Conversations with a former South Vietnamese Army Commander

It is rare to meet a high-ranking person that was directly involved in a war. It is precious to meet a person that is full of life and inspires your soul by his mere character. I was blessed to be able to meet both of these personae in one man. One old, but vibrant man.

Yesterday morning, I was doing some field work by the Ben Nghe Channel, and a jolly old man with pronounced features and a skinny-yet-toned physique approached me. Hello Miss, this road ends here, there is construction there! He thought I was trying to walk up along the river, but I told him I was just taking pictures. Are you Hanoian?, he asked me. I was (pleasantly) surprised that he did not catch my despicably foreign accent in Vietnamese. I chuckled and told him that I came from Canada. He then switched to English and expressed his wonder about me. He had really thought I came from Hanoi, because of my features, and also because of my demeanour. That's strange, no one's ever told me that before, I wondered to myself, while at the same time being marveled by this old man's proficient English.

Our small ice-breaker chit-chat quickly ensued to an explorative full-breadth conversation about who this man really was. His name is Nguyễn H. Khâm, and he was a South Vietnamese Infantry Company Commander during the Vietnam war (known as the American War here). He had commanded 1200 soldiers in his own unit, and he had been very physically (and very psychologically) involved at the forefronts of the war. Our conversation went from an initial stage of confusion and disillusionment of this seemingly innocent old man muttering shambles about himself and showing me neatly organized IDs and documents from a folded-up plastic cover he kept on his body, to a progressively fascinating discovery of a deep man with a moving story and soul-reaching thoughts.

With his initial urging, I abandoned my morning tasks, and sat down with him for street coffee by the sidewalk. We spent the next 2 hours chatting and at the end, he invited me over to his modest home, where I got to meet his wife and his granddaughter.

Over the course of our conversation, I got to know Khâm as an extremely jovial man whose spirit is decades younger than his calendar age of 72. Despite having been imprisoned for 26 years following the fall of Saigon, leaving his native country for America where he gained citizenship, and recently returning to a motherland vastly different than what he'd known, he exudes optimism and a zeal for life that truly inspires. His humour and laughter are infectious. His wisdom radiates from a past that's been cultured by both books and trying experiences.

Some of the memorable moments of our conversation include when we talked about music. I was impressed at the amount of worldly music he sung, both in French and in English, and I asked him what his favourite song during the war was. He said a song along the lines of "Ask God to stop the raining". Oh, I see... I nodded in empathy and in anticipation of a deep, moral answer. He elaborated: Because when we were fighting, we couldn't shoot when it was raining. So all the soldiers wanted it to stop raining so they could see. His unassuming response popped my philosophical bubble, and after a quick 3 seconds of dumbfoundment, I burst out laughing and he joined in. Later on, when I asked him why he came back to Vietnam, if he was fighting on the American side and against the Communists. He responded: Even a thief always loves his own country... Why shouldn't I love my country?


My chance encounter with Khâm was blessful in two ways. On the one hand, I got to befriend a truly incredible man with immeasurable vitality. On the other hand, it was a humbling reminder that every walking person has a story to tell, but that you would never hear it if you went on walking past. Khâm told me that his name meant "respect" in Vietnamese. In my dictionary, "khâm phục" means "to feel deep admiration for, greatly admire, be lost in admiration for." Indeed, khâm phục is how I feel towards this special man I met strolling by the riverside.

 

Here is a video of some parts of our conversation. Please note that during the actual conversation, I did not understand everything that Khâm said. I was only able to reconstruct many of his sentences after viewing the video footage several times. I've included captioning for most of the video. Enjoy!

(Note: About his comment about the Vietnamese population in America, he was right about the population being very high. According to the 2010 census, the Vietnamese population in America is around 1,700,000.  Oops! My estimation was extremely far off!!!)