Spring Offensive.”
Susan told him this, and he nodded, then looked at me. I doubted if he’d ever spoken to an American veteran before, and he was obviously curious, but arriving as I had, out of nowhere, he was trying to collect his thoughts; he hadn’t been thinking about this meeting for the last two weeks as I had.
Mr. Vinh spoke, and Susan translated. “He says he returned to the front in 1973, then participated in the final Spring Offensive of 1975, and the 304th Division captured Hue, then drove down the coast on Highway One on captured tanks. He entered Saigon on April 29 and was present at the surrender of the presidential palace the next day.”
And I thought I had a few war stories. This guy had seen it all, from the alpha to the omega, ten years of slaughter. If my year had seemed like ten, then his ten must have seemed like a hundred. And here he was, home in his native village, getting on with life after having had a decade of his youth taken from him.
I said to him, “You must have received many medals and decorations.”
Susan translated, and without hesitation, he walked to a wicker chest, as I hoped he would, and opened it. I needed to get him into the habit of opening trunks of war memorabilia.
He removed a black silk cloth, which he unfolded on the low table. He knelt and spread out twelve medals of different shapes and sizes, which were all painted with various colors of enamel, and each had multicolored ribbons attached; and there lay the pretty evidence of ten years in hell.
Mr. Vinh named each medal, and Susan translated.
I didn’t want to patronize Mr. Vinh by saying how impressed I was; he seemed to me capable of detecting bullshit, so I just nodded and said, “Thank you for showing me.”
Susan translated, and she and I made eye contact. She nodded, as if to say, “You’re doing pretty good for an insensitive idiot.”
Mr. Vinh replaced his medals, closed the trunk, and stood.
So we all stood there for a few seconds, and I’m sure that Mr. Vinh knew I hadn’t come twelve thousand miles to see his medals.
The moment had arrived, and I said to him, “I’m here to speak to you about what you saw while you lay wounded in the Citadel at Quang Tri City.”
He recognized Quang Tri, and perhaps even Citadel, and his eyes went to Susan, who translated.
He looked back at me, but didn’t respond.
I said to him, “The American soldier who found the body of your brother in the A Shau Valley removed from his body a letter written by you to your brother, as you lay recovering from your wounds at the Buddhist high school. Do you recall that letter?”
As soon as Susan translated, he nodded in understanding of how I knew what I knew.
I lied to him for the first time and said, “I am here on behalf of the family of the lieutenant who was killed by the captain,” which maybe wasn’t a complete lie. I continued, “I have been asked to inquire about this matter and to bring understanding and justice to the family.” I looked at Susan, as if to say, “Get that right.”
She glanced at me and translated.
Mr. Vinh did not reply.
I tried to put myself in his position. He’d seen his generation wiped out and was not impressed or moved by the desire of an American family trying to find justice in that mass slaughter, or to bring closure to the death of one soldier. The Hanoi government, in fact, was always a little incredulous regarding the American government spending millions of dollars to find the remains of a few MIAs. I don’t know if this was a cultural difference, or a matter of practicality; Vietnam didn’t have the time or money to look for a third of a million missing soldiers. We, on the other hand, had become obsessed with the search for our two thousand missing men.
Mr. Vinh remained silent, and so did I. You can’t rush these people, and they don’t get nervous during long periods of silence the way Americans do.
Finally, Mr. Vinh spoke, and Susan translated. “He said he does not want to participate in any inquiry unless ordered to do so by his government.”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to insult this old soldier by offering him money, but I reminded him, “This family has learned of the fate of your brother, Lee, which I have passed on to you freely. Would you be kind enough to tell me the fate of their son, so I may pass that on to them?” I paused, then added, “This is a private family matter, and has no government involvement.”
Susan translated, and there was again a silence in the room, broken by the crackling of the charcoal on the hearth, and the sound of a songbird outside.
Mr. Vinh turned and walked to the door.
Susan and I looked at each other.
Mr. Vinh left, and we could hear him talking to someone outside, then he returned and said something to Susan.
She bowed to him, and I thought we were being asked to leave, or to stick around until the soldiers came, but Susan said to me, “Mr. Vinh has asked his grandson to find a female relative to make tea.”
Why do I doubt myself? I’m good at this. Witnesses love me. Suspects fear me. Also, I’m very lucky.
Mr. Vinh motioned us toward the low table, and we joined him there. He sat cross-legged with the warm stove at his back and indicated a place on the floor for Susan at his left and me across from him.
Susan took out her cigarettes and offered one to Mr. Vinh, who accepted. She offered one to me with a nod, and I took the cigarette. Susan lit all three cigarettes and put her plastic lighter on the table. The ashtray was a scrap of twisted steel that looked like a bomb fragment.
I took a puff on the cigarette and left it in the ashtray. Mr. Vinh seemed to like his Marlboro Light.
I said to him, “May I tell you the story of how I came to read your letter to your brother?”
Susan translated, and he nodded.
I related the story of Victor Ort, and the Vietnam Veterans of America, emphasizing the VVA’s humanitarian program of helping the Hanoi government discover the fate of their missing soldiers. The story changed somewhat, however, and Mr. Ort and I both became members of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and by chance I knew a family whose son, a First Cavalry lieutenant, had been killed in Quang Tri City. Sounded good to me.
I further explained that the family was convinced that this lieutenant who was mentioned in Mr. Vinh’s letter could be their son. I spun a little more stuff, and being Boston Irish, this is my specialty. I did not mention the army Criminal Investigation Division, nor did I mention the name of the deceased lieutenant, because I didn’t know it; but Mr. Vinh did.
Mr. Vinh listened as Susan translated.
A middle-aged woman entered and without a word went to the hearth where a water kettle hung permanently over the charcoal. She put three bowls on the rug and took a pinch of tea leaves from a ceramic canister and sprinkled the leaves in each bowl. Then, with a ladle, she filled each bowl with hot water, put the bowls on a wicker tray, and on her knees walked to the table, where she bowed.
I really liked this country. I looked at Susan and winked. She stuck her tongue out at me.
Anyway, the tea ceremony complete, the lady disappeared.
We sipped our tea. I smiled and said, “This is awful.”
Susan said something else to Mr. Vinh, and he smiled.