Wandering souls

A few weeks ago, I heard on NPR a program that narrated the stories of a Vietnam War veteran. This soldier -- now in his later years -- had enlisted and was sent into the jungles of Vietnam. At such a young age, he never anticipated the difficulties he would have to face, and even now still can't understand the experiences that he endured.

In a chance encounter inside the dense jungle, he shot and killed a Viet soldier. North or South he doesn't know, but it was a young Vietnamese boy not much younger than him. The young man had apparently been strolling through the forest unaware of US military presence.

The American soldier killed the Vietnamese soldier and if I remember correctly also took some letters which he mailed home to the US. For about 30 years he kept these tokens, these memories of the life and voice and spirit of the young Viet soldier.

What did it mean for him to keep them? Did he fully understand the family's need for closure? As the NPR program documented his anguish and confusion and grief, I felt particulary sympathetic to the family that had been searching for all these decades for some semblance of normality even as they tried to deal with the absence of their son. Missing in action, wandering spirit, restless souls...

At the same time that I feel sorry for this war veteran, the family's loss is imprinted into my memory with greater force because the retelling of this narrative is skewed since it is presented from only one perspective. The story -- what is spoken by the war vet and what is unheard from the family -- has multiple perspectives. Yet, whenever Vietnam/American War stories are retold, the limelight is on the US soldier, the US veteran who survived so much loss and suffered indescribable pain. Always, we focus on the self, on the individual, and that "I" happens to be from the US side of war.

I am reminded of the awful experiences that my own grandmother continues to relive and endure as she hopes in vain for some news of her MIA son. The youngest in a brood of eight, he disappeared somewhere in the central region of Vietnam. There have been no letters, no notices, no body, no telegrams, nothing. She continues to think about Cau Tam, Luan. Who knows whether he was killed or lost his memory or escaped or...? Perhaps he too met someone and was shot unwittingly and his identification papers and letter were taken by some US soldier and sent back to the US, stored in some damp cellar waiting for the US vet to find closure.

Hearing these kinds of stories, I wonder whether there will ever be a time when we can truly understand ourselves as a global community. The link between soldier and soldier, the connection between mother and son, that bond, that tie can never be relinquished. But until one lets go, the other will always be unnameable.