Memorial's double duty
Statue that recognizes Vietnamese and U.S. veterans also brings them together again.

By HANG NGUYEN and THERESA WALKER
The Orange County Register

WESTMINSTER - On a peaceful Sunday morning in Sid Goldstein Freedom Park, the sounds of a distant war whose wounds are still fresh for so many thudded across the soft blue sky.

The Chinook and Huey helicopters flew overhead to salute the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial in Westminster, a towering bronze statue marking the sacrifices made by both the American and the South Vietnamese soldiers who fought in that conflict.

In turn, the crowd below applauded, waved and snapped off their own crisp salutes.

This was a time for healing and for honoring, for remembering old friends and for making new ones. A time that for many was long overdue in paying homage to the more than 300,000 South Vietnamese soldiers who lost their lives, along with the 58,000 American soldiers who died.

STRANGERS UNTIL SUNDAY

The old soldiers stood side by side, just like their bronze counterparts in the statue. One an American GI, the other a former captain in the South Vietnamese Army.

Both in their 50s, both with five children - two sons and three daughters each.

They were strangers until Sunday but bound together in a fellowship that Vietnam War veterans share among only themselves.

Jay Gordon of Fullerton and Hung Van Nguyen of Anaheim didn't know each other until Nguyen extended his hand during the dedication ceremony. He wanted to tell Gordon how happy he was to be there, and how happy he was to see Gordon there.

"I am Vietnamese, he is American," said Nguyen, who makes his living driving a cross-country big rig. "He came to help my country, to fight for freedom."

They told each other where and when they served: Gordon in the Army's 1st Cavalry from December of 1968 to December of 1969. Nguyen from 1969 to 1975 as a commander who was then imprisoned for 10 years after the fall of Saigon.

Gordon winced as Nguyen showed him the scars on his wrist and pointed to four other places on his body where he had been shot.

He offered a consoling pat on the back as Nguyen spoke of hardships he endured during his imprisonment - not seeing his family for five years and losing 40 pounds because he was given only a cup of rice and a few vegetables every day.

This was the first time that Gordon, an accountant with Farmer Bros. coffee, had a chance to speak at length with a South Vietnamese veteran.

"I've really developed a great appreciation for those who had it so much more difficult than I did," said Gordon, who dispatched medevac helicopters.

Before parting, the two men exchanged phone numbers.

"You call me, maybe I call you," Nguyen said to Gordon, who nodded his head. "Our families, maybe we go somewhere. Maybe our children learn together what happened.''

THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE

Anh Tran wanted to fight for freedom during the Vietnam War. But he was only 18, one year shy of the requirement for joining the army.

Tran, now 46, said he wanted to follow in the path of his father, who was an Army lieutenant colonel in the war.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, his father had to endure 10 years in a re-education camp. Tran was allowed to stay at the University of Saigon from 1975 to 1977 before he was pulled out by the communist government and sent to rural Xuan Loc to remove land mines and build homes.

In 1980, he fled Vietnam by boat to Thailand, where he stayed for six months before a church organization sponsored his move to the United States. He wasn't reunited with his father until 1994, when he filed the necessary paperwork to have his father come to the U.S.

His father's efforts and those of others were not lost, even though they did not win the war, said Tran, president of Atec, a space engineering firm in Cypress.

"The sacrifice of the soldiers was not wasted," said Tran, who donated $50 toward the construction of the memorial. "All their efforts were registered in the hearts of the people. That was reflected in the thousands and thousands of people who left the communist regime.''

'IT'S OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Son Pham, president of the Vietnamese-American Community in Northern California, organized four vans and a bus to bring more than 100 people from San Jose to the event.

Pham, 65, fought in the Vietnam War as an army captain from 1963 to 1975. After the communists' victory, he was jailed for seven years.

"As Vietnamese-Americans, it's our responsibility to support this event," said Pham, an electrician.

The group paid $35 each for a seat on the vans and bus that left at 10 p.m. Saturday to arrive in Westminster at 5 a.m.

Twenty more people were turned away for lack of space.

RELUCTANT HERO

It has only been in the past six years that Martin H. Garcia would talk about his two tours of Vietnam back in the late 1960s.

He always felt ashamed. When he came home, you didn't dare say you had fought in the war, for fear of being spit on. That disquiet stayed with him long after he left the Marines, married, settled in Westminster, had children, and worked his way through law school.

But when Anthony Torres began dating Garcia's daughter, Cheryl, he wanted to know about Vietnam.

Torres' childhood dream was to join the military. He changed his mind after he married Cheryl and had children. Instead, he lives his dream through his father-in-law.

He asked Garcia questions. Garcia opened up.

Torres and his wife and their two children joined Garcia and his wife, and another of his grandchildren, at the unveiling of the memorial on Sunday - all seven of them dressed in camouflage or Army green-colored garb, Torres in full combat fatigues.

"I don't see my father-in-law as my father-in-law," said Torres, 28. "I see him as my hero. I came here today to salute him."

Garcia, 55, earned several medals while in Vietnam, including a bronze star for disarming a Bouncing Betty mine while under fire. A comrade had sat on the mine, and it would have detonated the instant he got up if not for Garcia.

Still, Garcia couldn't say that he felt like a hero on Sunday.

"It feels like closure, I guess you could say. This has been a long time coming."