General McCallum

Hanoi, Vietnam

Today was my last day in Vietnam. Thought i would spend it relaxing, walking around the lake, just taking it all in. Part of the plan was also to visit the pagoda on the lake.

Its while visiting the pagoda an elderly gentleman stopped me and asked if i was a Malay Singapore. So i said no, from India originally but am an American, from New York. Well that was all i needed to say. He started talking to me about America and what he thought of it, about Vietnam slowly moving towards the bench so he could sit down. I thought to myself I guess i'm being invited to converse for a bit.

And what a conversation it was. I have never in my life met someone with such a colorful past and interesting life. An Irish Catholic raised in Canada, who fought in the Korean War - his regiment on the front lines left during the retreat by the americans - wounded with shrapnel in his back, captured by the chinese and saved from death by the north koreans he was held as a prisoner of war for 3 years in china where they took care of him (General MacArthur would not allow exchanges of POWs at the time), back to school in Canada and then back to China , a member of the People's Army, fighting on the side of the Viet Cong during the American War, living in Nepal during the China India war when India gathered hundreds of Indians of Chinese Ancestry and led them to the Rajastani desert, in India as Bangladesh fought against Pakistan, fighting against the british in Singapore, adopting the daughter of a fellow soldier, promising to raise her as a muslim, working now with the UN and the Canadian government to help the children of Vietnam who are crippled by no fault of their own.... and that's just scratching at the surface

As our conversation moved from the pagoda, to the coffee shop, to an eatery, we discussed politics, the 'isms' of the world, the cultures of asia, the culture of america, my experiences with both, the treatment of women, and of women he spoke of the ones who helped him through his journey, the Native American woman from Canada who has now become a Madame Justice, the Jain woman he met in India who would fearlessly approach the Indian/Nepalese/Chinese border to meet him, his daughter, who married young and lost her husband in the war and went on to study, degrees in biology, chemistry, now thinking of medical school at the age of 45 she has only just begun.

I was so caught up in our conversation i did not want it to end, he had experiences like no one i'd met before. He thanked me for bringing him to his past, reminding him of days long forgotten. He looked at me and told me that i was a smart, beautiful, and intelligent woman and that my story was just beginning. That i would discover the path to my own happiness and take it. I'd like to believe that.

Thanks for a day i will never forget, Larry.