The Voice of a Veteran: A Podcast

When most people think about the Vietnam War, they might defend U.S. involvement, or they might wonder whether it was necessary at all. They might remember it as an effort to contain communism. They might remember the 58 thousand American troops who died for that effort. But when I think about the Vietnam War, I think about my poppy. 

I don’t know much about the time my pop spent overseas. I know that he stopped in Hawaii for a few hours during a layover on the way to his base in Biên Hòa. They weren’t allowed to explore much, but based on what he could see from the airport, the island was beautiful. 

I know that, when he slept, snakes would wind themselves around the beams in the ceiling of his dorm, and that sometimes, they’d fall into his bed and wake him in the middle of the night. I know that toilets were holes in the ground, and that a bottle of vodka cost less than a dollar. 

When I was in middle school, my pop and I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Holmdel, New Jersey. I can’t remember much of that visit, except for that it was a very grey afternoon and that he removed his baseball cap when we entered. I remember how strange it felt to see so many names engraved into the curved stone walls. But, at the time, I was too young to appreciate what visiting that space together meant. 

My pop doesn’t talk much about the time he spent overseas—through him, we experience the war in bits and pieces. In this podcast, we talk more about what life was like for him when he returned from overseas, the way he was treated, and how this has improved for veterans today. This is his story.