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| The original diary. |
VietNamNet – ‘Dang Thuy Tram’s Diary’- a relic of a Vietnamese doctor-soldier found by a US veteran over 35 years ago and later a best-selling book, will be screened as a television documentary
Early this year, at a seminar in the US entitled ‘the American War in Vietnam’, two US war veterans, brothers Fred and Robert Whitehurst, presented a diary written by a Vietnamese doctor, they had found during the war. Fred Whitehurst had been holding the diary for more than 35 years with the hope that one day he would locate the author’s family and return it. The diary contains affectionate passages regarding Vietnam and humanity.
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“Everyone to whom I have ever shown the work has been moved by her writing. We feel that she is not a private hero, meaning that though her memory is very precious to you and us, that there is a meaning for everyone in her work. Her words have a universal appeal, to all people.” - Robert Whitehurst |
The presentation made a great impact on another war veteran, Ted Engelmann, who had already returned to Vietnam 11 times. The diary touched him so strongly that he decided to visit Tram’s family and return it. In April 2005, the diary was returned to the author’s mother, Doan Thi Ngoc Tram.
The diary has since been published by the ‘Writer’s Association Publishing House’, and in additions, Tuoi Tre (Youth), a local newspaper published a serial on the diary, establishing a strong public following and respect. The diary has become a best seller in Vietnam over the last 10 years, according to an official from the HCM City Book Distribution Company (Fred Whitehurst earlier translated it into English).
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| Doctor-soldier Dang Thuy Tram. |
Dang Thuy Tram was an army doctor who died in battle in 1970 during the American War. After she died, the family recovered some of her belongings – but not the diary.
According to Fred, after a violent US attack on a Vietnamese base in 1970, US soldiers advanced to a small deserted hospital. That day, Fred discovered many documents at the hospital, and with the assistance of Nguyen Trung Hieu, a translator working with the American unit, he selected and kept important documents, while burning others. Over the following nights, Fred and Hieu read the diary together, discovering that Tram was the head-doctor of the hospital. She had stayed behind to fight Fred’s unit after ordering her colleagues and patients to go.
Amazingly, Hieu also found Tram’s second diary, which he gave to Fred, who then brought both back to the US. Fred later took the diaries to the Vietnam Research Academy of Texas Technical University in Lubbock. After the diaries’ return to Vietnam, a documentary film, and a hospital named in Dang Thuy Tram’s honour have been established.
This week, Fred Whitehurst and Robert Whitehurst, came to Vietnam. Together with Vietnam Television they will make a television show on the hero. On 8pm August 28, the two veterans will have a direct talk show at Vietnam Television Channel VTV1.
Along with Dang Thuy Tram’s Diary, another diary, also written by a journalist-martyr Nguyen Van Thac, entitled ‘Forever 20 Years of Age’, is also favoured by readers at present. The diary details the life of the young man who left college as a junior student, before joining the war effort.
Thac was enlisted to the Vietnamese army on October 2, 1971. He died in May 1972, at age 20. After only one year in the army, Thac wrote 240 pages of diary. Extraordinarily, he predicted the date of his country’s future victory. The words in his diary for lover, Nhu Anh were: “Dear lover! Please wait for me until April 30, 1975, when I will answer you regarding ‘what happiness is”. Written on September 4, 1971, before he died some months later in May 1972, the young soldier cited April 30, 1975, Liberation Day of Vietnam.
Hoang Huong | 
