Honoring Vietnam's Past: A Return Journey

I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, on Ho Chi Minh's birthday--an oddity, since I was a white kid of American parents, and it was the early 1960s, near the start of US involvement in the war. My dad was a professor who worked for Southern Illinois University and USAID to create vocational education programs in the Mekong Delta, and my mom was a teacher in Saigon.

My family loved Vietnam and its people, but we left shortly after I was born, due to the war. Because of the post-war embargo, I was not able to visit again until 1994, when a friend and I traveled through Vietnam on foot and by train, boat, bus, car, scooter, and plane. Some of the writing I did on that trip--one of the most meaningful of my life--eventually found its way into two of my books.

Now I have been invited to return, in April 2025, to cover the country-wide, 50th-anniversary celebration of the end of the war. It is a very special opportunity that few will have at this historical milestone, and it will let me see many things.

A small group of NGO workers from the war, as well as others with professional and academic interests, will by hosted by the Viet Nam/USA Society, for nearly three weeks in April. As we participate in guided travel from Hanoi to the former Saigon, I will be able to witness and write about some of Vietnam's successes and struggles since the war.

We will visit factories, universities, museums, villages, minefields, and hospitals, and get to meet and speak with Vietnamese political figures and citizens, US embassy officials, business people, veterans, and others. The trip culminates with official state celebrations in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, on April 30, the day the city fell in 1975. When the tour ends, I plan to spend a few days in the Delta, interviewing orphanage workers.

This trip will be a culmination of professional and personal interests of many decades for me. (I even chose to study at University of Miami for a reason having to do with Vietnam; if curious, click this link to an essay I wrote about that.)

I'll be writing daily during my trip, and these blog posts and longer essays, with photos, will be published at venues that do not have the budget to send a reporter on such a trip. I hope to entertain, educate, and give readers insights into how the Vietnamese view themselves 50 years after the war. (Our strategic partnership with Vietnam is one of our country's most important; the US is Vietnam's largest export market and will continue to be vital to US interests in the region in coming years, especially with regard to China.)

Any funds raised here will be spent for international airfare, fees for the organized tour (which is subsidized and run by experts with 50 years' experience and contacts, making it nearly impossible to replicate at any price), and food and additional housing as needed.

I'm a writer and editor who's published four books and about two million words in individual pieces . My current gig is as a staff writer at The Common Reader : A Journal of the Essay, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis. My work has been included and listed as notable in the Best American writing anthologies. I have two grown sons and live across the river from St. Louis with my elderly but sleek cat. I thank you more than I can say for your interest, support, and readership.

The photo of Ho Chi Minh City is © Steffen Schmitz (Carschten), courtesy Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.