Edited 4/15: Based on a lot of feedback we’ve gotten from readers just discovering this blog, I’ve now formatted it so that all the entries are on this page; no need to click “Previous Entries” anymore – just keep scrolling down to read the whole thing.

Edited 2/18: We’ve just launched a permanent veterans affairs blog, [...]

I recently heard from Jennifer Weaver, the 22-year-old woman who had decided to stay on as a volunteer at the Go Vap Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City after her parents and the rest of her humanitarian tour group returned to Seattle. She’s back home now, and here’s what she’d like Americans to know:

“These kids [...]

In the previous post, my father recalled surprising his family with his first return from Vietnam 40 years ago. As he explained, it wasn’t the smoothest transition, but several of the veterans we traveled with last month and others we’ve spoken to recently had far more challenging homecomings, including taunting cab drivers, dismissive family members [...]

My paternal grandmother was, to be blunt, a tough old bird. She survived several wars, was widowed twice and worked many blue-collar jobs in rural Greek villages, then in New York City, to support my father and three other children before she could finally retire to her dream house in Marble Hill.

So, I shouldn’t have [...]

Near the end of our trip to Vietnam last month, our group visited Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain. My father, Howard Goldin and other veterans on our trip who had been stationed in the Cu Chi – Tay Ninh area remembered seeing this high hill every day, which is about the only thing [...]

Besides his M-16 rifle, the other indispensable item that American soldiers carried in Vietnam was the small P-38 can opener needed to open the C-rations, the meals they ate in the field. Like other soldiers, my father wore his P-38 on the chain of his dog tags, which hung around his neck, so he wouldn’t [...]

While digging through his Vietnam War letters, photos and other memorabilia, my father came across a faded red cloth bag. This brought a big smile to his face, and he shared the following (rare) happy memory from Christmas 1967 in Cu Chi:

“The Red Cross ladies and volunteers came around and handed out to [...]

JoAnn Quattrone, the Orange County dentist who filled several suitcases with life-saving medical donations for Vietnam last month, was one of the honored guests at the Spring Valley Rotary Club’s holiday party last week. Rotarian Ed Frank of Congers, who is also president of Rockland County’s Vietnam Veterans of America, presented her with an award [...]

At the Spring Valley Rotary Club’s holiday party Wednesday night, Sister Therese Minh, a Dominican sister from Ho Chi Minh City, came face to face with her local counterpart: Sister Joseph Mary Mahoney, president of the Friends of Saint Dominic’s in Blauvelt, NY.

Sister Joseph Mary was invited by Rotarian Voncile Oliver, who had wanted the [...]

In his interview tonight on Cosmos FM, my father reiterated his pleasant surprise at how the Vietnamese people very warmly welcomed us and other Americans, especially veterans, 40 years after the war. As I posted earlier, this enthusiasm occasionally caused some cognitive dissonance for us, as we would pass memorials and artistic renderings of the [...]

Our trip to Vietnam seems to have struck a chord with many different communities. Over the past few weeks, my father and I have gotten lots of calls and e-mails from veterans, Rotarians, Rockland County residents, fathers and daughters, educators, journalists, students, war history buffs, Vietnamese immigrants and Greek Americans.

For the Greek American segment of [...]

In hopes of squashing the stereotype of the “crazy Vietnam vet,” I used to have my father visit my social studies classes at Briarcliff High School. He would wear his Army uniform and shiny medals, and give calm, rational answers to all the questions, even including “do you have flashbacks?” and “do you know anyone [...]

As I’ve explained in previous posts, the people of Vietnam are very welcoming to Americans today, but all the one-sided memorabilia of the Vietnam War – the American War, as it’s called there – sends a different message to visitors, especially veterans.

Our cognitive dissonance began in Cu Chi, when we were led by extremely friendly [...]

The first time I remember talking with my father about a return to Vietnam was in 1997, 30 years after he went there as an Army officer with the 25th Infantry Division. We both love to travel internationally, but school, work, weddings, and other family plans kept postponing our father-daughter trip. A decade later, we [...]

The adults we met in Vietnam thanked us profusely for the donations of life-saving medical devices, vitamins, clothing and school supplies our group collected and distributed to orphanages, schools and villages last month, but of course it was the gifts of Beanie Babies, yo-yos, volleyballs and other toys that brought joy to children everywhere we [...]

In the weeks since we’ve returned from Vietnam, many readers have asked us how the people of Vietnam really feel about Americans, especially U.S. veterans.

Obviously, we didn’t understand what people were saying when they were speaking Vietnamese, and maybe we’re naive, but it certainly seemed we were quite warmly welcomed everywhere we went, even at [...]

On this freezing New York winter day, with my nose turning fuchsia and my father bundled up like South Park’s Kenny just to do some yard work, we needed a photo like this to remind ourselves we were in sunny, warm Vietnam – standing on the top of the Black Virgin Mountain – just a [...]

My father has joined Westchester County’s chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America just in time for the holidays and a new local VVA tradition: Chapter 49 has decided to join Wreaths Across America, a national nonprofit organization that aims to lay wreaths on all the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery.

The national ceremony will take [...]

As I wrote in my story last week, there are still nearly 1,800 Americans listed by the Department of Defense as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, including 124 from New York.

As Vietnam veterans and their former enemies have shared information in recent years, those numbers have gradually decreased. Thanks to ongoing excavations [...]

Today is World AIDS Day. (I always remember this, because it also happens to be my birthday.) UNAIDs estimated 260,000 people in Vietnam were living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005, about 0.5 percent of the population. About 13,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses that year.

While traveling in southern Vietnam last month, we noticed [...]

One of the greatest rewards of this Return to Vietnam project has been the opportunity to meet so many other veterans, particularly from the Lower Hudson Valley: Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. My family has lived in Briarcliff for 20 years, but my father was always too busy commuting to Manhattan and volunteering with numerous [...]

A motorcycle is the best way to get around Ho Chi Minh City’s buzzing streets. My father and I experienced this for ourselves, courtesy of Bao Anh, Vietnam veteran Bernie Duff’s girlfriend and partner in humanitarian work. Hurtling through the crowds, ankle to ankle with other riders, dodging the random pedestrians, bicyclists, taxis and trucks [...]

I’m a woman, and the daughter of a Vietnam veteran with a long memory (aided by plenty of memorabilia), but I never knew much about the thousands of women who served during the Vietnam War – except for my father’s fond feelings for the female USO entertainers and the morale-boosting powers of pinups – until [...]

“Doc” Bernie Duff, a member of Rockland County’s Vietnam Veterans of America, is gearing up for the annual tradition he started after moving to Vietnam last year: dressing up as “No En,” Santa Claus, and visiting disabled and poor Vietnamese children at local schools and institutions. You can read about his plans on his blog [...]

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 [...]

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 this one, but we got an excellent demonstration of how the Viet Cong guerrillas disappeared down these [...]

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 [...]

Ed Frank, Rockland VVA president and co-organizer of the humanitarian tour of Vietnam that my father and I are joining tomorrow night, sent me more news about the group’s activities today. (Scroll down to read his Nov. 2, 3 and 4 dispatches, posted earlier this week.)

While traveling south from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, [...]

The Rotary Club group visiting the Go Vap Orphanage with us in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday included Jennifer Weaver, a 22-year-old recent Lewis & Clark College graduate who has decided to stay on until the end of the year, while her parents and the rest of the group return to Seattle.

Jennifer will live [...]

We visited the Go Vap Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday, tagging along with Son Michael Pham and his group of Seattle Rotary Club members on their humanitarian trip to deliver clothing, medicine, school supplies and treats for the children.

This little girl, Hien, stole my father’s heart.

I’m having trouble uploading videos to this blog [...]

We touched down in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City last night. (Both names are commonly used; I’ll talk more about that in a future blog post.)
We could immediately see the city is a booming metropolis, with blazing lights on jammed highways visible from the air – an inconceivable sight during the Vietnam War 40 years [...]

Soldiers in the Vietnam War were entitled to at least one Rest & Recuperation trip, usually of about one week. The most popular R&R destinations were Hawaii for the married soldiers, where their wives could meet them, or Bangkok and Hong Kong for the (cough cough) lonely (cough cough) troops.

My father made it to Singapore [...]

Spending Christmas 1967 in a war zone far from home had one perk: a visit from Bob Hope, Raquel Welch and the other entertainers in that year’s USO Show. My father was one of the lucky soldiers who got to attend the show at Cu Chi and, for a few hours, “forget that there was [...]

Like Ed Frank, most Vietnam veterans I’ve talked to have interesting birthday/holiday stories about the war. Dan Griffin, executive director of Westchester County’s Vietnam Veterans of America, has a good one about a light-up Christmas tree his family sent him, which soldiers took turns looking at on Christmas Eve by going into a muddy foxhole, [...]

My father and I are on our way to Vietnam, where we will be meeting later this week with Ed Frank, of Congers, and his group of Rockland County veterans and Rotary Club members on a humanitarian tour of the country. (I wrote this blog post from the airport, setting it to upload while I’m [...]

We’re still en route to Vietnam. It’s a very long trip, especially with the 12-hour time difference and the International Date Line, and my father has been sharing memories of times he almost didn’t make it home 40 years ago.

In March 1968, about a week before he left Vietnam, the 25th Infantry Division’s base [...]

Col. Andonios Neroulias and I are on our way to Vietnam right now, to join up with the humanitarian tour group of Rockland veterans and Rotary Club members. So far, it’s a much nicer journey than 1st Lt. Andonios Neroulias took 40 years ago, though the first leg – New York to Los Angeles – [...]

Trying to win hearts and minds in a combat zone isn’t a new phenomenon created for the current Iraq War; my father’s Army platoon tried to do the same in Vietnam.

But their useful gift for the malnourished villagers – rabbits from a Catholic Church charity, hutched in old ammunition crates – had unexpected results.

Click here [...]

If you’re voting in Ramapo Town Hall today, or just passing through in the next few days, check out this painting by “Doc” Bernie Duff, a veteran who moved to Vietnam and paints scenes from the war. He donated it to the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 333 (Rockland County) in 2005, and the VVA [...]

I’ve been checking the Vietnam weather forecast every day for the last few weeks, and had been relieved to see the temperature hovering in the 70s, in contrast to the reports from last year’s humanitarian tour group from Rockland County about their muggy experience.

Well, it turns out I’ve been foiled by the 12-hour time difference; [...]

Ed Frank, Rockland VVA president and co-organizer of the humanitarian tour of Vietnam that my father and I are joining later this week, sent me some news about the group’s activities yesterday. (Scroll down to read his Nov. 2 and 3 dispatches, posted yesterday.)

The group is visiting the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone and the Khe Sanh [...]

Great news from Ed Frank, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 333, on what the Spring Valley Rotary Club’s humanitarian tour group has been up to in Vietnam so far. The Rotarians, veterans and family members are heading south from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, where my father and I will join them [...]

I’m told American dollars are widely accepted in Vietnam. That’s a relief; we’re leaving in a few days, and I haven’t had time to try to get any Vietnamese currency (dong).

Last time my father was there, he used neither dollars nor dongs. Instead, troops carried Military Payment Certificates, which look like Monopoly money:
“American soldiers [...]

From Betty Grable to Jessica Simpson, pin-up girls have been putting smiles on soldiers’ faces since before World War II.

During the Vietnam War, while other guys drooled over images of Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch, my good Greek father fixed his gaze on Corinna Tsopei, Miss Universe 1964. (Measurements: 36-22-36.)

Tsopei appeared a handful of movies after [...]

As promised, here’s the video of my father reading one of the first letters he sent home—New York, NY—during the Vietnam War, dated April 1, 1967. (Scroll down to last night’s post for more details.)

Download:

“It’s a strange feeling and very hard to get accustomed to the idea that there’s a war going on, but I have convinced myself to keep my eyes open and my gun ready.”

Those are the closing lines of one of my father’s first letters home during his service in Vietnam, written April 1, 1967 on [...]

Apocalypse Now, Rambo and other popular movies about the Vietnam War don’t show the real thing, according to my father and the other veterans I’ve talked to lately. Instead, they’ve given me a long list of books to read, supplemented by suggestions from people who have recently traveled to Vietnam.

Nearly everyone’s list includes The Girl [...]

My father said I could wear his old fatigues from Vietnam today. They actually fit, which I think says a lot about the Army rations back then…

Instead, I got into the Halloween spirit by unwrapping something that kind of looks like candy: Mefloquine, an anti-malarial drug. Prescribed by Briarcliff Manor’s own Dr. Gary Lehrman and [...]

Photographer Tom Nycz and I reported on the group of Rotarians, Vietnam veterans and family members leaving from Rockland County last night, bound for JFK airport and Hanoi.

As they said goodbye, they debated how best to say hello in Vietnamese. Click the audio link below to hear what they came up with:

Download:

This ticket took my father to Vietnam 40 years ago, as an Army officer.

Next week, we’ll be using very different tickets to fly back to Vietnam, joining the group of veterans and Rotary Club members who start their trip tonight. For the next few days, I’ll be packing, dealing with medical preparations (malaria pills, etc.), [...]