Hoi An, Da Nang, Tam Ky and Chu Lai--Continued

I have to admit that I’m getting a little confused as to what we did on each day because of not writing every day. Oh, well, xin loi—excuse me. I do know this—on Wednesday, the 25^th, we went to the main Pagoda near “Marble Mountain,” where a military base was located on top. There is actually a very ancient pagoda there, and we were supposed to visit it, but when Song checked it out it was just way too crowded with Tet visitors, including many foreigners. It is the Ling Ong Pagoda and it is located in a cave. However, we did go to the newer and more modern pagoda with the 229-foot statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The statue was actually finished, apparently, about five years ago and according to our local American guide—Don Blackburn, another Oregonian, Vietnam vet who lives here—he watched them put it up. He said that he would come to marvel at the workers racing up and down some not too sound scaffolding as the goddess rose from the ground.

I learned that all of the mountains in this area are actually the “Marble Mountains,” and that US soldiers called the one with the military installation on top by the singular name. The Vietnamese name for the mountains is Ngu Hahn Son-“Five Elements Mountains”—metal, wood, fire, earth and water. The French military built bunkers on the tops of several of the mountains, and the Viet Cong used the caves as sanctuaries during the Vietnam/American War. At the same time, the US built observation posts and artillery platforms high on their peaks. The shrine we went to is the Chua Quan The Am Pagoda, now a significant place of worship for Buddhists and which took six years to build. The name of the pagoda means, “Pagoda of the Goddess of Mercy Who Hears Us and Responds.” The best part of going to the pagoda was that Song was able to arrange a special sitting with the Most Revered Zen Master, Thich Hue Vinh, there, and his chief disciple.

They both talked to us and told us many things that gave us pause to ponder the truths they gave us. Most importantly, the Most Revered Zen Master said that, “The most important thing we can do while we are here in physical form, is to help the poor.” It is such a simple concept and I feel that I have done my best over the years to do that, both for my indigent clients as an attorney and investigator and the work I did with my fellow Vietnam veterans at Central Oregon Veterans Outreach. When he got to me—and I had been thinking long and hard what to ask—I said, “I am sure this is presumptuous, but I think that if I do not ask this now, I will never have another opportunity…Why are we here?” He looked at me intently for a moment and then started laughing and slapping his knees. He turned to his disciple, still laughing and, according to Song, later, said something like, “I cannot answer this. This is part of your final exam and you must try to answer him.” The younger man looked at me carefully and said, “You are not asking the correct question. You should be asking, ‘Now that I am here, what is my purpose’”. It was right out of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I was simply floored and it was immediately obvious that he was correct. Both of the monks were now laughing together, as was everyone else, as Song translated.

After a few more minutes, the Most Revered Zen Master said that we had to stop. We all rose, bowed to him, and began to walk out. Okay, now here is just about the heaviest, most profound thing that has ever happened to me—I mean, ever. As we walked into the sunlight, he was walking behind me talking to Song and Ed and he poked me in the back. I turned around; he looked me directly in the eyes and said—in perfect English—“I think that I will see you again, someday.” I was immediately thrown for a complete loop and I knew that he was not talking about seeing me in this lifetime. I have been thinking about this, almost nonstop, since he said it and I have been pondering the meaning of it all. I hope that he is right because I have the feeling that I could learn much from him. I wish it would be possible to come back to Vietnam, someday, and talk with him, again, but I doubt that will happen, so I guess I’ll just have to wait until the time he was talking about.

On the 26^th, we went to the home of Mr. Nhan, a former South Vietnamese solider who was a tank driver in an armored unit. He is known in Da Nang as the “House Father,” because he worked for many years at the Da Nang Street Children’s’ Center—an orphanage—and has been “father” to hundreds of poor and disabled Vietnamese children and has had as many as thirty at a time living with him and his wife in their small house. Ed and Kate first met him there, where, among other things, he would entertain the children with his guitar. Over the years, Soldier’s Heart has donated the funds to build an infirmary and bicycle garage for the orphanage. While we were sitting in Mr. Nanh’s living room, we could not help but notice that centrally located on his family altar was not an ancestor, but, instead, the picture of an American with his name in bold letters across the bottom—John Howard Priesthoff, II. Then, he told us the story of how this came to, although I do not remember the precise details because I am really overloaded with information.

Mr. Nanh, somehow, came to know Mr. Priesthoff’s parents when they were here on a journey to learn more about Vietnam and to try and locate the place where he died. They had the location’s grid coordinates and, if I heard correctly, Mr. Nanh was able to find out exactly where this was. At some later point in time, the parents and their other son returned to Vietnam with things of importance to their deceased son and brother and Mr. Nanh took them to the location where John had been killed and they performed a traditional Buddhist ceremony for his spirit. Mr. Nanh was so full of feelings for the parents and it was such an emotional experience for him, that he told them that he would consider John Howard Priesthoff, II, as his own son and put his picture on his family altar. It was an overwhelming experience for each of us to hear this story of spiritual connection between these two families and I think that all of us were pretty much in tears when Mr. Nanh was done telling it.

For the record, John Howard Priesthoff, II, was born on April 20, 1946, in Woodland Hills, California. He was a corporal in D Company, 4^th Battalion, 21^st Infantry Regiment, 11^th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. He arrived in Vietnam on June 16, 1968, and died on September 22, 1968, during Operation Burlington Trail, north of Duong Dong and 11 miles southwest of the Tam Ky Airfield. Rest in peace, brother. I was able to get this information from the Coffelt Data Base, the official source of information about the men and women who died in Vietnam and which I have used for years to help my clients with their VA claims.

On the 27^th, we went to an elementary school in Tam Ky which Soldier’s Heart has helped sponsor over the years, including providing books, a computer and, this time, many of us brought donations for the wonderful teachers and beautiful children. The little girls, I would guess were about eight or nine, all greeted us in perfect English, which they are required to study every day.  We all went into the classroom and sat around a long table where they had prepared snacks for us and provided us with a fresh bottle of water. The headmaster and main teacher both addressed us and let us know, once again, how glad they were to see us and how much they appreciated the relationship between them and Soldier’s Heart and the veterans who have visited them and then sent learning materials after they had returned to the States. Ed then addressed the faculty and students and told them how glad we all were to be there and that we had brought many wonderful things with us as gifts to help them with their education and their daily lives, as well as one particular treat.

Brian and Karen brought toothbrushes, toothpaste and Doublemint Chewing Gum. This was a little funny, since I seem to remember Vietnamese children trying to sell us the same gum and Cokes on the sides of the road when I was here during the war. I know that Brian and Karen had other gifts, but I cannot remember everything. Vela brought lots of different children’s books, including one with pop-up animals and a book about the Trojan horse. Later, I remember seeing Karen with a little girl on her lap as she read to her from a book to help them with their English language skills. I brought fifty calculators so that each kid could have their own. This got a big round of applause from the faculty and students. I just hope they can afford to replace the batteries when they run out. They were actually more expensive than the calculators when I checked at Radio Shack before I left.  We also gave the school $200 which goes a long way, over here, to but materials they need for their classrooms.

We left the school and walked to the teacher’s home, where we met her father, another former Viet Cong soldier. She lives at home because she is still unmarried and does not earn enough money to have her own place. Young men and women in Vietnam become teachers because of the honor it brings them and their families. They are revered members of the communities in which they live and are treated with respect and dignity. On Teacher’s Day, they are honored by the entire country. On the third day of the Tet holiday, I believe, people go to see their former teachers to honor them to let them know how important they have been in their lives. Once again, we were treated to food and water and I am sure that many of the teacher’s neighbors helped contribute to what must have cost them a lot of money by their standards. It was another way of welcoming us back to Vietnam and to honor us for returning to try and reconcile with ourselves and with the Vietnamese people. I could not help but reflect on the fact that many people in my own country would not be so gracious in similar situations.

We left Tam Ky and headed for Chu Lai, which was one of Brian’s AOs. On the bus ride to Chu Lai, Brian talked to us about his time in Vietnam and the impact it had on his entire life. He had also spent a lot of time in Duc Pho, a place where there was heavy enemy activity all the time, but the trip was not long enough to visit there, as well as Chu Lai, and I wish that we had been able to do that because it was clear to all of us that Brian had many memories of his time there and that it would have been important o his own healing to have been able to return there. Brian was a door gunner, among other jobs, and had spent a lot of time in the air. I think he said he had been shot down twice, including just after he had gotten in-country. He told us a pretty funny story about ending up running a supply operation, something he had not been trained for, and eventually ended up helping on the beach near Nha Trang to make sure people were safe in an area of the South China Sea that had notorious rip-tides, a significant drop-off and sharks. He told us about an event when he and another “lifeguard” had to save a guy who had been pulled under by a rip-tide and they all almost drowned.

We eventually arrived in a field off the highway near the former Chu Lai airfield that Brian had flown out f and where there is a monument to the VC and NVA soldiers who had fought in this area. Unfortunately, it was located atop a high edifice that had to be climbed and it was just too much for my, by then, aching left knee and lower back from all of the walking we had been doing. While the group climbed to the top of the memorial, I wandered around area and watched a rooster with his harem of hens walking around looking for delicacies. By now, a light rain had started to fall and I was trying to stay dry when the bus driver came over to me with a green pith helmet like those worn by the NVA. As you can see by the picture to the right, he had me put it on and took a picture. It was a little small for my giant head and I had to kind of smash it down so it wouldn’t look too ridiculous.

I remembered that my good friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Billy Bob, had been in Chu Lai at the same airfield where Brian had been. He passed away from the ravages of cancer caused by herbicides while I was in Afghanistan and I was unable to attend his memorial service. I collected some dirt and smooth stones in a baggie and will give them to his widow when I return. At this point, everyone came down from the memorial and we returned to our hotel in Hoi An for one last night and a wonderful dinner at a restaurant on the waterfront. When we left the restaurant, the tide had come in and we had to pick our way around the sidewalk and against the wall of the building the restaurant was in to avoid the water. Across the way from the restaurant was a lively waterfront nightclub with a merry-go-round and loud, live Vietnamese popular music with a large crowd that was dancing their asses off.

The ongoing celebration of the Tet was something to behold and seemed to be participated in by everyone, young and old. Every place we went, parents would be sitting on their stoops, or at one of the many roadside cafes, with their babies and young children all dressed to the nines. Young men were on their motorbikes, many with their girlfriends behind them, going to who-knows-where, but seeming to enjoy just being out and moving with the flow of the traffic. I eventually returned to my room, packed and prepared to leave early the next morning for the bus ride to Hue. It turned out to be an eventful and emotional journey and I will talk about that in my next post. I may not get to finish this blog until after I return home because, sadly, we are flying from Ha Noi to Saigon early tomorrow morning and we will have our final group get-together and farewell dinner tonight. I was really sick this morning and had started an anti-biotic regimen, yesterday, hoping to break this thing up before the horrible 16-hour trip from Saigon to San Francisco. I am hoping to be well enough this afternoon to attend the meeting with the Ha Noi chapter of the Agent Orange Victims’ Association, so I’m going to lie down for a little bit. Chuc Mung Nam Moi—Happy New Year!!