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The Hill
11-07-2025
- General
- The Hill
They came here to bomb. They returned here to live.
Da Nang, Vietnam — Richard Brown hadn't planned on crying by the side of a Vietnamese road. He had come back to Da Nang, where he had once loaded bombs bound for targets across Vietnam, expecting anger, hatred, maybe even violence. Instead, during his first week back, a local motorbike driver grabbed his hand, looked him in the eye and said: 'I want to thank you and your country for sending so many boys here to come and die and help my country be free.' Then the man walked away, leaving Richard alone on the roadside to weep. 'I had one experience like this after another,' Richard told me, sitting near the old Chu Lai airbase where he had spent a year as a kid from Boston — 5'4″, 115 pounds, a former Hells Angels drug-runner trying to dodge jail by signing up with the Marines. On his first day in Vietnam during the war, he went drinking with some new friends. 'Then on the way back, someone pulls out a joint,' he said. 'And that's the last thing I remember until I got on the plane to come home.' He spent his tour as a 'bomb humper,' loading F-4s with napalm and rockets. 'We were more dangerous to ourselves than anything the Vietnamese could throw at us.' When the war ended, Richard went home, but nobody asked him about it. 'Nobody wanted to know what it was like.' He became an aircraft mechanic, an FAA supervisor, and then, decades later, found himself standing at the Vietnamese consulate window in California 'with fear in my heart,' he said. 'I figured I'd be rejected or yelled at… but I filled out the visa application with my shaky hand and stuck it through the window. For 25 bucks, I got it a week later.' My trip to Hanoi came just after Reunification Day, Vietnam's victory celebration in what is sometimes referred to as the American war of aggression. The red flags and old slogans were everywhere. A few people spoke of it almost apologetically, as if they pitied me for being reminded of my country's catastrophic defeat. Americans prefer our victories — Normandy, Desert Storm. The wars we lose, we bury. But for a few hundred men scattered from Hanoi to Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, burying it was not enough. So they came back. Da Nang makes sense for many of these men. It was often their first and last stop in Vietnam — the place they landed and flew out from. Tens of thousands of U.S. veterans have returned since the 1990s, mostly for short visits to see the places where they once fought. A few hundred stayed. Da Nang — once a major airbase, now a coastal city with condos, coffee shops, and pristine beaches — is consistently ranked among Vietnam's most livable cities. It holds symbolic weight: a hub for Agent Orange, for bombs and final goodbyes. Richard says he feels more at home here than he ever did in Boston. Over the years, he worked in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where South Vietnamese treated him as a hero, but in Hanoi — consulting for Vietnam Airlines — his Marine past earned him some cold stares. 'When they found out I was a veteran, bombing the f— out of these people — needless to say, I got some cold receptions,' he said. It was a former North Vietnamese Air Force pilot who broke down those barriers. 'We weren't adversaries. We were just wearing different uniforms, taking orders from different a–holes,' he said. Gordy Thomas came back too. When he got home from the war in 1972, America was done with people like him. 'We learned not to talk about it,' he said. 'I got cancelled from everything because I'd fought in Vietnam. It's the same way people get cancelled now for supporting Trump. … It's that sense that you have no moral justification.' Decades later, long after getting his veteran's disability rating, he sold his house outside Nashville, cashed in his Delta miles and flew first class back to Da Nang — chasing cheap living, sunshine, and My Khe Beach (China Beach), where Marines once landed. Gordy says living here forced him to confront the 'moral injury' of war — the belief that an American life was worth more than a Vietnamese one. 'Coming here was the final healing point of my PTSD,' he told me. He now gives part of his pension to schools and poor families in his wife's hometown. 'So what it comes down to is the United States government, who sent me down here in the first place…now gives me enough money tax-free each month that I can take a very small amount and give it to the people here,' he said. 'It's very helpful to them and is appreciated.' Like Richard, Gordy never really knew the Vietnamese during the war — and like Richard, he met and married his Vietnamese wife here, only decades later. Matt Keenan's story is about unfinished business. He came to Vietnam in 1971 to help 'Vietnamize' the war. In 2014, back in New York, he got a cancer diagnosis tied to Agent Orange. 'I wasn't surprised,' he said. 'But I wanted to come back and see how the people who were exposed are living.' He found his purpose at the Da Nang Association for Victims of Agent Orange. He volunteers with disabled children, some born decades after the spraying stopped. 'They've become like my extended family,' he said. 'The beach is nice, but that's not my priority. I have a whole life in Vietnam.' He has attended solemn repatriation ceremonies for soldiers' remains. He even stood alongside President Biden during one, handing a former Vietnamese soldier back the diary he had lost 50 years before. Keenan, too, met and married his wife here. Before I left Hanoi, I visited the old Hoa Lo Prison — the 'Hanoi Hilton.' Its yellow walls once held Vietnamese revolutionaries under the French. The Vietnam War wing presents its own tidy version: photos of American POWs smiling, playing basketball, unwrapping care packages — a careful curation of the story. Not far away, in a modest home in west Hanoi, I met Ngo Ngọc Duong. Through a translator, he told me that he joined the North Vietnamese Army at 18 and fought for 16 years as a reconnaissance soldier — crawling into enemy zones for intelligence, surviving on roasted cassava in bamboo tubes. He described the day American helicopters hunted him through dense forest for miles as he dove into foxholes, crawled forward and ran again. 'They had aircraft, bombs, the most advanced weapons,' he said. 'But in the end … they couldn't kill me.' His daughter was born deaf and with intellectual disabilities, a legacy of Agent Orange. Still, he sees American soldiers, like himself, as victims of war. 'They didn't want to invade another country, but due to circumstances and orders, we ended up on opposite sides,' he said. 'On the battlefield, we were enemies — but outside of war, they are just people like us, with families, dreams, and their own pain.' That's why, even today — after all the loss and suffering — he warmly welcomes American veterans back. He hopes to shake hands with them, to talk, to be friends, and most importantly, to send a message: 'Cherish life. Cherish peace.' All four men grew emotional while telling their stories. The three Americans arrived with bombs overhead and rifles in their hands — or bombs strapped to the wings of jets they loaded. Now, they come back with pension checks, Agent Orange scars, and local wives. They stand barefoot on the same sand they once cratered, in a country that — for reasons they're still figuring out — feels more like home than the one they left behind. Daniel Allott is the former opinion editor of The Hill and the author of 'On the Road in Trump's America: A Journey into the Heart of a Divided Country.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Family who fled Saigon went from being on welfare to three generations of medical professionals
Fifty years ago, at the age of 12, Huy Nguyen fled Saigon with his family as a refugee. Today, after a long road, the Nguyens boast three generations of medical professionals who say they are grateful for the chance to achieve their dream. When they first arrived in the U.S., they settled in Iowa and became the first Vietnamese American family in the Quad Cities, according to the Davenport Public Library. Nguyen's mother worked as a house cleaner. His father worked as a security guard and eventually got his high school diploma at age 45. He went on to pursue a bachelor's degree and became a chiropractor in 1981. By then, Huy Nguyen was already set on becoming a surgeon. Now, Nguyen's three children are working to become doctors as well. Two of Nguyen's children graduated from the same medical school as their father — Kansas City University. As refugees in the 70s, the family went through a difficult time and started out on welfare. Once a chiropractor, the older Nguyen decided he wanted to pay back all the help they got from the welfare system. 'What my dad did was, when he became a chiropractor, he and my mom, they went to the social security service. And my dad asked that — since when he was in school, we were on welfare … if he can put in payment and they could pay off the help,' Nguyen said. 'He was very proud that he received the help, but at the same time, he would pay that help back and contribute more to that.' Nguyen's family first stop as immigrants was California, where a church sponsored them to move to Davenport, Iowa. While there, Nguyen and his father established themselves in health care. Nguyen eventually had three children of his own — two resident physicians and a current medical school student, now ages 27, 26 and 18. Five decades after the fall of Saigon, which effectively ended the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, the day is known as 'Reunification Day' in Vietnam. 'If you see the Afghanistan evacuations, it's very similar to Vietnam on that at the end of a war,' Nguyen told NBC News. 'There was a bombing on the airport, and we were lucky enough to get in the military airplane, and we were airlifted out of Saigon,' Nguyen said. 'My dad in Vietnam — he was lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army, which fought along with the Americans, and so, last minute, he jumped on the plane and he left with us.' Nguyen said he assimilated to the American culture while living in Iowa — especially as there were no Vietnamese people, foods or languages around him. He fell in love with American football in fifth-grade and learned English by watching TV. Once the family settled in Iowa, Nguyen's father pursued his studies and later went to chiropractic school. While in school, he worked as a museum security guard to make ends meet. Nguyen's mother brought the kids back to California, where she worked cleaning houses. Nguyen would help her clean after school, he said. Once Nguyen's father graduated, he returned to the family in California and opened his own private practice. Nguyen eventually got his bachelor's degree at the same university as his father, St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Nguyen's older sister became a chiropractor and then a lawyer; Nguyen became a surgeon; two of Nguyen's brothers became surgeons and another became a lawyer. Nguyen opened up his own private practice in San Jose, California in 1997 — one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the U.S. In 2008, Nguyen became the first surgeon in the U.S. to perform a single-incision laparoscopic colon resection. Four years later, Nguyen became the first in the California Bay Area to remove a gallbladder using single-site robotic surgery, with his brother Nang assisting the surgery. 'If you think about the American dream, we are it,' Nguyen said. 'If it wasn't for the people that helped us, and also the American government helping us through the welfare system, we would not be where we're at right now. Of course, working hard and everything else comes with it, too.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
12-05-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Family who fled Saigon went from being on welfare to three generations of medical professionals
Fifty years ago, at the age of 12, Huy Nguyen fled Saigon with his family as a refugee. Today, after a long road, the Nguyens boast three generations of medical professionals who say they are grateful for the chance to achieve their dream. When they first arrived in the U.S., they settled in Iowa and became the first Vietnamese American family in the Quad Cities, according to the Davenport Public Library. Nguyen's mother worked as a house cleaner. His father worked as a security guard and eventually got his high school diploma at age 45. He went on to pursue a bachelor's degree and became a chiropractor in 1981. By then, Huy Nguyen was already set on becoming a surgeon. Now, Nguyen's three children are working to become doctors as well. Two of Nguyen's children graduated from the same medical school as their father — Kansas City University. As refugees in the 70s, the family went through a difficult time and started out on welfare. Once a chiropractor, the older Nguyen decided he wanted to pay back all the help they got from the welfare system. 'What my dad did was, when he became a chiropractor, he and my mom, they went to the social security service. And my dad asked that — since when he was in school, we were on welfare … if he can put in payment and they could pay off the help,' Nguyen said. 'He was very proud that he received the help, but at the same time, he would pay that help back and contribute more to that.' Nguyen's family first stop as immigrants was California, where a church sponsored them to move to Davenport, Iowa. While there, Nguyen and his father established themselves in health care. Nguyen eventually had three children of his own — two resident physicians and a current medical school student, now ages 27, 26 and 18. Five decades after the fall of Saigon, which effectively ended the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, the day is known as 'Reunification Day' in Vietnam. 'If you see the Afghanistan evacuations, it's very similar to Vietnam on that at the end of a war,' Nguyen told NBC News. 'There was a bombing on the airport, and we were lucky enough to get in the military airplane, and we were airlifted out of Saigon,' Nguyen said. 'My dad in Vietnam — he was lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army, which fought along with the Americans, and so, last minute, he jumped on the plane and he left with us.' Nguyen said he assimilated to the American culture while living in Iowa — especially as there were no Vietnamese people, foods or languages around him. He fell in love with American football in fifth-grade and learned English by watching TV. Once the family settled in Iowa, Nguyen's father pursued his studies and later went to chiropractic school. While in school, he worked as a museum security guard to make ends meet. Nguyen's mother brought the kids back to California, where she worked cleaning houses. Nguyen would help her clean after school, he said. Once Nguyen's father graduated, he returned to the family in California and opened his own private practice. Nguyen eventually got his bachelor's degree at the same university as his father, St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Nguyen's older sister became a chiropractor and then a lawyer; Nguyen became a surgeon; two of Nguyen's brothers became surgeons and another became a lawyer. Nguyen opened up his own private practice in San Jose, California in 1997 — one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the U.S. In 2008, Nguyen became the first surgeon in the U.S. to perform a single-incision laparoscopic colon resection. Four years later, Nguyen became the first in the California Bay Area to remove a gallbladder using single-site robotic surgery, with his brother Nang assisting the surgery. 'If you think about the American dream, we are it,' Nguyen said. 'If it wasn't for the people that helped us, and also the American government helping us through the welfare system, we would not be where we're at right now. Of course, working hard and everything else comes with it, too.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Vietnamese Americans gather at Georgia senior center to mark 50th anniversary of fall of Saigon
Von Tran speaks at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder Dozens of Vietnamese Americans gathered at a senior center in Norcross Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of what Von Tran called a dark day in history. 'It's a day of suffering, of separations of family, of death, of thousands and hundreds of thousands killed and forced into reeducation camps and imprisoned, Holocaust-style, if you can imagine that,' said Tran, CEO of First Senior Center of Georgia, which hosted the event. 'Some were imprisoned for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, trying to brainwash them into communist ideology.' In Vietnam, April 30, 1975, is celebrated as Reunification Day, when North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, uniting the nation under socialist rule. But to members of the Vietnamese diaspora who fled South Vietnam after its fall, April 30 is marked as the Fall of Saigon, a day to lament the end of South Vietnam and to remember the people who died fighting for the nation. Tran is part of that diaspora. She left Vietnam in 1983 at 9 years old, packed on a fishing boat with more than 60 others, including her parents and five siblings. Tran said her family often relied on charity to make sure everyone was fed during her early days in the U.S. 'I went to the food pantry at the church every Sunday, six of us, to get six chickens so my mother would be able to cook for us, because my father in 1985 was only making $3.54 an hour,' she said. 'He couldn't feed seven mouths. I jokingly say all the time, that I've been converted so many times at church pantries, from Catholic to Lutheran to Methodist to, you name it, just for a chicken.' Thanks to those charity chickens and a lot of hard work, Tran found success in the business world and now runs her own food pantry out of the senior center, delivering literal tons of food to thousands of households every week, with a special focus on seniors. In addition to the food bank and recreational facilities, the center has areas for arts and crafts as well as medical services, including acupuncture. While the ceremony honoring the fall of Saigon took place, a few old timers sat in the back and played board games like xiangqi, or Chinese chess. Many of the people who fled Vietnam around the fall of Saigon are getting older, and the center helps with tasks like translation, transportation and signing up for government assistance programs. 'A lot of them are low-income, so we cater to those who don't have the means to – whether because of a language barrier or transportation limitations – take them to doctor appointments, schedule a doctor appointment for them, apply for all the different social services, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and translation, interpretation. We also give them coffins. We bury them, give them a cemetery plot. We cremate them. These are all free services.' Many of the people who came out Wednesday were members of South Vietnam's military, including some who wore their old uniforms. They saluted the flag of South Vietnam and delivered speeches and sang songs in Vietnamese. Members carrying battery-powered candles walked to the front of the center's common area and placed them on a large map of Vietnam. Tom Nguyen, a retired mechanical engineer, served six years in the South Vietnamese Navy, but he came to the ceremony in a suit and tie instead of his fatigues. 'I'm glad the war is over,' he said. 'I'm glad that the future is growing better over there and over here, because I was there to see many people killed. There's no reason for that. I hate war. I hate war. It just destroys things and communities and the economy.' Nguyen has lived in the U.S. since 1975 and Georgia since 1978. Every now and then when he speaks, a little bit of a southern drawl rises up from beneath his Vietnamese accent. If you ask him about it, he'll smile and pull down the collar of his shirt. 'Can't you see my neck is red?' he says with a laugh. Nguyen may not be American by birth, but he's a red-blooded patriot. He said he wants the next generation of Vietnamese Georgians to honor their roots but also appreciate their new country. 'We're trying to tell them today is a better life for you, especially you here in America, you have a better future, you have a long life, and you have education, you can perform, and you can achieve as you wish, because here is opportunity for everybody, America is number one, I put it that way,' he said. Hanh Kim Dang, a realtor and past president of Vietnamese Community of Georgia, said she's also thinking about the next generation. She got out of Vietnam April 26, 1975, just days before the fall of Saigon. She says she counts herself lucky that she and her sister were able to fly out of Vietnam because her aunt worked for the U.S. government. Many others made a perilous trip by boat or on foot. Dang, who was 20, had studied some English in school, but she was far from fluent. 'It was very rough,' she said. 'I was in the third year of law school, then I went back here and started all over again. I tried to go to high school because that's where I thought I could learn English and use it more to get better. But they said, no, your age, you have to go to community college.' Dang turned that community college education into a degree in information and computer science from Georgia Tech. After a 19-year career, she entered the business world and now owns several nail salons and food courts. Dang's three children are all in their thirties now. They're all conversational in Vietnamese, if not fluent. 'When they were growing up, I hired nannies who were Vietnamese, and I told them, please use Vietnamese language at home, so they pick it up, so they can save it, but it's more like daily conversation, not writing, not literature,' she said. 'They have some understanding of why we're here, but understanding deeply the reason why we sacrificed, we left everything behind, it's hard for them because they're born here,' she added. 'They adopted the culture, language, everything here, but they do understand, they see what the people have been through through photos, videos, movies.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Bloomberg
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Vietnam Is Still Caught in a Tug of War Between Superpowers
As dawn broke over Ho Chi Minh City, fighter jets screamed through the sky and helicopters buzzed over the heads of cheering spectators. To the beat of drums and rousing strains of revolutionary songs, 13,000 military personnel marched through the streets as Vietnam's Communist leaders looked out from a raised dais in front of Independence Palace. The Reunification Day parade on Wednesday was an emotional display of national pride, 50 years after North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon — as the city was then called — ending a conflict that devastated the country and killed an estimated 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 American troops.
