Marjorie Garner (L) and Robert Frazure in the report

The PBS’s “History Detectives” program has recently broadcast a report on the diary of martyr Vu Dinh Doan, after it was returned to the martyr’s family. 

Via this 25-minute report which features the journey home of martyr Vu Dinh Doan’s diary after 46 years lying on the bookshelf of a US veteran, TV viewers could learn more about people and the losses left by the war.

The hero of the report is Robert Frazure, the US veteran who had picked up and kept the diary after a battle in Quang Ngai in 1966. Another major character beside Robert Frazure in this report is Marjorie Garner of Missouri, whose elder brother also died in action in the Vietnam War in 1966. While gathering more documents to write a book about her brother, she met Robert Frazure and they both had committed to do whatever they could to return the diary to martyr Vu Dinh Doan’s family.

There would be something missing without mentioning in this report the name Wes Cowan, the ‘History Detectives’ staff member who pursued the research and narrated the report. To make this report, PBS’s producers spent much effort in studying martyr Vu Dinh Doan’s diary and met with various witnesses to find the martyr’s relatives.

Wes Cowan himself also took part in a get-together of US veterans under Company Bravo, Battalion 1, Marine Corps’ Regiment 7, who joined Operation Indiana in Quang Ngai in late March 1966, to find more information for the report. These veterans had witnessed the battle in which martyr Vu Dinh Doan was sacrificed. Additionally, the program’s staff tried to find Merle Pribnenow who had worked as a linguist for the CIA and asked him to translate of the diary from Vietnamese into English.

Wes Cowan said that what martyr Vu Dinh Doan had written in his diary seems to be the most interesting thing he has read during his 10 years working for the ‘History Detectives’ program. When the translation of the diary was completed, Wes Cowan started searching for the owner’s relatives. The report, with several contacts and meetings with various people and the analysis of martyr Vu Dinh Doan’s records in the diary, has re-drawn the portrait of the Vietnamese People’s Army soldier and the fierceness of the war. Thanks to this report, viewers could understand the true value of the diary.

Various confidences by martyr Vu Dinh Doan in his diary are illustrated by images and documentary excerpts in the report. These include a long march across mountains and forests of martyr Vu Dinh Doan and his comrades, and the day when his unit entered Quang Ngai Province. Even the photo of two girls in the diary is linked with the images of brave and industrious Vietnamese female guerrillas. Watching the report, we felt as if martyr Vu Dinh Doan himself was telling us his story.

Viewers could never forget Garner and especially the US veteran Robert Frazure. In the report, Garner confided that she had been moved to tears on opening the diary, as she was holding the secrets of someone. Actually, in this report, Garner shed tears many times, unable to hold back her emotion. Maybe, at the bottom of her heart, the diary has an invisible connection with the past of the war and with her forever losing her elder brother.

At the beginning of the report, Robert Frazure shared his hope that the martyr’s family could forgive him for keeping the diary for that long period of time. His anxiety is a thread running through the entire story of the diary. It might also be the reason why Robert Frazure was too moved to utter any words while receiving the words of thanks from Vu Dinh Son, the son of martyr Vu Dinh Doan, and especially when he was informed that the martyr’s wife had passed away just before the diary of her husband reached home.

Robert Frazure must be of two minds: he was happy and could finally be at ease to see the diary return to where it should be, and at the same regretted that he had not done it much sooner.

Reported by 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)

Easing the pain of the war (Part 4)

In the embrace of the home town (Part 5)