MY STORY

2/1/2023: “How come Dad didn’t go to Viet Nam, and you did?” A question from an eight-year-old daughter stayed with me for years. Now, returning to Viet Nam, I’m thinking about the stories I’ve read, the stories I’ve written and the stories of the war that still need to be heard.

2/9/2023: I didn’t want to return to Viet Nam alone. I wanted someone who could help me see the country beyond my own memories of the war. Then there was Le Ly Hayslip, whose story had already changed the way I understood Viet Nam. Now we would travel together.

2/16/2023: I tested positive for Covid the day I was supposed to leave for Viet Nam. “Mom,” my daughter said, “that’s what everybody has to do.” But this journey had gathered a village around me — friends, students, writers and family members who helped me find a way forward.

2/22/2023: I arrived in Saigon and sat at the Hotel Continental, the same hotel I had known from another time. The city was full of stories: young women building new lives, a hidden wartime tunnel beneath a café and people carrying their own memories of the American war.

2/24/2023: In a small museum in Saigon, I learned about herbs, acupuncture, mortar and pestle and the traditional medicines that have been part of Vietnamese life for generations. Everywhere I looked, gardens, plants and stories were connecting the past with the present.

2/25/2023: We came to Man Quang School knowing we would visit a memorial. Forty-five children were killed in a bombing raid during the American war. We burned incense and placed it on the stones. There was nothing to say. It felt right to stay silent.

2/26/2023: Traveling through Viet Nam means eating. Cao lau in Hoi An, fresh coconut milk, little street-side meals and foods I’d never tasted before become part of the journey. Food is another way of knowing where you are and being welcomed into someone else’s world.

2/28/2023: The story begins with a song. In a village in Viet Nam, a woman in her eighties sings about a little girl killed during the war and the soldier who loved her. Songs carry memories in ways that words alone sometimes cannot.

3/3/2023: A child’s face can stay with you for decades. Traveling with veterans, I returned to places connected to children they knew during the war and found unexpected memories waiting there. Some connections survive the years, the distance and even the war itself.

4/13/2023: The war is not over for everyone. At orphanages and community centers, I met children and adults living with the consequences of Agent Orange and other legacies of the war. Le Ly’s Global Village Foundation is there with food, supplies, education and care.

4/17/2023: Hạ Long Bay seemed almost impossible to take in: limestone islands rising from the sea, caves and a landscape shaped over millions of years. On the riverboat, I opened my little green notebook and began to write. There was so much more.

4/24/2023: What I thought I knew about Việt Nam mostly fell by the wayside. The trip was humbling. Along the way there were blue silk scarves, hammocks beside roadside cafés, the best pumpkin soup of the trip and one very practical lesson: get a suitcase that rolls. And always travel with Le Ly.