Da Nang, Vietnam – Richard Brown didn’t expect to find himself crying by the roadside in Vietnam. He returned to Da Nang, the place where he loaded bombs aimed at Vietnamese targets, seeking feelings of anger or resentment. But during his first week there, a local biker approached him, took his hand, and expressed gratitude: “I want to thank you and your country for coming here and helping my country become free.”
After that, Richard found himself alone, overcome with emotion.
“I’ve had experiences like this time and again,” Richard shared with me, seated near the old Churai Air Base where, as a child, he had spent a year. This man, once a 5’4,” 115-pound former Hell’s Angels drug runner, had enlisted in the Marines as a way to avoid prison.
On his first day in Vietnam during the war, he found himself drinking with new acquaintances. “Then someone pulled out a joint,” he recalled. “That’s the last thing I remember until I got to the plane heading home.”
His role as a “bomb humper” meant loading Napalm and rockets into F-4s. “Honestly, we were a bigger danger to ourselves than anything the Vietnamese could do.”
When the war concluded, Richard returned home but sensed no one wanted to discuss his experiences. “Nobody cared; no one wanted to know what it was really like.” He went on to become an aircraft mechanic and FAA supervisor. Fast-forward decades, he stood nervously at the Vietnam Consulate in California, thinking he might be denied entry or confronted. Yet, he filled out a visa application, shakingly handed it over, and got approval a week later for just $25.
My trip to Hanoi occurred just after Unification Day, a time when Vietnam celebrates its victory in what is often referred to as the American War. The streets were adorned with red flags and old slogans. A few locals spoke about it almost sheepishly, as if acknowledging the painful memories of a country’s defeat. In the U.S., we typically celebrate our victories—Normandy, Desert Storm—while burying our losses. But for many veterans, scattered from Hanoi to Da Nang, that wasn’t enough. They chose to come back.
For a lot of these men, Da Nang holds significant meaning. It was often the first and last stop for them in Vietnam—a place where they both arrived and departed. Since the 1990s, tens of thousands of veterans have returned, mostly for brief visits to see the locations where they fought. Some decided to stay. Once a major air force base, Da Nang is now a vibrant coastal city, full of condos, coffee shops, and stunning beaches, frequently ranked among the most livable places in Vietnam. It symbolizes many things: Agent Orange, bombings, and farewells.
Richard feels more at home in Da Nang than he does in Boston. For many years, he worked in Ho Chi Minh City, where he was often treated as a hero by locals, though he faced cold stares from others who learned he was a veteran. “When they found out, it was clear they didn’t see me as one of them,” he reflected.
It was a former pilot from North Vietnam who helped change this dynamic. “We weren’t enemies; we just wore different uniforms and received different orders,” he said.
Gordy Thomas also returned home. After his time in the war ended in 1972, he experienced what many veterans endured: silence and stigma. “We learned not to talk about it,” he said. “It’s like being sidelined for your beliefs; you become ‘canceled’ for your affiliations.”
Years later, after receiving a veteran disability rating, he sold his house near Nashville and returned to Da Nang. He expressed that living there helped him confront the “moral injury” of war—the notion that American lives hold more value than those of the Vietnamese.
“Coming back has been incredibly healing for my PTSD,” he explained. He now donates part of his pension to a school in his wife’s hometown, providing much-needed support. “This is my way of giving back to the very people my government sent me to fight against,” he stated, finding purpose and connection.
Like Richard, Gordy also didn’t know many Vietnamese during the war. He eventually met and married a Vietnamese woman years later.
Matt Keenan’s experience reflects a sense of unfinished business. He came to Vietnam in 1971 to assist in “Vietnamizing” the conflict. In 2014, after being diagnosed with cancer linked to Agent Orange, he felt compelled to return and witness the lives affected by exposure to the toxic chemicals.
He discovered his role at the Danang Association for Agent Orange victims, volunteering with children with disabilities due to the long-term effects of the spraying. “They feel like family to me now,” he said. While he appreciates the beauty of the beaches, his primary focus is on his commitment to Vietnam. He participated in a memorial ritual for a soldier, standing alongside President Biden as he returned a diary lost decades ago to a former Vietnamese soldier. He, too, found his partner in Vietnam and got married.
Before leaving Hanoi, I visited the Hoa Lo prison, known as the Hanoi Hilton. Its yellow walls once held Vietnamese revolutionaries during colonial times, but during the Vietnam War, it told a sanitized version of events, showcasing smiling American POWs and curated images of leisure activities.
Not too far away, in a simple home in West Hanoi, I met Ngongọc Duong, who, through a translator, shared that he joined the North Vietnamese army at just 18 and fought for 16 years as a reconnaissance soldier.
He recounted an encounter where American helicopters chased him for miles as he sought refuge. “They had the most advanced technology, but in the end, they couldn’t take me down,” he said.
His daughter was born deaf and faced intellectual challenges, a legacy of Agent Orange’s impact. Still, he views American soldiers as victims of war too. “They didn’t seek to invade; they followed orders, just like us,” he reflected. “In combat, we were adversaries, but in life, we share dreams and pain.”
That’s why he warmly welcomes American veterans even today, emphasizing a desire to connect and promote a message of peace.
All four men were visibly moved as they recounted their stories. They arrived as young soldiers armed and dangerous, but returned years later, equipped with a sense of purpose, local families, and personal histories entwined with the land. They stand on the same ground they once bombed, and now, it feels more like home than where they originally came from.
