Vu Dinh Son, the son of martyr Vu Dinh Doan, stands in front of the altar of his mother - Photo: Tuoi Tre

“Before passing away, my mother was so happy to know about my father’s diary. She said that during the war, if the US soldiers did not shoot Vietnamese, they would be shot. The American man was well-behaved to keep your father’s diary and try to give it back to us,” Vu Dinh Son, the third and only living son of martyr Vu Dinh Doan, recalled.

Reporters were present when US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta handed over the diary of Vu Dinh Doan to Vietnam’s Minister of National Defense Phung Quang Thanh on last week in Hanoi.

The diary had survived for 46 years before being given back to its owner’s relatives, who live in Binh Giang District in the northern province of Hai Duong, Doan’s homeland.

On a scorching afternoon, reporters arrived in Hai Duong, met his children, and had a chance to listen to their memories about their gentlemanly father and economical mother.

“He always sent a letter home whenever he moved to a new place. My mother was too moved to read those letters in front of us. It was really hard without my father home; my brothers and I took turns wearing the same clothes until they were worn out”, said Vu Dinh Son.

“My father was exempt from military service as he was an only child and deputy head of the communal civil defense force. However, he volunteered to join the army for the country’s independence and freedom,” added Vu Thi Tuyen, Doan’s eldest daughter.

“After three months of training, he departed for the southern battlefield while my mother was carrying his youngest son, and they’ve never met again,” she said.

The death of their father was broadcasted on a local radio station of the Saigon administration in 1966. Twenty years later, Doan’s children began to seek his tomb. The only information they had was that he had died somewhere in the central province of Quang Ngai.

Much effort had been put forth before they unexpectedly found a clue from a playing card with “Vu Dinh Doan passed away on March 7, 1966 at Chop Non Hill in Son Tinh District of Quang Ngai Province” written on it.

It was written by one of Doan’s comrades, who sent the card to his hometown. However, his family only got it in 2001. They thus departed for Quang Ngai Province.

“Upon seeing me, a resident near Chop Non Hill said, ’You are the spitting image of a man from Hai Duong Province, who was buried in my garden.’ They said that man usually played music and sang,” Vu Dinh Son recalled.

“It took another two years to verify that it was my father’s tomb before we took him home in 2008,” Son said.





The dairy of the Vietnamese martyr Vu Dinh Doan

46 year journey

The diary of Vu Dinh Doan had sat on the bookcase of former US Marine Robert “Ira” Frazure for 46 years before it was returned to his family.

In March 1966, Frazure and Platoon No.1 were fighting in Quang Ngai in the Indiana campaign. After the fighting had ended, Robert found a dark red diary on the chest of a dead Vietnamese soldier. He took the diary and brought it back to the US.

Robert had attempted to find out who the Vietnamese soldier’s family was and give them the diary.

The process took several years and finally ended in April 2012, when he had a law office in Ho Chi Minh City phone Doan’s son, Vu Dinh Son.

The happiest family member was Nguyen Thi Vuong, Doan’s widow. She had waited for that moment for 46 years.

“They telephoned us a few times and promised to call again in May. My mother eagerly looked forward to the call of confirmation but she suddenly became sick and died very quickly,” Son said.

She died two weeks before the diary was given to Minister of National Defense Thanh by Defense Secretary Panetta.

Source: tuoitrenews.vn