This Memorial Day weekend, the
population of northern New Mexico will swell by thousands of
people. Many will come for more than the magnificent vistas of the
Sangre de Cristo mountains and perfect weather. They visit because
the area is home to the first-ever Vietnam Veterans Memorial, built
back in 1971, when the war was still grinding on. It was
established near the small town of Angel Fire by Victor and Jeanne
Westphall, whose son David had been killed in Vietnam in 1968.
The weekend’s activities in and around Taos and other
towns will be filled with solemn ceremonies and tributes with a
focus on healing. This theme got me thinking about another veteran
of the Vietnam War — a Viet Cong commander — who shared
some of his combat stories when I visited his island home near
Hanoi last year.
His name was Vu Dinh Khoi, and he was
now an old man. We met at the entrance to a secluded relic from the
“American War,” as it is referred to today in Vietnam and much of
Southeast Asia, a multi-level bunker built into a mountain cave on
an island east of Hanoi. The facility was used as a hospital for
Viet Cong officers during the war, and although Vu’s face and the
cave’s cement walls had become weathered over the decades, his
officer’s uniform still looked fresh. Since the Vietnamese
government opened it to tourists a few years ago, he’s been donning
his colors a few times a week to give guided tours of the hospital
cave.
Before showing us around, he introduced himself by
saluting us and explained that he was honored to share his stories
with Americans, something of a healing process of his own. It turns
out that Vu still carries two American bullets around, permanently
lodged in his head. He shared this story with a smile, just as he
would smile later while telling us about American planes he shot
down from the top of the very mountain we were standing within.
Later in the war, he said, an American plane bombed the area,
permanently disrupting the springs that fed water into the cave.
Combat tales of suffering and retaliation rolled from his
memory like the recounting of an insanely violent ping-pong match.
But despite the uniform he wore proudly, he relayed every detail
without so much as a single cheerleading or disparaging remark for
either side.
Our tour concluded with Vu ushering my
fiancé, myself and our two British traveling companions into a
small, empty cement room lit by a single dim bulb. Our footsteps
echoed through the strange acoustics of the space and our guide
asked us to line up with our backs against one of the cold walls. A
brief sensation of panic could be felt coursing through all of us,
up from our sandals, through our travel-worn t-shirts to the
unkempt, greasy mops on top of our heads.
“Now we’re in
trouble,” one of us whispered.
For a second, we all
feared that we had been tricked by Vu’s elaborate ruse and were now
being lined up before a one-man firing squad with a 30-year-old
score to settle. Sensing our unease, Vu flashed a smile from behind
the room’s imposing shadow and then forcefully thrust both of his
arms towards us, at the same time unleashing a Vietnamese love song
in an elegant Asian vibrato that reverberated off the concrete
walls in eerie beauty.
For his final number, Vu sang a
sample of a Vietnamese anthem whose only discernible lyrics were
the chorus: “Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh.” The march echoed around us
until the single voice seemed to carry the sound of the entire Viet
Cong army.
Recalling that moment, and the warm, smiling
face of a small, harmless old man, I can’t help thinking about the
bullets in his head and wondering if the man that fired them will
be on hand for any of the many services in the West and across
northern New Mexico this weekend. I also wonder if David Westphall
knew any of the American soldiers that were shot down over that
hospital cave.
I’m sure we’ll never know, but this
Monday, when representatives from the Vietnamese-American community
lay a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, N.M.,
to continue down the long road of healing and reconciliation, I7;ll
be thinking about both David Westphall and Vu Dinh Khoi. I wish
they could have had a chance to meet and shake hands as old men.
Eric Mack, 26, is a contributor to Writers on
the Range, a service of High Country News in
Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is a freelance writer and radio
producer in Taos, New Mexico.
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