The Return Visit to An Nhon Orphanage
It was a long, but easy drive from Hoi An down scenic Highway One to An Nhon, where we were to visit the An Nhon Orphanage, officially known as the Center for Social Protection of Binh Dinh Province, one of our major humanitarian projects. I was largely responsibly for organizing this project; like I had done for Christmas in 1967, while the Civil Affairs Officer for my unit, the 98th S & S Battalion, I had solicited contributions from family and friends to assist TOP Vietnam Veterans in paying for this project. Though the generous contributions of my support group, both from the States as well as a number of associates in Sri Lanka, I had raised just over $750.00 which was used to purchase medical and school supplies in addition to the contributions of clothes, toys, candy and toilet articles from the members of the TOP Vietnam Veteran Tour Group.
It was here, then an orphanage run by an order of Vietnamese-French nuns, that I experienced the most significant trauma from my tour of duty with the U.S. Army in 1967-1968, during the long American War. In mid-January of 1968, the Depot Civil Affairs Officer, the unit Chaplin and I were guests of honor at a sumptuous banquet provided by the nuns to thank us for the Christmas donations we had provided the children of the orphanage. During that visit I had come to know and play with several of the beautiful Amerasian children, Several weeks later, I visited the orphanage again in mid-February of 1968. It was a frantic, hectic time, about two weeks into the infamous Tet Offensive. The Qui Nhon City area had been involved in major combat operations against it for the first time, along with all other major population centers along the coastline. I discovered that the orphanage had been caught in a brutal cross-fire between Republic of Korea troops and a North Vietnamese Army unit during the heavy fighting. A couple of the buildings had been destroyed; several of the children and staff, whom I knew, had been killed or severely wounded. It was most difficult for me to accept that this terrible tragedy had occurred, and it has haunted me during much of my life since I returned from Vietnam in April of 1968.
When I made my first trip back to Vietnam with TOP Vietnam Veterans in February of 2002, I wanted to see if I could find the orphanage. I had no idea if it was still in existence. Here is how I wrote about it then:
About mid-morning we arrived in the Binh Dinh Province town of An Nhon, where the orphanage had been located. It was here where I had experienced the most significant stressor of my combat tour of duty. We had no idea if the orphanage was still in existence, so the guide and driver again did their routine of stopping and asking villagers for information. We turned one corner right at the time when a local school had let out. The road was covered with school children, literally a sea of children in white starched uniforms with different colored scarves around their necks, indicating the grade or form I suppose. I didn’t get a picture of it, but I did write this haiku:full sea of children
where once many died alone
life keeps flowing forthWe were driving along a country road with rice paddies on both sides after having made several turns through several small hamlets when I saw across the paddy the same quaint Catholic church I had taken pictures of 34 years ago when I made several visits to the orphanage. A cry welled up from deep within me as I yelled for the driver to stop. I hurriedly got out of the bus and took a picture. Here’s what the Church looks like today:
Here’s what it looked like in January of 1968, taken from the front gate of orphanage across the road and rice paddy:
The Church was virtually unchanged. I couldn’t believe it. The 34 years sloughed off like they were only a few brief parsecs of limitless time. I turned around and there it was, the orphanage. It too was substantially the same:
Here’s a picture of my gun jeep parked under the same veranda, when I was a guest of honor in mid-January of 1968 at a banquet the Vietnamese Nuns threw for the Civil Affairs team for the help and assistance we provided them during the 1967 Christmas season.
Here’s a shot of some of the beautiful kids horsing around with me. The little girl on the right was especially precious as I can still so vividly recall – hard to believe that today, if she is still alive, she would be close to forty 40 years old. In the distance through the gate across the road and paddy is the Catholic Church above.
Here’s a shot of one of the orphans feeding an infant in one of the rooms off the main veranda, where our banquet table had been set up. It was sumptuous feast that the Vietnamese nuns had prepared for us including all kinds of wonderful delicacies, spring rolls, local crawfish, peacock sausage and the always wonderful nuoc maum dipping sauce, made from rotted fish heads, etc.
Here’s several other of the always bountiful children around a table on the side veranda, no doubt where perhaps we had earlier eaten.
It’s hard to tell from this picture taken on the return trip, but there are several bullet holes in the stucco of this building. To the left of this building is the area of the orphanage compound where a couple of the buildings had been burned and destroyed during the NVA/ROK crossfire. Funny, I had no thought look at where they had been, or to take a picture or the area. I only focused on the more public areas of the orphanage and concentrated upon living my bounteously full life today.
We spoke with the Headmaster of the orphanage and arranged to come make a formal visit to the orphanage in the early afternoon after lunch. I donated a hundred dollars, and we bought supplies, soccer balls, toys, and school supplies for the orphanage from the local economy. Then we went and had a lunch at a local cafe, another wonderful meal of simple and exceedingly fresh country fare. I was in a positive dissociative state, floating like clouds in an endless blue sky, filled with gratitude, not only that I had survived, but that so much else had survived as well.
After lunch we went back to the orphanage, which was now run by the Vietnamese Government, no longer by the Catholic Church and the order of French nuns. We met with the Director and his staff around a long conference table, having the obligatory ceremonial tea and cookies, exchanging formal toasts and well wishes. He had been a Viet Cong Platoon Leader and was missing his left hand from mid-forearm down. Unscathed physically, but certainly not emotionally or spiritually, I had been an enemy Platoon Leader of the invading American Army, and here we were, 34 years later meeting in peacetime – just too wonderfully unbelievable. We then took a tour with staff of the now much larger orphanage. In the early 80s they built a five-story building for the orphanage, and the buildings which had been the orphanage in 67-68 was now a resident facility for disabled adults and the aged.
On the veranda of the picture above where the several children are around the table, we encountered a middle-aged woman, who was horribly disfigured. She was missing one leg, an arm and one side of her face had been terribly burned. When she was six years-old, she had been so awfully injured and the only survivor of her family who had been killed by a helicopter gunship attack on her nearby hamlet in early 1967. She had lived at the orphanage ever since. She would have been at the orphanage in 67 and 68, when I made my visits there. I stopped and looked into her eyes for a long, long while. She began trembling, and I spontaneously hugged her; we sobbed together, clinging to each other, for what seemed like an eternity or three. Writing about it now, six months later, I am again sobbing. We left the An Nhon orphanage, me feeling lighter, more healed than I have in 34 years. It was one of the most incredibly blessed experiences of my whole life of many blessed experiences.
We were easily this time able to find the Center on this trip; no need to ask for directions . It houses and provides care for approximately 192 adults and children, many of whom are disabled. We pulled our big tour bus into the yard, parking it under the covered walkway where 37 years ago I parked my gun jeep as shown in the black and white photo above -- quite a nice and most peaceful change. To me it is very symbolic of how the war is over for me, and that TOP’s peaceful work of humanitarian service is the key to healing and reconciliation, not so much only with the Vietnamese people, but mostly with myself.
We unloaded the supplies and gift items and under the direction of the Assistant Manager and his administrative assistant we gathered in a conference room for introductions and opening remarks. The Manager remarked that the Vietnamese Government provides the equivalent of about $20.00 of support to each resident per month, barely enough to clothe, feed and provide for the basic needs of residents. Outside support, such as what we were able to provide today, is most welcome and essential to improve the quality of life for the adults and children who live there. I then introduced the members of the TOP Vietnam Veterans tour group, the eight veterans, Jess, John, Daniel, Wally, Lance, Jim, Jim and myself four adult children of veterans, Heather, Jamie, Katie and Mike, and Dan, our traveling newsperson. I thanked the Manager and the staff for providing us with the opportunity, the privilege of providing humanitarian service to the residents of the Center. I pointed out that doing such service was essential to our healing and reconciliation as former soldiers and adult children of soldiers. Through providing love and service, we begin the healing process to forgive ourselves and relieve ourselves of the guilt for what happened in our youth as members of the American armed forces.
John, a Chiropractor, and Daniel, a Massage Therapist, set up a Mobile Mash Unit with the assistance of Heather, Wally and Jim to provide medical care to the many disabled adults and children as shown in this picture of John working on a disabled adult as Daniel and staff look on.
Meanwhile, the rest of us met each resident, giving them toilet articles, candy and 20,000 Vietnamese dong, the equivalent of about $1.30, a pittance to us, but a substantial sum on the Vietnamese economy. The Center staff had assembled all of the ambulatory residents in a small auditorium. They waited very patiently as we went to each one, giving them various toiletry items, touching them, looking them in the eye and blessing them. The elderly adults were most grateful and appreciative of the gifts we presented to them, taking their withered and wizened hands, looking them in their clouded, but still very lively eyes and wishing them “Xin Chau”, Greetings in Vietnamese. The children were also most uncomplaining and respectful, patiently waiting their turn for gifts and candy in their seats, quietly talking among themselves and watching us strange foreigners. A couple of us remarked how different, how better behaved, they are from a similar gathering of considerably more well-off and materially blessed American children.
As mentioned above, during my trip in 2002, I had encountered a woman who as a severely wounded child had been in the orphanage when I was here in 67 and 68. It was most moving to meet her then, and I was so grateful to encounter her again because I had not gotten her name or had any pictures taken of her. Here I am in the auditorium with Au who remembered me and was overjoyed that I remembered her:
In the past two years she has been fitted with a prosthetic leg so she is very ambulatory, scooting around the facility helping staff and interacting with the other adults and children. It was also most gratifying to have her very neatly write with a pen she had me place in her right stump her address in my leather-bound journal. She is a wonderful testament to the strength of the human spirit to not only survive, but to find a way to thrive despite all odds.
After we presented the gifts and money to the gathered adults and children, we went around and visited the bedridden adults and children in their rooms, again spending some time with each resident, individually handing them our gifts, touching them, hugging them, relating from the heart with them. When we came to the dormitory filled with adolescent disabled boys, the only thing we had left were combs. I was at first quite concerned about the paltriness of what we had to give them, but when I gave the first comb to a boy with gross cerebral palsy, he took it with a big laugh and began combing his hair, which brought a volley of giggles and laughs from his companions , who could hardly wait to get their combs. It was another lesson in “What the bleep do I know!”
During this activity I realized that I was right in the middle of the part of the compound that had been destroyed the Tet Offensive. I had been unable or unwilling to confront this space, when I was here in February of 2002. I looked up, took a deep breath, and blessed this spot that had been the source of so much pain and suffering for me over the last 37 years. I noticed that a new building was under construction where previously the burned and destroyed buildings had been. Here is what I saw:
I stood and breathed deeply, tears coursing down my cheeks for several long, most graced moments. It struck me what a perfect metaphor this was for what I was experiencing -- the old of what was then, the pain and suffering of that spot, all I had experienced since, was being fully replaced, replenished with new life, new construction, new prosperity. My war was, indeed, over, a thing of the past. I was back in the belly of the proverbial beast and instead of a dragon I was confronted with a metamorphosis as real and tangible as a butterfly from a larvae. It felt very, very good, and I breathed deeply with more freedom than perhaps I have in many years.
I also found out that another adult resident, Maat, had been a child of four years old here in 67 -- 68 when I was visiting the orphanage. I showed her the pictures I had on my computer of the orphanage so long ago, but she didn’t remember any of the children or recognize herself. Nor did she remember any visitors from the U.S. Army. She said that she has forgotten so much of that awful time in her life when she also lost her family and was all alone in the orphanage. Now she has a full life of friends here at the orphanage. The one picture I had taken of her and me, unfortunately did not turn out, is blurred, but I do have this shot of her, Au and two of the orphans they help take care of.
The rest of the afternoon, while John and Daniel continued to provide treatments, we played with the children in the courtyard. Always the children bring renewed hope and energy for full life and living as this shot amply demonstrates:
Not to be outdone, I also spent a lovely time joking and kidding around with several of the older residents who still spoke broken English, indicating that in their youth they had most likely had lots of interaction with American troops.
It was early evening when we gathered ourselves to load up on the bus and take our leave. Just as the new building was very significant to me, likewise was this shot of the new moon rising over the rice paddies and buildings:
Indeed, as one of my favorite poetic quotes so truthfully observes:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
TS Elliot
The Gilding
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