Part 1

George Watkins’ account of his time in Vietnam paints a vivid picture of events in your mind. This man, like many others who fought the war, had endured such horrific times and life changing losses. Watkins told about the incident in which he lost his sight and both of his legs. The mental images that are brought to mind while reading his story are saddening. While he discussed not holding much bitterness, Watkins stated, “I just wish that none of it ever happened—for everyone’s sake.” For someone to have gone through such hard times and not be bitter is astonishing. Though he was not bitter, it was noticeable in his story that he held great sadness. That sadness was very clearly evident when Watkins walked Appy through his visit to the Wall, he had described that time as the worst he had felt since returning home. George Watkins was one of many who had witnessed firsthand the hardships of the Vietnam War. Though it had been many years since the war when the interview took place, the reliably of Watkins’ narrative is still very credible. It is hard to forget something as gruesome as war and is more often than not seared into the memory of those involved. Watkins carried the reminders of the events that occurred during his time in Vietnam with him every day. There was no escaping them.

Part 2

To read about the manner in which Ngo Vinh Long was treated by the U.S. Embassy and the Saigon government was quite disappointing. After he had been hired by Americans to manage public relations for a mapping team and had been traveling around Vietnam, Long noticed that U.S. policies in Vietnam were not what he expected. Initially, Long had liked the presents of the U.S. in Vietnam, but once he had seen the destruction caused by the U.S. that began to change. While traveling with the mapping team he had gone to Ka Rom and had been told about the large number of deaths that had occurred within the past month because of starvation. To have traveled your homeland and see such devastation caused by something previously thought of as positive would have been absolutely heartbreaking. It would only be natural to feel compelled to help, just as Long had. He had written to the U.S. Embassy and the Saigon government to notify them of the many places where the people were starving and that the policies needed to end. The reply he received was outrageously disappointing. They had told Long, “This is how we are going to defeat the Communists.” The levels of frustration that Long must have felt were surely to have been off the charts. He didn’t believe the Communists would be defeated by using the methods that were already in place, he strongly believed the numbers of Communists would rise if the policies did not change. His disappointment and frustration had pushed him to apply at Harvard. While at Harvard, Long became involved with antiwar movements and studies with professors who had come to have important roles in the formulation of U.S. policy in Vietnam.

Although Long’s story was disappointing, there were also stories that were not. Although the story that Luyen Nguyen told had a happy ending, his story began quite the opposite of how it ended. Nguyen and his group had been captured while on a reconnaissance mission and held in prison. He had left his wife and seven children in Saigon. Thinking he was dead, his family moved from Saigon to Can Tho.  Knowing the feeling of this kind of loss, of despair, it is not one that gets wishes upon another. Though he was offered the opportunity to write to his wife, he had refused and told them that his family believed him to be dead and he didn’t want to disrupt them from moving on. However, when the first man of his commandos was released, he found Nguyen’s wife and told her that her husband was still alive. Although she had remarried since his thought to have been death, once she heard he was still living she divorced her second husband and awaited Nguyen’s return. After twenty-one years, he went back to his wife. After all their heartache and thinking he had died, his family got him back. It must have been the happiest day of their lives.