Former enemies reunite as long-lost friends
Thu Huong Le
Dr. Sam Axelrad reunites with liberation army soldier Nguyen Quang Hung on Monday at Hung’s home in An Khe, Gia Lai Province over 50 years after they first met, as adversaries during the American War. — Photo courtesy of Chris Axelrad
HA NOI (VNS)— The unlikely memory that connected two men on opposite sides during the war more than half a century ago is a bitter reminder of those terrible times.
It is also a reminder of how human spirit can prevail, even when they considered each other enemies.
Dr. Sam Axelrad, an American military doctor who served in Central Viet Nam during the 1960s, has finally achieved his long-lasting wish: to return the skeleton of an arm he amputated in 1966 to its owner, a Vietnamese soldier.
“It’s an unusual history about an enemy soldier,” Axelrad said yesterday. “I had this feeling that something eternal was guiding me and that I should find his family and return his arm to them. At the same time, I had no idea that he was alive.”
The men, Axelrad and 73-year-old Nguyen Quang Hung, finally met on Monday in Hung’s home in An Khe Town, Gia Lai Province. Smiling, holding hands, eating lunch together with each other’s families and remembering the circumstances that brought them together after all those years.
It began in 2010, when Axelrad said he went through his military trunk for the first time in 35 years, in his Texas home. The soldier’s arm bone was still there, along with Hung’s photos and hundreds of other documents, which reminded Axelrad of that special moment on October 27, 1966.
At the time, then 28-year-old Axelrad commanded a mobile surgical hospital for American troops near An Khe. The helicopter had brought in a badly injured Vietnamese soldier and one of his arms needed amputating.
Apparently, the soldier had been shot in the arm three months earlier, before being sent to the medical unit that Axelrad commanded. He managed to stay alive after floating down a river and eating whatever he could find in the forest.
Axelrad recalled that he knew Hung could die from the infection and that he was from the other side. “Why would I take care of an enemy soldier? For me, he was no longer a combatant. He was simply a human being in need”.
After the surgery, Hung, also known as Charlie to the other American doctors, took several months to recover and then stayed with Axelrad’s medic unit as an assistant. He got along well with the other American doctors but one day Axelrad said he had been ordered by a senior officer to remove him.
Hung was sent to Quy Nhon in central Binh Dinh Province and later he worked in private medical services until the end of the war.
Subsequently, the two men lost touch.
Last summer, Axelrad travelled to Viet Nam with his family on a holiday and he had always thought about finding Hung, whom he assumed was living in the north, somewhere near Ha Noi, according to the papers he brought home in the US.
The reunion was made possible with the help of a Vietnamese journalist, who wrote about Axelrad’s desire to return the arm bone. The newspaper was contacted by a woman who spent many years living in An Khe and knew both Dr. Sam and Hung.
The article was so well-received that his reunion on Monday was captured by Vietnamese and international media from around the world.
On Monday, Hung said he could not believe he was able to reunite with his American lifesaver. Several days before the reunion, Hung could not sleep. His family was so excited about welcoming his American friends.
The 73-year-old man, now with seven children and numerous grandchildren, said that he never imagined his bone was still being kept half way around the earth. The American doctors had managed to clean the bone of flesh, then dried it and gave it to Axelrad.
Axelrad kept it for the memory and felt like he was the unofficial custodian of Hung’s arm.
His son, Chris Axelrad, who accompanied Axelrad last summer and this time to Viet Nam, said that the media attention was secondary to what has become a story with a happy-ending.
Chris said his father was always troubled by the fact that he left Viet Nam without knowing what condition Hung was in.
“My father saved the man’s life but Hung also did something for my father,” said Chris. “Whenever he thought of Mr. Hung, he had happy memories that he was able to help him.”
As the story was published so widely, Axelrad said he had encountered a group of northern Vietnamese veterans on the plane, who recognised him and thanked him for saving one of their “brothers.”
His mission has been accomplished but Axelrad said he would return and write a story about his war experiences for a possible book.
For now, he’s just happy that he got to help his old Vietnamese friend achieve his wish of “being buried whole.” — VNS