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One trip, many hopes Photo by Paul Fattig A Vietnamese farmer walks through a field with his livestock, a typical scene in the rural areas of the country. Some go because they lost relatives and friends in the war. Others just want to help the country's poor. Five Rogue Valley residents make a physical and emotional journey to Vietnam. Editor's note : Today starts a four-day series of stories describing the journey of Rogue Valley travelers, accompanied by Mail Tribune reporter Paul Fattig, to Vietnam. Each had their own reasons for going. Each wanted to make a difference in the country and within themselves. And one had something to lay to rest. Today's story introduces the group and what brought them to Vietnam. BY PAUL FATTIG Mickey Allen Wilson never had a hometown, never hung out at a favorite burger joint with his buddies on Friday night during the late '60s. He was an Army brat, the oldest of four siblings. He marched through his formative years on a squad of military bases in the states as well as Europe. "I never had a place where I could go and say, `Mickey used to hang out here,' " said longtime Medford resident Linda Moreau, 49, his kid sister. "We were really close because we were Army brats who were always moving. And it seems like every place we ever lived has been closed down." Having no sense of place, no hometown, made it all the more difficult for her when her brother was shot down in a UH-1H Huey near Quang Tri on Jan. 8, 1973. The helicopter pilot was 24. Yet, in a way, her brother had found a home in the Vietnamese village of Chu Lai where he courted Mary, the Vietnamese woman he married a month before the crash, and with whom he had a son. The need for closure as well as to find answers is what first drew Linda Moreau and her husband, Nick, to Vietnam in 1996. Linda is a bookkeeper for a periodontist in Medford; Nick, a Navy veteran who served in the Philippines during the Vietnam War, is a Forest Service employee. And the desire to help heal the wounds of war for others who served is what caused them to return this month, after organizing a local volunteer dental/medical team. This mission, in addition to meeting Vietnamese in-laws and visiting the crash site, was to help a dental clinic and orphanage operated by the nonprofit East Meets West Foundation in the Da Nang area. The Moreaus led a volunteer surgical team from the Rogue Valley to Vietnam in 1997. Linda Moreau has written a book about her epic emotional and physical trip to deal with the grief of losing a brother in a foreign land. "Da Nang to Memphis" will be published this fall. The book will tell of her tracking down her Vietnamese sister-in-law who now lives in Tennessee with Moreau's nephew. The issue isn't about politics, but about people, she stressed. "I want to help all the veterans who were fighting for peace," she said. "If we can come over and help bring peace, then they didn't die in vain." That sounded fine to Marvin Woods, 62, who retired a year ago this month from his Ashland dental practice. Hailing from a family that began practicing medicine in Ashland shortly after the turn of the century, Woods has been on humanitarian trips to provide free dental care in Mexico and Honduras. "We've always had an interest in helping poor people," explained the Army veteran who served as an officer in Germany just before the Vietnam War erupted. His wife, Jan, 53, agreed. She is a registered nurse and retired associate professor from Southern Oregon University. "It amazes me how Linda has taken something so tragic and turned it into something positive," she said. "We wanted to help." So did Nancy Ramey, 52, a dental assistant from East Main Dental Center in Medford. A 1965 graduate of Medford Senior High School, she had friends from the Rogue Valley who served in Vietnam. Some didn't return. One was classmate Fred Graten of Medford, a Marine killed April 11, 1968, near Dong Ha, a village just north of Quang Tri. "I had a terrible crush on Fred ... it was so unfair, what happened to him," she said. Ramey, who protested the war in college, noted she was opposed to the war, not the warriors. "To think that a little bitty country all the way over here could cause such confusion and uproar in our lives for so many years ... it still amazes me," Ramey said. "The Rogue Valley had such a `Happy Days' existence back then. "Our idea of a wild time was 12 people getting a six-pack of beer and going to the drive-in," she added. "Vietnam was a reality check." Reality checked in again when the team landed in what is officially Ho Chi Minh City, although most Vietnamese still refer to it by its historic name of Saigon. The bustling city with more than 4 million residents never seems to sleep. Horns honk night and day. The Rogue Valley residents rented a van and driver to follow Highway 1 from Saigon to Da Nang, some 600 miles north. Originally built by Americans during the war, it's Vietnam's answer to Interstate 5, albeit it's narrower and teeming with people using bikes, motorcycles, carts pulled by water buffalo and every nature of motor vehicle. Each motorized vehicle honks continuously as its driver weaves through the endless stream of humanity. It would take two days to reach Da Nang in white-knuckle conditions that Jan Woods described as more stressful than four cardiac arrests in an emergency room. Vietnam, covering just 127,242 square miles, has a population of some 75 million people, all of whom seemed to be traveling along Highway 1. In comparison, California has about 30 million people inhabiting a space of 158,706 square miles. While Americans can help Vietnam, one of the poorest nations on Earth, they can also learn a lot, observed Charles "Fritz" Craft, 42, an Alaskan dentist who started the free dental clinic in Da Nang in 1995. "The Vietnamese are tremendous people," said Craft, who greeted the Oregonians in Da Nang. "If we just take the time to study the etiquette and the culture the way we should have the first time we were here, we can learn to cooperate and make it a better place for the Vietnamese." Linda Moreau agrees that it's time to make Vietnam a place, not a war. "I originally came over here to say goodbye to my brother," she said. "It was for closure. Now I want do what I can do to help bring peace. "If all you do is keep hating, then nothing changes," she added. Photo by Paul Fattig Da Nang, Vietnam resident Tha Huynh grins as she gets a kiss from her daughter Yolanda, a Portland resident who was visiting Vietnam earlier this month. Yolanda's brother Bryan lives in Medford. Another Medford-Vietnam link BY PAUL FATTIG Medford resident Bryan Huynh can tell you that good things come in small packages. The one he is thinking about is less than 5 feet tall, wrinkled and on the other side of the planet in Vietnam. "It was very hard for our mom to raise us without our father," said Huynh, 42, born and reared in Da Nang. "But she worked hard. She is very strong, very good." His mother, Tha Huynh, 78, now has a new home thanks to her grown children who chipped in to have it built. Bryan is one of nine children, including two who died at birth. Three now live in Oregon. Their father died when Bryan was 5. "This is much better than where we used to live," said his sister, Yolanda Huynh, 39, a Portland resident, who was in Da Nang earlier this month to visit their mother. She gave Rogue Valley visitors of the new house that, although small by American standards, looms large in Da Nang. Back in Medford, Bryan explained that the new house was a token of respect for their elderly matriarch. "When our parents are old, they are getting very close to going to another world," he said. "We try to do everything we can to help them. My mom wants a good house. So we get one for her." He and his wife, Anh, and their children, Arthur, 10, and Alexander, 7, are among the small but growing Vietnamese community in the Rogue Valley. He adopted the name of Bryan when he became an American citizen in 1989. He escaped from Vietnam on a fishing boat in July 1978, three years after the Communists took over what was South Vietnam. Although he pretended to be a fisherman, most of the 18 in the boat were hiding under the deck. "It took us about three nights and four days to get to Hong Kong," he said, adding that he arrived in the United States seven months later. "I first came to New York -- it was cold," he said. "When the airplane land, I wondered why it land on sand. Then they told me it was snow." Chilled to the bone, he went to California, attended college to become an automotive mechanic and eventually arrived in Oregon. When he first escaped, his letters back to his family were not delivered. "Every one of them, the Communists took away," he said. "I don't hear from my family." But he can now send letters freely. "Yes, it is opening up a little now," he said. "It was so bad, before I escaped, that we could not have private conversations. Two people talking to each other, we could not do that. They wanted to know what we are talking about. "If you talking about government, you go to jail right away," he said. Too many Americans fail to appreciate their freedom, he said. "Young people in this country have the opportunity and freedom to become whatever they want," he said. "But so many don't take the opportunity. They just fool around and waste their life. That's terrible." Since he left to start a new life in the United States, Bryan has visited Vietnam twice. He and his family plan to return this summer, dropping in to see the small, elderly woman with the new house in Da Nang. "Every time I go over there and see the poor people, I thank about how really fortunate I am," he said. "And I thank the American people for giving me the opportunity to have this life in the Rogue Valley." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA