That time Justin’s grandfather found himself in Vietnam War footage

Happy Veterans Day, Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day to those who commemorate.

On this November 11, 131 Off-Road would like to cede the floor to the editor-in-chief for a bit of an interesting research effort a few years back. Ordinarily, this would better fit his personal blog, but as stated in our “Introducing Blogs” announcement last month, there will be times where his WordPress blog can’t be used such as if he wants to upload files. This is one of those times. You could argue this fits within 131‘s historical scope, but that’d be stretching it. Either way, being a personal post, this is written in first person.

As you can probably tell from my surname, I am Vietnamese. My parents came to the United States from Vietnam, albeit via different means such that you might be not consider them war refugees in the traditional sense of immediately escaping as Saigon fell. My father’s side ended up in Malaysia, including a stay at the Sungai Besi refugee camp in 1985, before eventually making it stateside. My mother’s side couldn’t afford to get out in 1975, and it wasn’t until approximately 1993 that a sponsor covered for their flight to America. Still, you could probably consider the latter fleeing political persecution given my grandfather’s background.

Ông Ngoại, as I call him in Vietnamese, hasn’t been in the best of health in the past year. In July, he underwent a procedure that led to a longer hospital stay than planned; I was at Anime Expo when the operation happened, and I’d be lying if I said the news didn’t put a damper on the weekend. Without going into detail on his medicals, it’s been a difficult stretch for the family as a whole as everyone’s got their own health problems that we juggle with helping out.

Every Saturday, my cousins and I visit the grandparents for lunch. Some days, Grandpa is be in bed watching YouTube on the TV. Other days, he’s sitting in the living room, eating lunch at the dining table, or making a side comment about my cousins’ misbehavior.

The videos he watches vary: brain games to stay mentally sharp, politics as someone who keeps a close eye on American and international news, unfortunately the occasional AI slop like most older folks who aren’t Internet-savvy, et cetera. Naturally, he’ll watch stuff from Vietnam too like slice-of-life vlogs or content related to the war like musical performances and combat footage. When it’s the latter, Grandpa tends to discuss his service in the ARVN. He’s also stayed connected with his former allies and attended reunions for veterans, though those have understandably been curtailed due to his health.

Before commissioning, Dean Nguyen studied at Thủ Đức Military Academy in the early 1960s. He became an officer at a time when American involvement escalated. While he has much love for the USA to this day, he continues to hold grudges against Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon for Vietnamization and the latter’s 1972 visit to China, seeing both as the Americans selling out the South.

As the final US troops withdrew in 1973, defeat seemed inevitable as ammunition started to run out. With the family unable to leave Vietnam in ’75, he was captured and taken to a reeducation camp in Thanh Hóa. While relatively close to Hanoi, the location was apparently so remote that the Museum of Flight’s map of Vietnamese prisons doesn’t have it marked. (I had a wonderful conversation with a Huey pilot in this wing of the museum when I visited in April, and he gave Grandpa his blessings.)

One story I remember entailed his wife and their sons—ergo, my grandmother and two uncles—on a UH-1 Iroquois looking to sneak food in for him. The helicopter flew around the perimeter, avoiding fire—my grandmother remarked that “God was with them”—before landing. She was told to lay low in breast-deep water to avoid detection while delivering food. When she took a step, the noise alerted the guards to a middleman who was supposed to transfer the food, leading to the liaison being killed. She avoided injury herself.

Upon his release 13 years later in 1988, leaving for America was the main goal. The Reagan administration approved the move and a pastor (who passed away earlier this year) sponsored their flight. Still, money remained tight. In the eight months after being released, the family could only borrow USD$300 every month while paying back around $20 to $40. My grandmother worked as a babysitter to help make ends… well, “meet” really doesn’t work when the ends were miles apart, does it?

A few years ago (I want to say 2021?), Grandpa was on YouTube browsing film reels from his military days. Eventually, he came across a video of the 4th Ranger Group operating alongside American troops in the U Minh Forest in December 1970. Located in the Mekong Delta, the forest was a Viet Cong stronghold that the unit was tasked with clearing out.

Via 16mm Bell & Howell Filmo, Christopher Jensen of the 221st Signal Company and Southeast Asia Pictorial Center recorded him watching over his men with a reed in hand.

Jensen often works with Vietnam veterans and their families to identify those in his recordings. My family reached out by email for and got permission for clearer shots that could be blown up into framed photographs. Those and a reply came back in the following weeks, and a trip to Target later means said pictures hang on the hallway wall today.

The available film, which is provided below in the unedited YouTube form and a stabilized Vimeo edit, mainly consists of soldiers wading through swamps and standing around on break. The man shown next to my grandfather in the provided clip was his superior at the time, though he eventually surpassed him in rank. A medic accompanied them through the tall grass.

While taking a breather, they had a refrigerator bought by the Americans. Everybody smoked, he noted, especially when eating the food in the packs on their backs. Speaking of food, ARVN personnel were much skinnier compared to the well-fed Americans.

These clips are interspersed with shots of CH-47 Chinooks and Hueys landing and picking up troops; such helicopters typically carried ten people at a time. It is not depicted in Jensen’s videos, but Grandpa recalled seeing one getting shot down while waiting for extraction.

In the 50-plus years since, he still returns to that footage to reminisce. (Yes, this article’s featured image is of him watching himself.)