Lives II

Huan Nguyen

I talked to my dad about my mother's enduring reaction to her time in Viet Nam, which she left exactly 50 years ago this month.  He also served "in" Viet Nam, in a manner of speaking: flying  missions from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin, he never actually ever set foot in Viet Nam. So he really can't relate to her experience in that war. 
She also has the emotional burden to bear of her oldest brother, with whom she was very close, being killed in Viet Nam, at Dak To.  He was the only member of either my mother's  or father's families who was drafted and sent to serve in that war. All the others who served, and I think there were about half a dozen in total, joined the service voluntarily, none as far as I know, in order to serve in Viet Nam, but for various personal reasons including, I assume, a decision to join ahead of being drafted so that they could pick their branch of service and have better choices of occupation specialties and where to serve. 
Of these, only one was ever wounded, and he only slightly.  He had joined the Air Force and was assigned as crew to a U-6A "Beaver" that flew what were, I guess you could call them, a variety of ferret mission.  North Vietnamese unit headquarters used very low-powered Morse Code transmissions to communicate with other units during the night.  What the U-6A crews did was fly very low (within the range of small arms fire) and slow over the countryside listening for these transmissions. When they picked one up, they would maneuver so that they could get a triangular fix on the transmitter, pin-pointing its location.  Then they would call in artillery fire on that location.  On these missions, they were often subject to small arms fire.  On one, my relative's plane was hit and a bullet struck him in the heel of his foot.  Fortunately, its energy was largely spent, the round lodging jammed up against his heel bone.  But it was enough to end his deployment and get him discharged on disability.  To the end of his life (he died of cancer at the age of 66), he walked with a limp.  

The flag my grandparents received upon their son's death.

Other than his injury, none other of my relatives suffered so much as a scratch due to enemy action.  No, I take that back.  During a rocket barrage on her base, while assisting at an operation in a sand-bagged bunker, a splinter of wood from a shattered plywood board struck my mother and drew blood.  She pulled it out and continued on with her job.  The surgeon joked that she was now eligible for a Purple Heart.  Of course, she never put in for the medal, 'though, I suppose, she was technically eligible for it.  She believed such medals should be reserved for the fighting troops. After all, they were the only acknowledgment of their sacrifices they would receive from the government that had dragooned them into its war. That is, unless they were unlucky and didn't make it back home.  Then they would also get a flag.  Or, more accurately, their families would.

So from this dad and I had a discussion about the role of America in the world, and whether, overall, and especially compared to the actions of other countries, it has been good or bad.  It was then that my father recalled a man he had met when he was serving on board the Kitty Hawk when it was forward deployed to Yokosuka, Huan Nguyen.  He was introduced to Huan, who was the ship facility testing officer, as a very remarkable man it would be an honor and a privilege to know.  And so he was.

Huan's father was an officer in the ARVN when the Viet Cong attacked Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968.  He was targeted by the communists for execution as an enemy of the people.  And to inflict maximum terror on those who opposed the Viet Cong, so was his family.  The Viet Cong broke into Huan's home and executed his father, mother, his five brothers, his sister and his grandmother.  Huan himself was shot three times, including in the head and left for dead.  His mother lived for two hours after the attack and Huan stayed by her side trying to stop the bleeding from her cut throat until she died.  For some reason, the guerillas shot the father and sons but cut the throats of the mother, grandmother and daughter.  The man who cut their throats was Nguyen Van Lem.  He was captured shortly afterward and summarily shot dead by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the execution caught in that famous photo.

Asan Beach Park on a recent Memorial Day.

Huan Nguyen, who was nine years old when he lost his family, lived with an uncle until the fall of Saigon when he was evacuated to Camp Asan, Guam.  The site of the camp is now a beach park. I've picnicked there many times. It's also the site of Memorial Day ceremonies, as it was the site of savage fighting during the liberation of Guam in 1944, with the Japanese attacking the field hospital there, bayoneting the wounded in their beds as well as doctors and nurses before finally being driven out by the Marines.

In an interview, Huan said, “The images that I remember vividly when I arrived at Camp Asan were of American sailors and Marines toiling in the hot sun, setting up tents and chow hall, distributing water and hot food, helping and caring for the people with dignity and respect. I thought to myself how lucky I am to be in a place like America. Those sailors inspired me to later serve in the United States Navy.” 

And that's what he did.  But first he went to university, earning masters' degrees in electrical and manufacturing engineering as well as information technology. He is an alumnus of  Carnegie Mellon.  He was commissioned as an officer in the Navy in 1993. Besides serving in Japan, he has also served in Iraq and Afghanistan while rising through the ranks to rear admiral, serving as deputy commander of cyber engineering at NAVSEA. 

Huan has said, "Growing up in the war zone, it is literally a day-to-day mental attitude. You never know what is going to happen next. The war is at your doorstep. Images of gunships firing in the distance, the rumbling of B-52 bombings on the countryside, the nightly rocket attacks from the insurgents—it becomes a daily routine. There is so much ugliness in the war and living through a period of intense hatred, I didn't have any peace of mind.

War, war, always war.

"It is not easy to get over the trauma of losing your entire family. It has been over fifty years, but it is something I will never forget. Every day I asked myself: 'Why me?'

"I thought of myself as a curse. In my mind, bad news was always around the corner; it was just a matter of time. I was afraid of building relationships just to lose the people I love. I was afraid of losing everything.

Tet Offensive, 1968.

"I have often thought of the actions of my father the day he died. Why did he make those decisions that ultimately led to not just his death but those of my mother and siblings? Would I have made the same choices?

"The message I have come to understand from his example is that it is about service before self and doing what is right with honor. What I experienced and learned from that event is about honor, courage, and commitment. The same ethos that the Navy I serve pledges today to uphold — honor, courage, and commitment."

When he was promoted to admiral, Huan said, “It is a great honor to attain the rank of admiral. I am humbled to become the first Vietnamese-American to wear the flag rank in the U.S. Navy. The honor actually belongs to the Vietnamese-American community, which instilled in us a sense of patriotism, duty, honor, courage and commitment to our adopted country, the United States of America. This is our America, a country built on service, kindness and generosity as well as endless opportunity. These values are what inspired me to serve.  And what a great honor and privilege it is to serve our Navy, to serve our country.”

God bless America. You may not say it, but they do.

So....  What...?

I guess what I'm thinking, what I'm trying to convey is that, as screwed up as America may be, as many mistakes as we make, as many things wrong that we do, we are still a worthy country, a worthy people, trying our best.  We often do not realize that, or grow cynical in the face of rah-rah phony shows of patriotism by contemptible politicians and their hangers-on, crooks and cowards that they are, but others who come to us from far different and far worse backgrounds see that it is true.  If we falter, feel the country is done for, they seize the flag before we let it touch the ground and run forward with it.  We're in a particularly bad time these days, with, it seems, psychopaths and lunatics, criminals and incompetents, in charge of just about everything.  But we must persevere somehow, abide and outlast while enduring the unendurable.

Here's Douglas Pike's analysis of the Viet Cong's deliberate use of terror against civilians:

The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror

The ad below was created at the behest of Admiral Huan Nguyen about a dozen years ago. Unfortunately, thanks to the deteriorating competence of American leaders, civilian and military, and in particular the implementation of Critical Race Theory in the armed forces, things are rapidly becoming not what they were.  But none-the-less....  Notice that at the end of this mini-video, the camera zooms out from Guam, where, in many ways, the admiral's real life began.  His love for America is profound and sincere.  If the descendants of those who founded this country, and others who came after, give up on it, men like the admiral will carry on and fight to force it back to its original ideals. 
I hope they win.