Meeting an ‘American War’ hero: V.C. Jane?
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- November
- 16
We had lunch in Tay Ninh today, a town about three hours northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. Several of the Vietnam veterans in our group, including my father, had served in combat operations in the Cu Chi – Tay Ninh area 40 years ago, so they shared some of their memories with us and marveled at how much the rural villages have grown since then.
It turns out that the restaurant owner, a woman named Tuyet Ngoi, was a highly decorated Viet Cong guerrilla. She came out and showed us her medals and traditional checkered V.C. scarf (it can also be used as a bandage), and through an interpreter, proudly explained that she had been a soldier from 1970 to 1979, first fighting the Americans and South Vietnamese, then the Cambodians.
Some of the veterans hugged her or shook her hand before we drove off to our tour of the nearby Nui Ba Den (Black Virgin Mountain).
[...] naive, but it certainly seemed we were quite warmly welcomed everywhere we went, even at a former Viet Cong guerilla’s restaurant and an orphanage where children have disabilities linked to Agent Orange exposure and other remnants [...]