In August of 2011, I traveled to Vietnam on a generous grant from the Copeland Fund. My Senior I.S. is an oral history of the South Vietnamese civilian experience during the Vietnam War, roughly between 1968 and 1975. I conducted interviews with a FlipCam borrowed from the Office of Instructional Technology. Among the eight individuals I spoke to, one was a high school student who barely missed the draft before the war ended, one was a female monk providing aide to the local community, one was a post office worker, and one was a mother simply trying to get by, war or no war. I focused on questions about their awareness of communism and the American presence, how much the war impacted their daily lives, and how they had to constantly redefine what was “normal.”
Interpreting and writing about personal memories is a great responsibility. I would like to thank Dr. Hettinger for her guidance and wisdom in this careful examination of the Vietnam War.
I also thank the Copeland Fund for giving me this opportunity to enhance my Senior I.S. My trip to Vietnam was an enlightening and unforgettable experience.
I will attempt to sum up my experience with an anecdote:
It’s nine o’ clock in the morning in Da Lat, a city in the highlands of southern Vietnam that the French founded in the late 1800’s as a resort destination. I have had approximately three hours of sleep, having taken a six-hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City the night before. Standing in front of my cousin’s house taking pictures, an elderly gentleman approaches me and asks, “Will you take one of me?” I don’t know him, but I notice he’s dressed in a wool blazer, wool slacks, and a fedora. He’s definitely from another time, I thought. So I shrug and say yes.
Afterwards, he asks me to coffee down the street. At this point, any sensible person would politely decline. But in Vietnam, when an elder asks you to do something, you do it. Besides, I thought, if anything happened, I could probably outrun him.
It turns out that he was my cousin’s father-in-law who lives next door. That morning, over coffee and ginger tea, I learned two things. One, when talking about the war to people of a certain age in Vietnam, you have to be specific.
“Sir, when were you born?”
“1932.”
“Wow, so you’re eighty years old. Were you in the war?”
“Which one?”
I knew immediately that I had to interview him. I asked and he agreed. And that was the second lesson I learned that morning: don’t be afraid to pursue opportunities when you see them.
Everyone should apply for Copeland Funding. It’s worth it.