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The place where Don Droz’s boat ran
aground, still shaped from the wreckage
of his destroyed boat almost 25 years later
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This was the big day. We were heading down to the exact spot where Tracy's father was killed on April 12, 1969. We first took a quick 5-minute ride from the hotel to the river, and then loaded into two boats. Tracy and her mom were together in a small speedboat, and the rest of the crew followed in a slightly larger boat.
It took two hours to get from Ca Mau, all the way down to the Southern tip of Vietnam. By the time we got there we had picked up two more provincial officials who were looking after us. We then proceeded back up the river and started looking for the spot. Don's shipmates had told us it was about 6 kilometers from the sea up the Duong Keo canal, and past two canals.
The river looked nothing like any of us had imagined. It was wide and rather straight, and there were many huts but little vegetation along the banks. We didn't see any wreckage so we kept on going another 4 km up the river. One of the local officials then insisted that we had passed the spot and that we should head back down. He said there had only been one big battle in this area and that they had erected a shrine at the site of the wreckage.
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Villagers watch Tracy and her mother Judy
at the ambush site
Tracy and her mother at the shrine on the
Mekong Delta
Tracy and Judy talk with a man
who was part of the Viet Cong ambush on
April 12, 1969
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He directed us to the shrine and that's where we got off the boat. There was a little hut right next to a wide muddy break in the shoreline. A man came out and told us that this is where the swift boat had ended up. We found a little shrine right in front of where the prow of the ship would have been. By that point we were now joined by at least fifty people from the village who were watching our every move.
Tracy and her mom stood in front of the shrine crying and hugging. Judy met the woman who maintained the shrine, which they had erected to commemorate all the men who died in this battle. Tracy then went down into the mud looking for any sign of the boat, but there was nothing left. The proprietor of the hut then produced a bolt that he said had come from the ship and gave it to Tracy and her mom.
Then another local man came forward and said that he was there the day of the battle. He was a 16-year-old Viet Cong fighter. Tracy and her mom stood there dumb-founded.
I put down my camera and watched Tracy and Judy staring at this man who had fought against Don so many years ago. Could he have fired the fatal shot? In a flash I knew what Tracy and her mom must have been feeling. I stepped in and suggested that maybe it was time to leave.
As a last gesture, Tracy and Judy placed some flowers on the shrine and then we got on the little speedboat and left.
The return trip went faster than our trip down to the site. We didn't talk much.
We got back to our hotel in Ca Mau and went out to dinner. At the end of dinner, Pham Trung, one of the local government officials who had been with us on the boat came and sat down with Judy at our end of the table. He was smiling, but I could read the sadness in his eyes as he spoke gently to Judy through a translator.
They talked about the shrine. Judy offered to send them money so that they could make it a more permanent edifice. The woman who maintained the shrine had told Judy of her wish to try and do so. But the official explained that the government allows for the shrine because it is small and frail. A larger more permanent edifice would not survive official scrutiny.
He told Judy that he lost his brother to B52 carpet-bombing during the Tet offensive, as well as four other members of his family. And then he got even quieter, and seemed a bit embarrassed as he revealed that he had been a Viet Cong fighter during the war. He talked about his own sadness and pain. We knew that his feelings were genuine.
He invited us back to his home to visit his family's shrine. We felt it would be impolite to refuse so we followed him there. Inside the home, there was a little stamped government certificate on the wall with the dead man's name printed on it, and an incense stick holder above the cupboard. No picture had ever been taken of the man, and no remains had ever been found. He introduced Judy to his cousin, Pham Thu Han, the dead man's daughter, and Judy then introduced her to Tracy. The young woman never spoke with Tracy. She just held Tracy's hand and cried.
Before leaving, we each lit a stick of incense and bowed three times in front of their shrine. We then went back to the hotel at the end of a long day. more >>
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