War Story 8: War, Pain, Family & Closure

Closure for a Former Enemy’s Family

We decided to sell our home in Massachusetts, downsize, and move to Florida.

I dislike the typical project for so many baby boomers. It marks another major transition in life.

I went to the attic and started working through years of accumulations of “stuff”. Inside an old storage chest was a box and inside that was another box with a mix of items and an old wallet. I recognized it from my days as an Army infantry officer.

The “Jungle Wallet” contained my old Army ID in sealed plastic sleeves, some pictures, and tucked away, hidden in one sleeve, was a small packet about 2 inches wide and 3 inches long. It was a military ID of a North Vietnamese soldier that looked like a small passbook with 8 pages, including his photograph.

I sat down and turned the pages of time and reflected on a momentous time in my life.

It was August of 1970, we assaulted the airstrip unloading from dozens of Hueys to retake Kham Duc from the enemy. Located next to the Laotian border and at the mouth of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, it was an old Special Forces airstrip that was overrun by thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers during the ongoing Tet Offensive in 1968.

Our mission involved the whole battalion and other units to return and interdict the enemy while we recover the remains of over a dozen American KIAs left behind in the emergency evacuation conducted under constant enemy fire. After two years, we were coming back to retrieve our heroes.

Heroics were common in this serious ’68 Kham Duc battle and one Huey helicopter pilot, Major Patrick Brady, even received the highest honor, the “Congressional Medal of Honor”.

To prevent surprise attacks, my 23-man platoon was ordered to patrol down through the thick jungle to a river that ran along the east side of the airstrip.  We crossed the river and cut our way up the other side to the top of the plateau.

It was not easy. Each of us was fully loaded with ammunition, weapons, and rucksacks to patrol for several days. It took hours in the relentless heat and humidity and once we got to the top of the other side of the gorge, we uncovered a well-used trail running north/south along the east side of the gorge.

I decided to establish a night ambush position.

We slept on the damp ground just off-trail to avoid making noise digging foxholes. In the thick jungle, it was soon so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face.  With my M-16 at my side, I dozed off believing all was quiet, except for the nagging insects and bugs.

BOOM! Before midnight the massive explosion jolted us. No one moved and we strained to see in the total darkness. Then another BAM! Both major explosions happened just a few yards from our position.

Then it was silence until about 5:00 in the morning, just before daylight.  

“My God, what is happening!” I thought.

Behind us, across the river at the airstrip, multiple explosions and gunfire erupted in an all-out battle. My worst fear was the possibility that our forces on the airstrip would be overrun again.

We maintained radio silence and waited.

All possible fears raced through my mind and considered our options.

At daylight, I sent soldiers forward to search the area. We had caught two North Vietnamese soldiers walking along the trail tripping our mines. They were killed instantly.

That morning, North Vietnamese sappers carrying satchel charges were intent on blowing up our artillery battery with large Howitzers at the airstrip. Their attack failed and all 16 were killed.

We took the weapons and ID’s of the two enemy killed and moved out quickly to patrol the area and soon killed two more NVA soldiers. For some reason, I kept one ID packet in my wallet and forgot about it.

We engaged the enemy many more times after this routine nighttime nightmare. Such was life in I Corps for weeks and months during the Vietnam War.

Here it is, nearly 50 years later, I sat in my attic and thought about what to do with it.

I decided to take pictures of it with a summary of what happened that day. I posted it on one of several Vietnam Veteran’s Facebook pages. I had been sharing dozens of Vietnam War pictures with members and made many new friends with fellow veterans. It truly is a lifelong bond of friendship and brotherhood.

Then came the surprise.

A young Vietnamese man, Minh Thanh Dinh, who had lost his grandfather in the “War with America”, is now supporting the US AID program and contacted me. He asked if I would return the ID document if he could find the family.

I agreed, of course, but what are the chances, I said to myself.

It only took less than two weeks and he located the fallen soldier’s family. The soldier’s name was Bui van Mo and the ID listed his family name and Province. However, both his parents have since passed away, but Minh determined that Bui still had two brothers living deep in the countryside.

Soon, Minh flew from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) to Hanoi and slowly traveled by car southwest into the mountains. Parking his car at the local military commander’s home, they both traveled by motorbike to the commune village of Dao.  When the dirt road ended, they started the hike on foot, passing rice fields to their home with a tin roof built on stilts.

The van Mo family has three generations living under one roof, Bui’s youngest brother and his son and daughter with spouses and their children. Bui’s parents had already passed years ago. They work a small plot of land to grow rice.

The Dao village is in the Tuan Dao Commune, the poorest commune in the Hoa Binh Province.

Living a very simple life, the van Mo family has limited electricity, no toilets or running water, no air conditioning, or other typical appliances of the western world.

Minh saw the Government’s old letter back in the ‘70s that notified the family that Bui was missing in action on the battlefield and had no other information. They had no idea where, how, or what happened when he died and where his remains are located. This was true for many NVA soldiers. His body was never found.

A ceremony was held where Minh personally offered the ID document I sent him along with a Vietnamese flag in honor of Bui van Mo presented by the local military commander. I also forwarded a personal letter of condolence from me with a brief description of the incident with a map I had drawn of the area at Kham Duc where we set up the ambush. I had saved all my battle maps and points of conflict.

Pictures and a video of their journey and ceremony were sent to me that shows a time of solemn remembrance, honor, respect, and closure.

When those you love are lost, feelings never leave, no matter who you are, where you live, or whose side you’re on.

War impacts generations to come.  It is not just about winners and losers.

It is about family.

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Postscript: Minh Dinh and others in Vietnam work with the US AID organization to help Vietnam develop its economy. He and others also volunteer to find and return the remains of soldiers who fought on both sides of the war. Incredibly, the North Vietnamese sacrificed over one million men and women fighting the war; 300,000 remain unaccounted for or MIA. This does not count the thousands of South Vietnamese or Americans who are still MIA to this day. We remember them always.

John Shoemaker was a First Lieutenant, Platoon, and Company Commander, 2 Battalion, First Infantry of the 196th Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division.