“Ira” Robert Frazure and his wife

The diary of martyr Vu Dinh Doan has been returned to his family after 46 years and US veteran “Ira” Robert Frazure, who kept the diary for such a long period of time, can now be at ease as he could finally realize his wish.

In his email, he asked us to tell the entire Vietnamese people that no hatred exists in his mind and he would like to send Vietnamese people his own respect from the bottom of his heart.

Many efforts to return the diary

Some years ago, “Ira” Robert Frazure found out that he had laryngeal neoplasm, an after-effect of Agent Orange which he was exposed to during the Vietnam War. The incurable disease destroyed his lungs and for 9 years now, he has to depend on an oxygen machine and his wife has to go to the town 30km from their house to change the oxygen cylinder for him every two weeks.

It was not easy to contact “Ira” Robert Frazure as they are living in Saddle Mountain, near Walla Walla town in Washington, the USA with no telephone. Luckily, thanks to Kyle Horst’s assistance, we could contact him via internet. Even so, we did not hope to get much further information because the US veteran finds it very difficult to talk.

Fortunately, the US veteran could send us a short email recalling how he attained the diary of martyr Vu Dinh Doan via Kyle Horst.

After the fierce battle on March 28th, 1966 on Chop Non hill, “Ira” Robert Frazure’s Company Charlie was assigned to tidy up the battle field. While doing his job, he had seen a dark red notebook on the chest of a dead Vietnamese soldier. Curiously, he came and picked up the notebook with so many lines of characters in red pencil. He had no command of Vietnamese language, but the idea to keep it came across his mind as a souvenir of his days in Vietnam. It might be for another reason, that until now he could not explain.

In November 1966, he was demobilized and returned to the USA with the small notebook and some other belongings of the dead Vietnamese soldier. He stored them carefully in an old ceramic pot he inherited from his wife’s grandmother.

Some years later, he looked back at the small notebook and realized that it was a diary. In 1978, he thought of returning the diary to the ill-fated soldier’s family but he got no support from either American newspapers or the local veterans’ association.

He just paused his search for other sources of help, upon his friend’s advice.

Hatred doffed

In 2012, the chance to return the diary of martyr Vu Dinh Doan appeared. One day, “Ira” Robert Frazure met with Marge, the sister of his friend who had died previously.

He gave the Vietnamese martyr’s diary to Marge, as she was collecting information and documents for her book about the life and military career of her elder brother, and asked her to return it to the martyr’s family. In February 2012, she took the diary to the “History Detectives” program of PBS to get more information for her book and to seek the martyr’s relatives.

In his email, the US veteran shared that he felt bad about the Vietnam War. At first, he just wanted to bring along the diary as a souvenir of his presence in the Vietnam War. But the diary haunted him greatly and, from the bottom of his heart, he wished that he could return it to its home.

He also confided that he had always wanted to return Vietnam, but that serious disease hindered him from doing so. In his email, “Ira” Robert Frazure also wrote that he had told his wife about how beautiful Vietnam was and what he had seen there, and he did hope that the Vietnamese martyr’s family would receive the diary soon.

Holding his father’s personal effects in his hands, Vu Dinh Son expressed deep appreciation to “Ira” Robert Frazure for his efforts to keep the diary intact until today. Through this diary, Son could know more about his father’s courage and sacrifice for national salvation.

“I need to thank him, indeed. If it was not for him, the diary might be thrown away,” Vu Dinh Son said.

Before passing away, martyr Vu Dinh Doan’s wife also told her children that the person who had kept their relatives belongings for years and tried to return them must be a kind-hearted person.

With this article, we do believe that more and more souvenirs of the war like the diary of martyr Vu Dinh Doan would find their way home soon. Such a spiritual therapy might help partly ease the pain of the war.

Reported by Thu Trang and Vu Hung

Translated by Mai Huong

Source: qdnd.vn

Related:

Souvenirs awake (Part 1)

The martyr and a talking card (Part 2)

Confidences from the battlefield (Part 3)

In the embrace of the home town (Part 5)