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The Relentless Call From Vietnam

By Ngan Nguyen (reviewer)

When Eagles Vie with Valkyries: War and the Journey Home
by Paul Hellweg
(self-published, 2024)

On a humid summer afternoon in Saigon ten years ago, I tried to hold back my tears while listening to the elderly man with no legs telling me about his life. Nguyen Van Thuong was a double agent in the Vietnam War. After being captured in 1969, the Americans offered him a beautiful and smart woman, a check with $100,000, and a one-way airplane ticket to choose any country that was in alliance with America. He declined. The CIA tortured him by smashing his feet and then amputating his legs. This process was repeated six times until two stumps were left. Thuong remained silent. I asked Thuong which choice was tougher for him. I looked at his cloudy eyes and let this hero gently lead me to his past.

One day, I read When Eagles Vie with Valkyries: War and the Journey Home, a collection of poems about the Vietnam War and its consequences written by Paul Hellweg, an American soldier in Vietnam during the time the CIA tortured Thuong. A strange feeling rushed into my mind as I have no idea how my country has haunted Paul. As I belong to a generation that was born after 1975, what I learned at school or read about the wars with China, France, and America was that our Vietnamese soldiers are heroes. The world-famous novel The Sorrow of War, written by Bao Ninh, tells the story of a Northern soldier who, after leaving university, embarked on a wounding journey based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. His book was never mentioned at school, and it was banned for a time in Vietnam. Paul's poetry led me on a journey that enabled me to perceive my own country's war through different eyes.

As fresh as morning dew, twenty-three-year-old Paul arrived in Xuan Loc, Dong Nai, around one hundred kilometers from Saigon in the summer of 1968. He would have never imagined what was waiting for him, that Lunar New Year, which marked a milestone for the coming failure of American troops and Southern Vietnam. Only four months later, his troops got caught in a land mine blast. Witnessing so many comrades' deaths and injuries, and even himself getting severely injured, he almost felt the cold hand of the Grim Reaper. Whenever the weather changes, his left shoulder reminds him of the painful incidents in 1968 and other unforgettable memories in Vietnam. One year in Vietnam, but it lasts forever on his body and mind.

Reading these poems enables me to follow Paul's journey, an example of an American generation that stepped onto the land of a tropical country with different motivations for young and innocent men, even those who had no choice in their lives.

   We all had our reasons
   for joining the cause,
   patriotism
   anti-communism
   idealism
   romanticism,
   and all too frequently,
   no other option.
   —War: The Road More Traveled

Being enthusiastic for life, those young men joined a war that did not know what was waiting for them. War has many faces, but none of them are glory or honor.

   You realize you're still on the ground,
   on your knees, struggling, unable to rise,
   and you have a flash of comprehension,
   you are too far away from Bobby
   for all the blood to be his.
   —All the Blood

The truth proved too harshly, violently, and quickly. The question of whether they killed Viet Cong or civilians who were young or old, women, children, or men tortured a young man. Those dead are human, even though they were just a number that the soldiers reported back to the heartless people sitting in the office.

   Your platoon sergeant walks the field,
   reports counting thirty-two enemy dead.
   you want to ask their ages. You do not.
   First day in the field and
   emotional numbing has begun.
   —The FNG

Until one day, what is in the soldiers' mind is just the instinct of a living creature of how to survive.

   Emotionally drained,
   you want to remember and honor
   but mostly you're just grateful
   and pray your boots
   moldy and mildewed
   remain where they are,
   on your feet.
   —Boot in the Mud

Vietnam became the furnace for these American men who were too young to perceive the line between the truth and lies but one thing they realized was how they lost their youth and innocence.

   Day of innocence, days of youth,
   days when your biggest losses
   were from the football team
   wearing your colors, purple and gold.

   Days before the egret's snowy plumage
   became flecked in red, and
   Mike Company lost three captains
   in as many weeks.
   —Finding a Fourth

When Eagles Vie with Valkyries, Paul's title for his collection of poems, urged me to watch the clip "Ride of Valkyries" in Apocalypse Now. The mixed emotions of anger, horror, and fear tortured me. It reminds me of the strange and scary night when my neighbor came back from visiting his original village in Quang Ngai province, came to our house, and showed us the picture book about the My Lai massacre. That was the first time I had seen the horrific pictures about the war and what American troops did to Vietnamese people. Did I lose my childhood after seeing those pictures that very evening? How about Paul or other young American men who stepped on Vietnamese land and found that they lost their innocence?

   To endure war is
   only meaningful if
   you come out alive
   not too badly damaged,
   and with something
   at the other end.
   —Prey for War

How many soldiers or civilians left the war without an invisible scar? In the second part of this book, Paul describes how the war haunted his life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) engulfed the veterans from the death of their comrades and Vietnamese people who were Viet Cong or civilians. There were ways for people to forget the past and float through the present with alcohol dependence or whatever they could. As a hero who received two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart for his service in the Vietnam War, Paul feels:

   Strange,
   seeing as how today
   you have difficulty
   summoning the courage
   to face the emptiness
   of doing a load of laundry
   or making a piece of toast.
   —Hero

These above words brought the image of Steve Butler, a US Marine in Heaven and Earth, that helped me understand more about the Vietnam War. The ghost of the past haunted Steve, leading him to have a painful ending, which, thank goodness, never happened to Paul. It took Paul nearly forty years after serving in Vietnam to return to this country to face the shadow of the past.

   The dead from that was so long ago
   continue to haunt.
   You wish it were possible to speak with them,
   but you know not what language.
   —Ghosts

On the journey to search for peace in the country that stole his youth, Love found its way and a happy ending for a lost American veteran who was a mixed heritage child who brought hope to his life.

   Home is the place most difficult to find
   buried under debris thrown up by memory
   blood of both types on hands,
   and now a tiny one holds tight.
   —Michele

Paul was a hero in his journey of facing the wounded past and searching for a peaceful way to live for the present and future. By narrating his life, which is related to the Vietnam War, through poetry, Paul chose a beautiful way to let the past have a meaningful message to other generations. When Eagles Vie with Valkyries: War, and the Journey Home is an anti-war voice from an American veteran who knows "The Sorrow of War" from his gut.

Ngan Nguyen is a Vietnamese-born author who lives in Scotland and has successfully published ten books in the Vietnamese language.