friendship

Interviewed in San Diego Union-Tribune

Articles, News, Press Coverage, Veterans, Vietnam

UT San-Diego screen shot

I was interviewed by the San Diego Union-Tribune recently for an article about an American veteran who reconnected with his wartime friend when he returned to Vietnam. You can read the article here.

General Mike Neil was just 26 years old when he went to Vietnam as a Marine in 1967, but he became a father figure to the 12-year-old Vietnamese boy he nicknamed “GTO.” After Gen. Neil’s tour was up, he left Vietnam and for years wondered what had happened to his young friend. Finally, in 2009 he returned to Vietnam on a battlefield tour and was able to track down GTO. The two have kept in touch since then and GTO recently visited the United States to see Gen. Neil.

But Neil’s return to Vietnam and his reunion with GTO is about more than a decades-long friendship. As one U-T San Diego reader put it, it was about finding peace after struggling for years with a difficult war.
UT San Diego reader letter

To remember the days of war

We have come to you this afternoon

Our old battlefield still here.

Yet how do we find your graves

Now hidden by 30 years of growth.

In your youth like the leaves so green

Your blood soaks the earth red

For today’s forest to grow.

Words cannot describe how we miss you

Our fingers trace the bark for clues of days past.

We imagine you resting for a thousand peaceful autumns

Feeling the loss of each of you.

We come to rejoin a span of bridge

For the happiness of those living.

On a calm autumn afternoon in Ia Drang

Veterans join hands.

After 30 years we relive that battle

Between two sides of the frontline.

Now we stand at each other’s side

Remembering generals and soldiers of years past

Bring back the months and years of history

Untroubled by ancient rifts

We look together toward the future

Hoping that generations to come will remember.

Our people know love and bravery

We leave old hate for new friendships.

Together we will live in peace

So that this land will remain ever green

Forever in peace and harmony.

– A poem composed by NVA veteran Col.Tran Minh Hao upon meeting American veteran Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore in Vietnam, as translated in We are Soldiers Still

Veterans join hands: A poem

Poem, Poetry, Veterans, Vietnam