During the humanitarian tour of Vietnam earlier this month, our group of Rotary Club members and Vietnam veterans from Rockland County and other parts of the country held three memorial services, honoring nine of Rockland County’s 46 fallen Vietnam veterans and other people who didn’t make it home from the conflict. My story about this [...]

Not all post-traumatic stress is created equal.

This became very clear to me earlier this month, as the 14 Vietnam veterans in our group – including my father – shared some of their stories on the long bus rides between Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta and Tay Ninh. (Many were prompted by the memorial [...]

My story about our group of Rotarians and Vietnam veterans building schools in remote parts of Vietnam and giving rural kids bicycles to get their current schools ran in today’s Journal News – click here to read it.

On Veterans Day, while my father and I visited Cu Chi, the rest of our group attended a [...]

Just a quick note today – but check back tomorrow for my story in The Journal News about what Rotary Club members from Spring Valley and other Lower Hudson Valley towns are doing to help at-risk Vietnamese children stay in school.

And for those of you just tuning in, directed here by Nancy Cutler’s In Focus: [...]

The story I wrote about the thankful orphanages in Vietnam ran in today’s Journal News; click here to read it.

We got a Thanksgiving e-mail from “Doc” Bernie Duff this morning (afternoon in Vietnam), sharing what he is thankful for on this holiday: his girlfriend, his family, his “garbage pail kids,” the people of Vietnam, the [...]

I’ve stayed in touch with Kim Browne, the British woman who was one of the last babies airlifted out of Saigon before it fell in 1975. She is staying in Ho Chi Minh City for a few more weeks, volunteering at the Go Vap Orphanage – where she spent the first two months of her [...]

I mentioned the Cao Dai temple in Trang Bang in my last post, but we also visited the huge Cao Dai Holy See in Tay Ninh last week.

Remember when Lt. Dan asked Forrest Gump if he had found Jesus yet, and Gump replied that he didn’t know he was supposed to be looking for him? [...]

After visiting Cu Chi on Veterans Day, my father and I stopped for an unforgettable lunch in Trang Bang: at the roadside noodle shop owned by the family of Kim Phuc, the famous “girl in the picture” who was photographed fleeing, screaming, naked down the road after a napalm attack in 1972. The humble shop [...]

“Doc” Bernie Duff, an Army medic during the Vietnam War and member of Rockland County’s Vietnam Veterans of America, started painting scenes from the war five years ago, while receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He moved to Vietnam last year and now lives in Ho Chi Minh City with his girlfriend – the [...]

As you read this, my father and I are on our way back to the United States. But our journey continues: I have several Vietnam-reported stories scheduled to run in The Journal News this week, and I will continue updating this blog daily for at least a few more weeks. (There’s quite a lot [...]

My father didn’t want to go to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, because we had heard that it’s a very one-sided, anti-American portrayal of the Vietnam War. We walked up to the entrance, where he had planned to leave me for an hour, but then the American military vehicles and weapons [...]

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 [...]

I’ve edited the last paragraph of this post, to clarify what I meant, in response to a comment.

We went to Cu Chi again today, this time with the rest of our group of Rockland County Vietnam veterans, Rotary Club members and friends. We ended up at a different tunnel tour – no shooting range at [...]

On our way from Can Tho back to Ho Chi Minh City Wednesday, we visited a dump in Tra Vinh, a rural province near the Cambodian border. There, “Doc” Bernie Duff, a Vietnam veteran who moved to Ho Chi Minh City last year, showed us his “Garbage Pail Kids” – a group of about two [...]

We’re heading back to Cu Chi with our group of Rotarians and Vietnam veterans. I’m hoping to get another shot at firing an M-16, which is the weapon my father used here 40 years ago. (The Cu Chi tunnel attraction features a shooting range with all sorts of military weapons, including AK-47s, but I wanted [...]

Remember those dramatic 1980s Sally Struthers television appeals, about how just pennies a day could buy a bag of rice that saves a child’s life? In the Mekong Delta, activists working against human trafficking believe that just $50 can buy the bicycle that stops a poor Vietnamese village girl from dropping out of school and [...]

My father was born in a poor Greek village during World War II, then grew up during the Greek Civil War. He had lived in the United States for less than half his life when he first arrived in Vietnam in 1967. So, while other American soldiers had to get used to the utterly foreign [...]

During the Vietnam War, an Army grunt typically carried about 60 pounds of supplies on his back. The Vietnam veterans on our trip remember every item well, ranging from the all-important Zippo lighters to the letters from home. Click on the audio link to hear Army veteran Howard Goldin, of Monsey, NY, describe what he [...]

Sorry for the posting delay, folks. Internet crashed at our Can Tho hotel. We just got back to Ho Chi Minh City, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

Now that we’ve joined a group with 13 other Vietnam veterans, I’m seeing a different side of nature in Vietnam: the dangerous side. I don’t mean the [...]

Rotary Club chapters in Rockland County and other parts of the country have pledged thousands of dollars to help build schools in poor, rural areas of Vietnam. On Sunday, the members of the group my father and I are traveling with went to Dalat to check out a Catholic school that is nearing completion.

The [...]

Including my father, there are 14 Vietnam veterans and one non-Vietnam veteran in our Rockland-based humanitarian tour group of 31 people traveling through Vietnam. Several of veterans once served together, including a helicopter pilot who rescued two of the other soldiers in the group. Check back for that story later – it’s a good one.

Ed [...]

We’ve met up with the Rockland County Rotarians and veterans, and are heading down the Mekong Delta today to visit more orphanages and places where some group members spent the Vietnam War.

One woman we met last week, Kim Browne, is staying in Ho Chi Minh City to keep working at the Go Vap Orphanage. Browne [...]

On our way back to Ho Chi Minh City today, we drove by a Catholic church in Cu Chi – probably the same parish that helped supply those rabbits my father’s unit gave to the villagers 40 years ago. The church was closed, but my father left a lit candle in the courtyard as a [...]

We spent an hour today trying to get to the former 25th Infantry Division base in Cu Chi, which our guidebook incorrectly stated we could visit. It turns out it’s all part of a Vietnamese military base now, completely closed to the public. My father took some of the red, rocky dirt home as a [...]

Happy Veterans Day. Thousands of Vietnam Veterans of America members, including dozens from Chapter 49 of Westchester County, are gathering at the wall memorial in Washington, D.C. for the 25th anniversary dedication today. Here in Vietnam, my father and I are heading to Cu Chi, where he was based with the 25th Infantry Division from [...]