A Vietnamese Woman Recalls Her Revolutionary Activities
Truong My Hoa, a Vietnamese woman from a "revolutionary tradition" and later a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, recalls her experiences as a young revolutionary and subsequent imprisonment by the South Vietnamese government.
A South Vietnamese Woman Recalls Her Experience in the Diem Regime
Le Lieu Browne, a Vietnamese woman educated in France and married to an American journalist, recalls her mixed feelings about her experience working for the Diem regime.
A Vietnamese Refugee Tells Her Story
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, thousands of so-called "boat people" fled Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, often in small overcrowded ships that were barely seaworthy. The story of Linda Thong, while horrific, is not unusual. Refugees often [...]
A Laotian Refugee Tells His Story
The small nation of Laos, along Vietnam's western border, became entangled in the Vietnam War. Laos was invaded by the North Vietnamese Army and covertly bombed by the U.S. After the Communist Pathet Lao emerged victorious in 1975, the country [...]
A Student Organizer Recalls an Antiwar Protest
Todd Gitlin was a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which by the late 1960s was the largest radical student organization in the country. Originally concerned with the problem of poverty and racism in the United States, [...]
Tran Luong Remembers a Vietnam War Childhood
Tran Luong was born in Hanoi in 1960. Like most Hanoi children, he was evacuated to the countryside during the war; between 1966 and 1972 he lived in eight different peasant villages. Here he recalls his childhood experience of the war.
A U.S. Army Nurse Remembers Her Vietnam Experience
Sylvia Lutz Holland enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps and went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Sam Houston. From 1968 to 1969 she served at the 312th Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. Here she remembers her [...]
A North Vietnamese Doctor Remembers His Experience in a Jungle Hospital
From 1966-1974 Le Cao Dai directed the largest North Vietnamese jungle hospital in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. His staff of four hundred routinely cared for more than a thousands patients. Every few months they had to move all patients and [...]
A Vietnamese General Remembers "Uncle Ho"
Vo Nguyen Giap (b. 1912) served as Vietnam's leading military commander during three decades of war against the French, Japanese, and Americans. He was a strong supporter of Vietnamese independence and, like Ho Chi Minh, became a Communist [...]
A Volunteer Medic Describes Combat in Vietnam
Wayne Smith grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the second of eleven children and the oldest son. When he was ten years old, his father died in a fire in their home, and the family had to move into public housing. Smith served in Vietnam as [...]