With the title “De enemigos a vecinos: veteranos de EE.UU. eligen Vietnam para la última etapa de su vida” (From enemies to neighbours: American veterans choose Vietnam for the final chapter of their lives), the article realistically depicts the humane journey of reconciliation between former soldiers.

The article opens with the story of an 80-year-old former intelligence officer Chuck Searcy from Alabama, the US. Searcy arrived in Vietnam in 1968 as as an intelligence agent. In 1994, he returned and started living in Hanoi, just a few months before the two countries normalised relations.

Recalling his first return to Vietnam after the war in 1992 with a friend who was also an American veteran, Searcy shared that they were scared when the plane landed, thinking that the Vietnamese people would hate us. However, to their surprise, they were greeted with friendly curiosity. In both the North and the South, they met Vietnamese veterans and their children.

“These kind people did not have any ill will towards us. It was wonderful!”, he said.

Not only was he one of the first veterans to return to Vietnam after the war, but Searcy also made a lasting impact through Project RENEW—an organisation that detected and deactivated more than 120,000 unexploded ordnance in Quang Tri province, the area hardest hit by bombs and mines during the war in Vietnam.

The article continues with the touching case of veteran Jim Reischl, 78. After 40 years, the Minnesota veteran returned to look for his ex-lover and the daughter he had never met. Although he could not find his daughter, he met his ex-lover and is now living happily with his Vietnamese wife in the Central Highlands city of Da Lat.

“The climate is great, the people are friendly, the cost is reasonable - I can live comfortably on my pension,” Reischl shared.

Richard Brown, 75, a former Marine who was stationed at Chu Lai Air Base (1969-1970), had a different journey. In 2005, he and his Vietnamese-origin wife left the US to escape the “Frenetic pace of American consumerism.”

“Vietnam offered a much simple life,” he said. Having worked for several Vietnamese airlines until 2014, Brown decided to retire for health reasons. He is now enjoying his retirement in a house near the beach in Da Nang, as well as another home in the Central Highlands.

Though he thought that his military past might cause skepticism, especially when working in Hanoi, in fact, Brown has always been warmly welcomed by the Vietnamese people. The American veteran emotionally said that: “I have been accepted, even by Communist Party members. This is home and I have never regretted it".

Exhibition features anti-war-in-Vietnam campaigns of US veterans

A special exhibition titled “Waging Peace – American Soldiers and Veterans opposing the War in Viet Nam” opened at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on March 19.