5 Min read

Little Saigon and family

Heroic deaths

The Talks

Palm Springs Air Museum

The Flying Leatherneck Museum

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NC LIBRARY EVENT Tomorrow

7:00 PM, Tuesday, September 29, I’ll be at the New Canaan Library — Details / link to register

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Southern California, or SoCal, was sprawling and busy–where everything is twenty to thirty minutes from everything else. Except Palm Springs, that was a two hour ride up over the mountains and into the hot desert of Coachella Valley.

This past week I met veterans, advocates for my work, and readers with a passion and zeal that surprised me.

When my husband and I landed, we made a beeline to Quan Hy to have Bun Bo Hue and Banh Beo, two of my mother’s specialties from Hue. This was Little Saigon which is multiple cities, such as Garden Grove and Westminster.

Saw family, my American cousins and Aunt Kay, who turned 90 this summer. She is the last living of my dad’s generation.

My cousin Arlene sent a photo of her reading: “Mom lost in your story!” Quick greetings for her daughter and the dogs, then back to the book.

“She never reads anymore!”

Big shout out to Arlene for hosting me.

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Then we joined the Din Tai Fung craze, with 66 others in the queue; this is not bad. For the foodies out there, myself included, I could write letters just on the food. Thank you, Mino and Alex!

I will stick with words and books.

Annie, a reader and advocate with exceptional organizational skills, hosted and toured us. She took us to the Vietnam Memorial. The eternal flame burns there, with the US and RVN flags flying high. I was captivated by the officer wall, dedicated to “the soldiers of the Republic of Vietnam who chose heroic deaths for their country.” That is, they took their own lives rather than enter the Communist reeducation camps. Then we saw the Boat People sculpture in the Vietnamese section of the cemetery. Deeply moving.

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Especially grateful to Annie, who also set up my talks. The West Point Parents Club of Orange County invited me. My cousin Ngan came, with her husband Son and daughter Nikki. Huge shout out to Sonoma for setting it up. And, I met Robert, an advocate who bankrolled books for new appointees and their families for an event here in Connecticut.

In Riverside, Bill, an Air Force officer and bombardier, hosted a talk at Montview with veterans and residents.

For the main event, Dr. Dave hosted me at the Palm Springs Air Museum where he invited me to speak at the annual POW MIA event. He wanted me to talk about Saigon and my family, the last helicopter and the two Vietnam MIA from my home town in Connecticut.

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So I did what I do best. I sketched out a bunch of stories about far more inspiring people. My dad’s friend, civilian POW, Mike Benge. My daughter’s Economics professor, Duncan Walker, and his sister Laura, the first woman KIA from West Point. And his own near-death experience, complete with X-ray photos and extracted 7.62 mm round.

At the museum I met Dorothee, a Marine veteran who turns 104 in November! And, her son who was also a Marine and a lifer.

I met Ellen and her family, who trekked to Palm Springs from Arizona for the event! Then later I met Amy and her parents, who evacuated from Vietnam too. Amy is a reader and a graduate, with two young sons.

And one of the most personally moving moments of the visit. Seeing Lady Ace 09, the last chopper that took my dad out of Saigon. The White Knight on her side depicted the White Knights Squadron. My eyes watered as I reached up to touch the aircraft, the number 9 on the nose. The CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter has been completely restored and is in plastic, awaiting the completion of the museum. It remains one of the nation’s most historic aircraft.

The carefully painted Star-and-Bar insignia in red, white and blue on her side had me choked up. This chopper, this exact one, brought my father home and lifted him off the Saigon embassy in Black April, 1975 and flew him to the USS Blue Ridge.

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She was fully herself, fitted with massive fuel tanks, and had flown nearly thirty more years before retiring in 2004.

Thank you Grant and Katherine for the tour.

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FOOTNOTES

* Quan Hy – Central Vietnamese dishes (Bun Bo Hue and Banh Beo) in a large and well decorated restaurant, as opposed to the ‘dive’ foodies may be used to.

*Din Tai Fung (foodies may refer to this as DTF). The now world famous meticulously folded soupy dumplings began in Taiwan and have now spread to the U.S. especially along the California and Pacific coast.

*Palm Springs Air Museum is a massive facility with hangars dedicated to various wars and an extensive library, gift shop, and 350 docent volunteers. Dr. Dave Thompson–Vietnam veteran of the US Navy and Doctor of Dentisry–curated and founded the POW MIA bracelet exhibit on site in the Vietnam hangar with thousands of bracelets to include several I helped research. When I spoke at the POW MIA event, I wore the bracelet that I had worn while I was serving as a US Army officer in Germany, for Cecil Clack. He went MIA the month I was born. I also wore the bracelet for Dave Austin, an MIA from my town. The history of the bracelet is fascinating. To raise awareness of the many POWs and MIAs during the Vietnam War, five million bracelets were made. This created the sense of urgency and duty to bring them home and to recover their remains.

*The Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum is located in Ivrine in the Great Park region, expected to open in 2028. Staffing, funding, and construction are under way. Grant Williams, the COO and a former Marine, gave us a tour of the hangars and Lady Ace 09. Because the Marines escorted the final personnel off the Saigon embassy, this particular craft is housed here. A Leatherneck refers to a Marine.

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