A series of essays....
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| VIETNAM WAR VETERAN PAYING HOMAGE TO HIS FELLOW SOLDIERS AND BUDDIES AT THE VIETNAM WAR MEMORIAL IN WASHINGTON D.C. |
Courtesy: pixels.com
....as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E. Hughes
Last night I went to bed with the sight and sounds of the North Vietnamese marching into Saigon, South Vietnam, and placing the fear of God in the people who were left there by the Americans back in 1973 when we pulled-out of Vietnam for good. It’s my own fault. Out of ten episodes of Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War, we had the final episode to watch. You see, we were cleaning up the recorded programming from our AT&T Cable devises in preparation for our move to Michigan next week.
I am such a stickler when it comes to watching every program that has been recorded off of our cable TV. It is my understanding that there had to have been a good reason to do so in the first place and, it is my responsibility to complete the entire process.
For some reason, having recorded all ten episodes months ago, we put off watching the documentary’s final chapter. There were too many personal memories involved and I wasn't prepared for the amount of closure it might bring.
Vietnam, episode 10, was the last thing we watched before going to bed. Probably should have viewed it first and saved International House Hunters and various other HGTV programs, several hour-long shows we love, Rachel and Lawrence from the last few nights, The Great British Baking Show, and the lulling voice of Lester Holt talking about the massive fires in California...for later. With hindsight in mind, I would have been much better off.
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| HO CHI MINH CITY (COMMONLY KNOWN AS SAIGON) IS A CITY IN SOUTHERN VIETNAM FAMOUS FOR THE PIVOTAL ROLE IT PLAYED IN THE VIETNAM WAR. Courtesy: Wikipedia |
Flashes of armored vehicles, ex-presidents, and a sleek, open V-shape wall of black granite etched with the names of 57,692 men and women who died in the war manipulated my blurred thoughts. Unfortunately, I am able to place faces along with the names of some of the heroes that will forever honor that wall and have followed along each indentation forming the letters of their names with my trembling fingertip. Having visited it several times since its construction and opening on November 13, 1982, the boys I knew remain in my youthful memory files, they never grow older, and they will always fill my heart with unwavering loyalty and emotion.
So, I cried for the men and women who, along with presidents and various statesmen, could not deter the enemy no matter how hard they tried...even while losing their dreams, their future, and many, their lives.
I cried for all of us who were left to pick-up the pieces and try to make sense from a senseless world. How many twenty-one gun salutes at the local cemetery did we stand at attention at, rain or shine, and listen to each collective burst in feeble homage expressed after the spirit and vitality of youth had been stripped away; the crooked smiles and deep blue eyes that were left in our memory, alone?
Oh, we were tough son-of-a-guns back then; those who stayed behind and those who left to fight the battles concocted by mere mortals in order to solve the world’s problems and counteract the blatant greed and malfunctioning ideals of others? If we weren’t fighting on the battlefields themselves, we were marching in the streets with like-minded students and college professors; launched in a fearsome battle trying to prove the predictability of this utter foolishness.
Most of us knew that this conflict, aimed at maintaining the independence of the South Vietnamese people against the Communist regime of the North and China, was being spearheaded by our Generals and fought by our own brave, young men and women...many our own family, friends, and neighbors. A good friend of ours returned in one piece. At least his body had come home that way. His mind, did not and he suffered gravely from PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Steve relived his particular ‘battle’ every day of his life. The horror in his eyes reflected the demons he was forced to face. I can only hope that he was able to beat those demons back to wherever they righteously belonged and live out his days in a remote semblance of peace.
The blood that ran down into rice patties and along the dirt paths that guided our boys into ambushes and hopeless situations was witnessed each night on the Evening News. Not much was held back. It was almost as if we were there with them feeling the pain of stray bullets, the fear that clenched at their guts twenty-four hours a day, along with hearing the whir of the helicopters landing long enough to retrieve the broken bodies that covered the open fields in an attempt to fly them to safety.
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| BILLY JOEL SINGING 'GOODNIGHT SAIGON' ~CLICK BELOW TO WATCH VIDEO~ |
If a song can take you back to a certain moment in your past and make you vividly remember what you were doing, thinking...well, we had lots of those songs by many artists and groups, and to hear one of them today still sends chills through my very being. A song by Billy Joel, released in 1982, succinctly captured the reality of dying young alongside of your buddies while under impossible circumstances and seat-of-your-pants military organization. The song is called, Goodnight Saigon.
“And we will all go down together,” as the lyrics go. But, no matter how hard we fought and tried to suppress it, ultimately, Communism was the cancer that spread south in Vietnam and remains uncured to this day.
I can remember the ones who said, “Hell No” and traveled over the border to Canada to avoid the conflict. They were friends, good students, bright individuals who felt they had no choice but to leave everything behind. They were our friends, and who were we to tell them not to go when it was difficult to justify them staying? Especially when we never forgot the young high school boys with their crooked smiles and deep blue eyes a year or two before!
Sleep, finally, caught-up with me. I couldn’t tell you exactly when. That was last night.
This morning I’ve spent time putting into words the pictures that danced through my head during the night. It wasn’t difficult. They were fresh and frighteningly vivid and before long the words flowed like the blood of the innocent and representing a thousand conflicts throughout the history of the world!
Recently, I have been speaking with a Vietnamese family, good friends, whose older members lived through this war and all of its repercussions that still cling as tightly as plastic wrap around their memories and fears keeping them fresh and active. The grandchildren, born here in the United States, are the fortunate generation. Loving their Grandmother, Mother, and Father so much, they listen to the stories their elders have to tell. They will be the ones to carry these stories through time like the Irish custodians of the oral tradition of storytelling, the Seanchaidhe, bearers of ancient culture, history, and laws.
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| DAN WITH 'MAMA,' THE BEAUTIFUL LADY WHO HAS FRIGHTENING AND AMAZING STORIES TO TELL |
After living through last night and all of the ‘tosses and turns’ that presented themselves...I’ve made a major decision this morning. I will carry on my research into the lives of my friends, the Vietnamese who personally lived through the hardships of the Vietnam War and were the innocent victims who survived the conflict to live another day. For them it was a matter of getting to the United States through sponsorship and being placed in an area where that sponsor could help them find homes and employment so they could raise families of their own. Orlando, Florida and the Catholic Church played huge roles in providing hundreds of Vietnamese solace and a safe haven in America.
I love these people. We’ve been so blessed to be living in Orlando these many years and afforded the opportunity to meet and interact with the beautiful Vietnamese people. I have spent time learning their stories, crying and laughing with them, and being lulled by the gentle rhythms of their language and pure kindness.
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| OUR FRIEND, NHIEU DAO, WITH HIS BEAUTIFUL BABY GIRL, AVA! |
Just as I was a teenage girl discussing this war from high school classrooms and watching it on television at home, my life was being paralleled by another woman who was around my own age, who fell in love with an American soldier, and struggled to bring her two daughters (Amerasian) over to the United States one day. We all call her 'Mama'...out of love and respect for her status and wisdom.
Two lives running parallel in time, one living within the privileges of a normal life and the other the uncertainty and fear of a life in total upheaval. Two women who meet one another many years later and learn about the struggles and small victories that kept them strong and motivated enough to push ahead into the unknown; into their inevitable futures.
To be continued...
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| BEAUTIFUL MISS JANICE~ BRINGING US HOME FROM THE AIRPORT LAST WEEK: THE BEST FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR...EVER!!! |
Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
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