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Norma Banks
It started off with his joints. They bothered him. Then as time went on, he just wasn't well. He started suspecting that it might have been Agent Orange. And he would just say, "Well, if you're living in the swamps, you know, Norma, eventually it's gonna get to me."...One night Michael got a real bad bout, and he vomited. There was all this black stuff, and that was blood. Sometimes the effects of a war don't happen right away. [Michael died of multiple cancers in 1988.] It isn't just, the war is here and it's over. It starts when it ends.
Charlotte Begay
He wanted to be patriotic. He wanted to help. But once he saw all the killing, all the groups, the Vietnamese, just looking like him, just about the same skin color, the same height, I think that really made him think, what is he doing here?
Diane Van Renselaar
I don't think he wanted to be an aggressor and I think he was unwillingly cast in that role the moment that he started flying those missions over North Vietnam, and I think he knew it. I don't think he articulated it to himself, but he knew that that was not something that he wanted to do, even though he was following orders.
Nguyen My Hien, MD
The bomb dropped on top of the house, trapping my husband in the shelter. After the bombing, the people on the ground heard his cries for help. But the debris was so heavy it took hours to reach him and he was already dead. And to think, as a doctor I saved so many lives, but I couldn't save his.
Grace Castillo
I was asleep, and it was like a dream. And I saw David, and he was walking and there was a field, a jungle, or something-lots of shrubbery. And I kept trying to tell him, don't go, don't go any further, stay away. And then there was an explosion. I dropped my son off at preschool, went to work, and that dream haunted me all day. So that night, there's a telegram, and the telegram read, "This is to inform you that your husband, Private First Class, David Reves Castillo, has been wounded." And it tells me that they've amputated the left leg above the knee, removed the right eye, he's still in a coma, and there's shrapnel in the brain. And I contacted my physician, and he told me, "Grace, pray. Pray he dies."
Lula Bia
I only received three letters. And he said that he didn't really want to say anything about what was going on. He didn't want to depress me or worry me. And so he said he would just try to just tell me how he was doing, how the weather was. That's all he would write. He said he wouldn't write about anything else. I don't, I don't know what he meant. But he must have meant something, because it's what it said. And I often wondered about that. I often wondered about, what did he have to do?
April Burns
"They've just passed word to stand by, so I'll have to finish. I'll write again when I get a chance. Only 317 days to go. All my love, Bill." I received that after he died, after I knew he was killed. One day I went out and there was this letter. And I thought, well, maybe he's not dead. Oh, they made a mistake. You know, this is proof. Then I read the date on it and I realized.
Truong Thi Huoc
My sister had a newborn baby. And it wasn't safe in the house. So she had to take the baby and mingle in with the dead bodies. Like a ghost, she came out from under those corpses, but then she feared the planes would shoot her. If you weren't dead, you weren't safe.
Phan Thi Thuan
If the wind blew the tree, they chopped down the tree. If the cow moved, the cow got shot. And the chicken, duck, pig--anything alive was murdered.
Truong Thi Le
So you see, nine members of my family lost their lives. I feel anger when I'm talking to you now, when I'm telling the story because, you know, it took place very early in the morning and all the members of my family, I mean nine people, were killed without even having anything for breakfast.
Barbara Sonneborn
I remember before Jeff left we talked about how afraid I was that he would get killed. We never talked about the fact that he would have to kill people, maybe even a child. I realized that we hadn't ever talked honestly about what war means.
Le Thi Ngot
My son would ask me why his father did not return. When he got older, he would ask, "Why did my father die?" I couldn't find the answer for my son. All I could do is hold him and cry. I also want to ask you, if the children-sons and daughters in America-do they ask their mothers, "Why didn't my father come home?"
Tran Nghia
When I was young, I had hatred in order to defend my country and my people. Now there are not many days left in my life, and there is peace. I can see that we are all the same, people there and people here. But if the war had not ended, the younger generation would be fighting just as I did.
Phan Ngoc Dung
Of course, in the United States, sisters, mothers, and wives also feel pain when children and husbands are lost in war. But we lived in the country where the war was going on. The death and destruction were horrible, so painful. We hope that there will never be war again, not anywhere, so that nobody, especially women and children, will have to endure that pain, that misery, ever again. It is very, very painful.
Nguyen Ngoc Xuan
I don't have a scar. It's so deep. In Vietnam, my neighbor husband die, my neighbor son die too. Sometime you ashamed to cry because, what make my pain greater than my neighbor's?
Nguyen Thi Hong
I'm deeply touched by your visit and by your concern. I would like to send with you all the beautiful scenes that happened today. And please take them home to your people. And I hope there will be a good result--to help Vietnam heal the wounds of war. But the road from here to there is very difficult. But please try. And not just for us, you do that for yourself. And it will make us feel better that you tried.
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