…in Vietnam in 1972, a child born of a Vietnamese woman, Huong, and an American soldier, Rich.  Lena’s father, unaware of Houng’s pregnancy, had left Vietnam eight months prior to her birth in Da Nang.  All of the paperwork necessary for Huong to join Rich in the United States had been completed. They were both excited for the next phase of their journey in the US.  Rich left Vietnam on April 18, 1972.

During that week, the North Vietnamese communists swept into South Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone with Soviet tanks in an offensive that would come to be known as the “Easter Offensive”.  These motivated, professional armies captured a number of the northern provinces in South Vietnam. The American military was all but gone from Vietnam by this time, the South Vietnamese were on their own.

The war would go on for another two long years, as the parallel Viet Cong governments began to assert themselves in villages throughout South Vietnam.  It was only a matter of time, and villagers who had a past connection to the United States military became increasingly uncertain about their future.  And soon, the finger-pointing in villages began, many of those fingers pointed directly at light-skinned, obviously Amerasian Children.

Lena was born into this cauldron of suspicion and hate.  Her mother burned all of her legal transit paperwork one afternoon in a small bowl in her room.  Huong feared being caught with documents that would seal her fate were she to be captured with them.  Leaving Lena with her mother Phai, Huong fled for the mountains above Quang Ngai, a remote place of family and safety.  Lena and Huong would be reunited some months later, but Lena’s life was by that time the dark existence of a recluse.  She was not allowed to go outside to play with other children, although at times her grandmother relented and rubbed black soot from the cooking fire on her face and arms to make her appear darker.

Often referred to as Bui Doi (dust of life), young Amerasians faced  an unpleasant and often cruel existence in the villages and cities of Vietnam.  Protected by her Grandfather, Dat, and Grandmother, Phai, Lena survived her early years, trying desperately to get out of Vietnam, first through the Orderly Departure Program, then (successfully) through the Amerasian (American) Recovery Act.  Lena’s mother was sent to a reeducation camp for 4 years from 1976-80 and was in and out of her life during this time.

Lena left Vietnam in 1988 at age 16 with her grandmother, Phai.  Her mother Huong would never see the United States.

…is not one of those languages you just “pick up”.  Vietnamese, particularly the dialect spoken in Central Vietnam is melodious, delicious to the ear. Understanding it and being understood while speaking it, however, is a whole different deal.  Vietnamese is a tonal language, there are six different tones that come into play while using it.

So a word can have a number of different meanings based on the tone used when pronouncing it. The word “ma” can mean either “mother” or “ghost” depending on your pronunciation.  Or, if you accidentally let your accent slide down while using “ma”, you’re talking about a grave.

With the romance languages I’ve always been able to fake it to some extent.  In France or Spain, I can follow the gist of a conversation, if not literally, at least generally. Not so with Vietnamese.  Most of the time I’m just lost.

That is why the interpreter and researcher on this project, my Granddaughter Lynda Huynh, has been critically important to our success.  Lynda is patient and thorough, not always easy in the situations she gets thrown into.  Now and then in a particularly animated interview with Vietnamese speakers, there are a number of people all speaking at once.  Sorting it out so the conversation gets us information that is both useful and accurate is Lynda’s job — and she’s doing just great.

…Huynh Thi Huong, was sentenced in 1976 to a reeducation camp for the crime of having an American boyfriend during the Vietnam War.  Huong, along with thousands of others from all over Quang Nam Province, was sent to a small village named Ky Nghia in the mountains above Tam Ky.  She  would work alongside mountain Katu Tribespeople for 4 years to build what would become Phu Ninh Lake.  This artificial reservoir is the central source of water and electricity for Tam Ky, Phu Ninh, and Nui Thanh Districts.

The building of Phu Ninh Lake was done by hand.  The area to be cleared was a fiercely contested war zone, resulting in heavy bombing and artillery shelling of the region.  Before actual clearing of the land, unexploded ordnance had to be cleared.  This work was also done by hand and resulted in significant loss of life and limb.

On my trip to Quang Ngai Province I met with Ngo Dinh Khoi who met his wife at the Phu Ninh Reeducation Camp in 1976.  The parents of both had worked for the Americans during the war.  They worked side by side for four years until their release in 1980.  Today, they own and operate a coffee shop in Tam Dan.

…to hear Loc’s story firsthand.  I travelled deep into the country in Quang Ngai Province to her humble but beautifully kept farm.  Chickens, dogs, and cattle milled about the newly planted rice paddies, her back yard, and occasionally the kitchen.  Although she has been forced to move many times, Loc has lived in this area with her husband and 9 children since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

Because Loc had worked for the Americans at the Chu Lai Combat Base, she joined thousands of panicked South Vietnamese civilians who fled their homes to escape the on-rushing Communist troops.  Many South Vietnamese soldiers, in an attempt to blend in with the refugees had discarded their military uniforms and were dressed as civilians.  After a day on the road the refugees found their way blocked by a huge barbed wire containment area where Viet Cong troops were checking documents and making decisions about who would pass and who would be detained for questioning and possible imprisonment.  In the ensuing swarming chaos a man grabbed Loc’s 2 year old son Thanh from her arms and disappeared into the crowd of thousands of refugees.

Single men without family were automatically detained for questioning in the belief that they were fleeing Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers.  The man who had snatched young Thanh used the baby to talk his way through the checkpoint, discarding Thanh at the side of the road when he was no longer needed.  A woman, seeing this, collected Thanh and later traded him to another woman for a bag of rice.  This woman, past child-bearing age, raised Thanh as her own child into manhood, marriage, and kids of his own.  During the years apart from her son, Loc dreams often of where he must be living and pictures his life in detail in those dreams.

In 1996, 20 years after her loss, Loc hears of a woman who is visiting her village and telling a story that seems to match her own.  On meeting, both women realize that Thanh is indeed Loc’s lost child.  On visiting Thanh’s home, Loc is shocked to realize that his life is precisely as she has pictured all these years.  He lives in a beautiful home and has all the advantages of a middle class Vietnamese child doted on by adoring parents.

Thanh’s adoptive mother pleads with Loc to leave him with her, her only child.  Loc makes her difficult decision in an instant.  She wants nothing more than to be reunited with her long lost child, but recognizes both that he has a better life style in his adoptive home and that to deprive Thanh’s mother of a son in her declining years would be a cruelly unnecessary stroke.  She gives Thanh her blessing and Loc rides away in tearful grief.

,,,with every swing of the pick, but damned if you don’t come close sometimes.  Spent 14 hours on the road in Vietnam today from Da Nang to Phu Ninh Lake to Quang Ngai doing oral history interviews for the book.  Valuable information discoveries and riveting stories all day long, had  it all wrapped up and we were to end the day with a quiet dinner at Auntie Mai’s house in Quang Ngai City.  

After a delicious meal, Mai is prompted to tell her story:  One of 12 children who grew up in Quang Ngai province, she and her sister were the only two in the family who supported the Communist cause.  Sister Loc drove a jeep for the Americans near Chu Lai, but secretly fed information about what she saw and heard on the job to the Viet Cong.  Mai, age 10 in 1968, was recruited to work as a nurse for the Viet Cong in the mountains above Quang Ngai.  This area was continuously bombed by American aircraft as Mai and her fellow medical workers constantly moved the field hospital to avoid being overrun by American ground troops.  Mai grew to womanhood nursing wounded soldiers in the mountains until the war ended in 1975.

More interviews tomorrow.

Arrived in Vietnam yesterday to spend the day on the little stuff.  Orienting ourselves to the neighborhood here in central Da Nang, grocery shopping, eating a number of times, getting reacquainted with the family, and oh yeah, learning to ride a motorbike.

The grocery shopping went off without a hitch, we bravely avoided the aisle that featured every Oreo variation ever devised.  Many of the items we passed on I believe may be illegal in the US since to eat them means an immediate 911 call.

The apartment we have rented is adorable and functional. The kitchen table sits next to a window that looks out over central Da Nang from the third floor.

Because I need a bedside light in my room, Tam, Van, Lynda and I had to shop for the appropriate light.  And because the light needed a table to sit on, we journeyed to the market district nearby displaying furniture of all types.  As we are driving, me on the back of Tam’s motorbike, I see the very table.  Tam deftly U-turns in the middle of chaos and parks in front of a shop full to the ceiling with teak and fake teak furnishings.  The table is perfect.  I tell Tam so and the haggling in Vietnamese begins.  I can only follow through reading facial expressions, and that reading tells me it’s not going our way.  Suddenly, Tam wheels and starts off to the street.  I follow. A shout in Vietnamese from the shopkeeper, a middle-aged, weary looking woman, stops Tam in her tracks, me putting on the brakes to avoid a collision.  Tam smiles at me sweetly and says simply, “200,000”.  That works out to $8.92 US.  I peel off the 200,000 Dong, hand it to the woman with thanks, grab the table and we’re loading back up on the motorbikes when another shouted phrase erupts from the shop.  Lynda translates, “You bring an American to shop and the least you can do is let me make a dollar!”  I love the table.  Thanks Tam.

The motorbike thing sounds really simple right?  Anybody can ride a motorbike.  But as I sat at the controls, facing an unforgiving Da Nang city street full of motorbikes cleverly captained by people who knew what they were doing, a wee moment of panic set in.  And oh yeah, my precious granddaughter was on the back. 

My mom, Joyce Alice Henning Allen passed away January 27, 2015.  I have missed her each and every day since then.  There will always be an empty place at my side that belongs to her.  The attached photo was taken in August, 1970 at Ft. Ord, California.  I was in basic training in the United States Army, mom visited me when she could.  When I was stationed in the Republic of South Vietnam, mom would send packages of chocolate chip cookies, my favorite (and as it turned out the favorite of the troopers I served with).

When my daughter Lena was searching for me on her arrival in the US, one of the few clues she had was a photo of Joyce Alice taken in the late Sixties and given by me to Lena’s mom, Huong.

On hearing the news that my Vietnamese daughter and I had been united, no one was more delighted than my mom.  She welcomed Lena as an unquestioned member of the family.  I can never repay her for that kindness.  I love you mom.

I sit waiting patiently for my plane that promises to take me from San Francisco, USA to Da Nang, Vietnam. As I mentally prepare for what lies ahead, I feel deeply grateful that I have the time, resources and family support that make the telling of this tale possible.

My Granddaughter Lynda Huynh is in the air from Dallas, Texas, USA to Seoul, South Korea.  We will meet in Seoul and continue on to Da Nang together, where we will be met at the airport by Vietnamese family. I am so delighted that Lynda had the time and interest to accompany me as interpreter and researcher.

Lynda started a great new job recently.  When she was hired she told her new employer there was a slight catch – she was going to have to go to Vietnam for 3 weeks with her grandfather to help him with his book.  Any job I ever applied for this would have been a deal killer – Not so with Lynda.  It’s a testament to her value as a prospective employee that her new boss readily agreed.  Thank you Lynda and your boss!  Let’s make your mom’s story come alive so we can all be proud of the effort…

As I sit looking out over the pasture at Moss Beach Ranch I’m confident that I have done everything I can do to comfortably spend the next three weeks in Vietnam.  There are many moving and often unpredictable parts to an operation of this size.  I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working to insure that the ranch will run smoothly in my absence.  The hay barn is full, both tractors are serviced and running properly (amazing!), all of the supplies for Summer Horse Camp are delivered and packed away.  I can go.

Now of course my head is already in Da Nang, even though my flight is still 72 hours away. The plan is to spend the rest of May interviewing, researching, and writing.

My niece Xuân has rented a comfortable two bedroom flat for Granddaughter Lynda and I for the month. It is located several blocks from the beautiful China Beach, but more importantly is two blocks from my Aunt and Uncle’s house where the tastiest meals imaginable are to be had. Can’t wait to get started on the next phase of the project.

My Vietnamese daughter came into my life in 2013 and from the beginning we made plans to return to Vietnam together.  We set the date of February 2016, and at the time it seemed a long way away.  Those two years flew by and suddenly I was in Saigon, and then Da Nang, living a dual reality.  My mind would flip back 44 years with a smell, a familiar sight, the singular sound of the market, a fleeting expression on a familiar face. Just as quickly I would be snapped back to the present, and then the process would repeat itself over and over during my two week stay.

I didn’t set out to write a book.  I was writing in a leather-bound journal several times a day, Much of what I wrote in the beginning was the mundane stuff of travel journals, where we went, what we ate, what we saw along the way.  but as the journey progressed, I noticed that I was writing about what I heard, the people I was meeting for the first time, the way I felt and my memories of a time long gone began to blend with The Story.

The Story became personal to me in a way that insisted that I tell it.  I conducted hours of oral history while in Vietnam.

As the stories piled up around me I became aware that I was but a minor player in this saga yet viscerally connected at each and every twist and turn.  In a few days I will be back in Vietnam to complete the oral histories needed to fill in the blanks in the narrative.  Only a few remain who actually lived through that period and are willing to talk about it.  Two-thirds of Vietnam’s population today was born after 1975 and have no personal recollection of the war years.

I will be traveling with my dauntless companion, Granddaughter Lynda.  She is fluent in Vietnamese and English (if with a strong Texas accent!).  Lynda’s role as interpreter and researcher is imperative to the success of this project, God grant her patience as I fumble my way through this.

I didn’t set out to write a book, but Lena’s incredible odyssey demands it.  It is my honor to tell that story.