Team IV arrived in-country in March, 1992. The members of the team and Vietnamese built a medical clinic in Xuan Hiep, just north of Ho Chi Minh City before the team returned to the US. Photographs of the team's activities are shown below.
Jim's Story
My introduction to the VVRP came from a story in the LA Times about a nurse who returned to Viêt Nam with Team III. I was driven to find the where abouts of the organization and to see if someone like me who had served three years in Viêt Nam as a civilian technical and weapons advisor would qualify for a future team. I never considered myself in need of healing from my Viêt Nam experience since I was never in close combat and never saw friends or foe being killed. However, over three years, Viêt Nam became my adopted country since I saw the effects of the war, the destruction, fear, pain and misery of the country and it's people. I became very comfortable living there.
Returning to Viêt Nam with the VVRP gave me a chance to do two things. The first was to meet and travel with a group of Viêt Nam Vets who in most cases had made a much greater investment in Viêt Nam than I had. They were a great bunch of guys, all of whom I shall never forget. The second was to see Viêt Nam more as a special invited guest of the government, than as a tourist. The VVRP gave me a reason for being in Viêt Nam.
I shall never forget the friendships of the team members, the group bonding sessions at Sebastopol, the jogging around HCMC and the park-like setting of the Hoa Binh Hotel, my walking trips around the village of Xuan Hiep and the children that surrounded us during all of our activities. I went to Viêt Nam to satisfy an unexplainable urge to return and now I'm very glad I did.
Jim Belisle - Team IV
Mike's Story
As a carpenter here in the states, I'm used to a wide variety in choices of materials and a relatively unlimited supply of them. There are also a dozen machines available for any particular operation. Viêt Nam was a completely different story. The only machine used during the construction of the clinic at Xuan Hiep was a bulldozer, which looked like it predated the Civil War. After it had scraped the area clean it was hand tools from then on: picks and shovels to dig the foundation, concrete mixed on the ground with shovels, granite blocks for the foundation which had been cut from boulders using hammers and chisels.
In spite of this, work progressed quickly and smoothly, and had an elegance which I admired. I developed a profound respect for the Vietnamese, for their tenacity, industriousness and most of all, their spirit. As I got to know the Vietnamese, really for the first time, I would hear of their losses during the war. Some had lost arms and legs, some their whole families. Yet that never translated to hatred for us. Their attitude really is: "Let bygones be bygones."
It didn't end there for me though. Hearing this from the Vietnamese and hearing the stories from my friends who were in the bush, and how they suffered and some still are; all this became an emotional assault for me. I would try to make sense off it, but just ended up crying and confused.
I finally realized that I would never understand it, but for my own peace, I had to mark it somehow. So, I went to the My Lai Memorial with some of the other vets. And I played Taps on my fiddle, for all that pain and suffering of both the Americans and Vietnamese. And now having made that gesture, I think I can move on.
Roy Mike Boehm, Team IV
Daven's Story
After returning from Viêt Nam, the '92' tour, I found myself wondering...."Did I really make a difference. Had I realized any changes in Myself? Had I begun to heal?"
I had helped build the medical clinic. I had visited the battlefields I fought on twenty-three years ago. I stood, remarkably, shaking hands and talking with a V.C. officer who had opposed me and my fellow Marines during Operation Pipestone Canyon in 1969 --- on the very ground (Dodge City) we fought each other on. I visited the memorial at My Lai and paid my respects to not only the 504 Vietnamese who were murdered there, but to all the senseless casualties of that war. I had made many, many friends in Viêt Nam, one in particular, whom I hope to marry. But had I changed?
My answers came, at least initially, through the comments of friends and family members. One friend in particular cleared the muddy waters of my dilemma.
Ray, a fellow Viêt Nam combat veteran (who suffers from severe P.T.S.D.) had told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had to be "crazy" to want to return to Viêt Nam. He could not understand why I would surround myself with "gooks" intentionally. I sent Ray a postcard from Viêt Nam. I was careful to keep my comments general and without detail in deference to his attitude. A few days after returning home, I called Ray. His first comment was "I received your postcard and couldn't help reading between the lines. It was easy. You sounded happy, content, at peace. It was like you had finally gone home." He went on to say that, although he thought I was insane to go back, he had changed his mind completely about my return.
A few days ago, Ray drove to Columbia from Wichita to visit for a couple of days. He said he had to see if I looked as good as I sounded on the phone. During his stay, Ray mentioned over and over again the change he has seen in me. He commented that he had never seen me so happy, so relaxed - so at peace with myself.
I have to agree with Ray. I do feel "different," better, changed. I feel as though I have found my niche. My life has a direction. My future is bright and filled with hope.
I am returning to Viêt Nam in June to deliver medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to the Friendship Clinic in Vung Tau and to help lay the groundwork for future VVRP projects. Ray is going with me.
Daven Gallup, Team IV
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