FINDING THUY - THE NARRATIVE
On June 22, 1970, in the Quang Ngai Province of Vietnam, a platoon of American infantry encountered four Vietnamese on a mountainside trail deep in the Ba To jungle. When the troops yelled for surrender, they were met with rifle fire. The Americans shot back, killing three of the enemy.
One of the dead was a physician, a 27-year-old woman from Ha Noi, named Dang Thuy Tram. Thuy was a civilian volunteer in the National Liberation Front, assigned to a public health unit serving the medical needs of both civilian and military personnel in and around Duc Pho. She had been the only doctor at a remote mountainside hospital, really only a collection of deep cuts in the earth and covered with bamboo.
On her body, the soldiers found a sony radio, canvas medical bag containing notes, books and a small handmade volume bound in cardboard from a medical supply box—a personal diary.
Only ten miles away, a young soldier named Fredric Whitehurst was stationed at an American base known as LZ Bronco. An intelligence specialist, Whitehurst’s tasks included interrogation of prisoners and reviewing captured documents for strategic information. Days after Thuy Tram was shot her dairies found their way to Whitehurst and his South Vietnamese translator. The writing in the diary so moved his Vietnamese translator that when it came time to burn the documents for that particular day he told Fred, “Don’t burn this one Fred, there is fire in it already” Whitehurst complied with the wishes of his fellow soldier and put the diary in his pocket. And so began a journey that would take 35 years to come full circle.
Whitehurst had stumbled on an extraordinary, personal record of the realities of war, the suffering in her hospital, and her own unrequited love. With the help of his translator, Whitehurst began typing a rough translation of the diaries into English. As his understanding of the diary grew Whitehurst found himself deeply moved by this young woman, by her perseverance through heartbreak and hardship, by her deep belief in the value of life and her dedication to the people she cared for and her family.
“Sadness soaks into my heart,” she wrote in tiny, neat script. “Just like the long days of rain soak into the earth.”
|
35 years later, still haunted by her words, Fred and his brother Rob, also a Viet Nam veteran, locate Thuy’s family in Ha Noi and plan their first return to Viet Nam since the war to meet them in August 2005. Their commitment leads to a coming together of two families and two countries in an effort to heal the scars of war and loss with forgiveness, love and humanity
Filmmaker Neil Alexander, a personal friend of Rob Whitehurst, accompanies the brothers on their journey. Along the way, the stories of two families – Tram and Whitehurst, Vietnamese and American, emerge in parallel.
Through the tale of Fred and Rob’s efforts to understand the elusive author of the diary, Thuy gradually comes into focus. Her own words, interwoven with the memories of her family, friends, comrades and patients, paint a picture of a young woman driven by her convictions, but who privately wrestled with doubts about war:
“Oh, life changed by blood and bones, by the youth of so many people, how many lives have ended in order to allow other lives to be fresh and green.”
On each step of their travels through Viet Nam, the Whitehursts see Thuy’s shadow: in the schools where she studied, the flowers in her mothers garden, the jungle where she died. All the while her words urge them on. Their pilgrimage comes to an end when Fred and Rob are received by a nation and Thuy’s diaries are published in Viet Nam to record numbers. In the privacy of Mother Tram’s home the brothers pay respect to Thuy at the family altar, bowing their heads in respect with sisters and mother at their side, they know her spirit has finally come home. As Mother Trams, now 82, takes Fred’s hand in thanks he is reminded of those prophetic words that Thuy wrote just two days before she was killed,
“I want so much a mother’s hand to care for me. Love me and give me strength to travel the hard sections of the road ahead.”
Filled with gratitude, Mother Tram embraces both men as her sons and the two families continue their journey together. In October 2005, Mother Tram and the three sisters fly to the United States and are first received by the Viet Nam Center Archive at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Its here that Mother Tram and Thuy’s sisters are honored in a solemn dedication and embrace the original diaries presented in a custom silk lined box.
|
The Tram’s pay a visit to Fred and Rob’s mother in their family hometown of Bethel, North Carolina, Mrs. Whitehurst and Madame Tram may not share a common language but each followed a career in education and raised large families-Madame Tram five children, four daughters and a son and Mrs. Whitehurst four sons. They complete their tour in Washington DC with a visit to the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial. Hand in hand Robert walks Mother Tram pass the names of fallen American soldiers
The end, in Buddhism, is also the beginning. The documentary comes to completion in modern-day Vietnam, where hundreds of thousands of young people sit in cafes reading Thuy’s published diaries. This brave young woman, who set out to change her world, now teaches a new generation about passion for life, the importance of love, the sacrifices of war and the promise of tomorrow. Her final words echo across the decades, predicting the future: “Maybe I will meet the enemy, and maybe I will fall with my hand carrying the red-crossed box, and then people will feel sorry for the girl sacrificed to the revolution during her dream-filled youth.”
Even more remarkable, throughout Vietnam, with over half of its population too young to have experienced the hardships and sacrifices of the American war, people are reading Thuy’s diaries. Published in July 2005, the book was an overnight bestseller, with 450,000 copies sold to date. In the fall of 2007, Harmony Books, a subsidiary of Random House, will publish the English translation.
This courageous young physician, who set out to change her world and find her love, now teaches a new generation about passion for life, the importance of love, the sacrifices of war, and the promise of tomorrow. Her final words echo across the decades, predicting the future:
“Maybe I will meet the enemy, and maybe I will fall with my hand carrying the red-crossed box, and then people will feel sorry for the girl sacrificed to the revolution during her dream-filled youth.”
A Film by Neil Alexander |
