The Road to Reconciliation
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 05 November 2008
"For he himself...has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." - Ephesians 2:14
Forty years ago, two men lived on the opposite sides of a fence. The fence was not ordinary, however, as it surrounded the U.S. military airfield in the coastal town of Da Nang, Vietnam (famed for its "China Beach").
The fence protected both of them. One man was a U.S. Marine aviator who lived inside the patrolled fence. The other, a Viet Cong fighter, lived outside that fence, but so close that he could smell the cigarettes of the American guards; so close that he forbade his men from cooking onions, lest they give their position away.
The American knew they were there, just not where. The Viet Cong knew only to hug the fence: "The closer to the fence the safer we were," he told us last month in Da Nang. "If they found us, they couldn't use artillery or bombs against us because we were so close to them."
One flew 300 bombing missions over Vietnam, receiving multiple medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross. The other was the leader of the Viet Cong resistance in Da Nang, and was recently featured in a major book celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive.
One would land at that airfield, the other would shoot at his plane.
They had two things in common. They were patriots. And so much so that they both missed the birth of their first child in 1968.
They would not meet in person until February 2003 when the former Marine and now president and founder of the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) came to Vietnam seeking to promote religious freedom. (This was just two years after a major crackdown on Christians in Vietnam's Central Highlands.) The former Viet Cong, now a senior religious affairs official, met the former Marine, neither aware of their common service in Da Nang. Mr. Chinh indicated that he would be willing to visit the U.S. at the invitation of IGE.
In May of 2004, Mr. Nguyen Chinh came to America at the invitation of my father, Ambassador Robert Seiple. IGE hosted him for an entire week. We had pleasant but perfunctory meetings, moving slowly from one to the next as Mr. Chinh had a serious limp. That Thursday evening, just before his trip ended, Mr. Chinh decided to share his story with us.
*****
In September of 1968, Mr. Chinh was seized by the South Vietnamese government after a shoot-out in Da Nang, Vietnam. With a bullet through his knee cap, he went to jail for the third and last time. An ardent nationalist, he had been arrested twice before: the first time as a teenager, when he served two years in jail; the second time, as a university leader, escaping after three years. All told, Mr. Chinh spent almost fourteen years in prison because he was fighting for his homeland. His logic was no different than those who fought to establish the United States. He was willing to die for what he believed in.
Officially a Communist party member, and therefore officially atheist - then and today - our friend grew up worshipping his ancestors, as many Vietnamese do. His first encounter with Christianity, however, came as he entered jail for the last time with his broken leg. His jailer, unfortunately, was a South Vietnamese Christian...who tortured him.
Among other things, the jailer would take the foot of the leg that had the broken knee cap - one hand grabbing the heel the other gripping the toes - and then twist, and twist and... "You do not forget the face of a man that does such things," he told us.
With the defeat of South Vietnam in 1975, our friend was freed from his Da Nang jail. Given the impeccable credentials of his prison time and combat experience, he was soon on his way to a very successful career in the government, eventually rising to positions of great influence in a united and Communist Vietnam. Upon his release, however, he found himself at a camp for "collaborators" who had worked for the South Vietnamese government. There he saw his jailer.
Pistol at his side at a time when revenge and justice were often indistinguishable, he confronted his torturer. "I know what you did. Admit it to the authorities. You will serve a short sentence. After it's done, go home and raise a family." With that, he walked away from his torturer, now ashen and trembling. (At the time, the intent was for "collaborators" to serve a short time; later they would serve for extended periods of time, creating great, and deserved, animosity among South Vietnamese toward their Communist conquerors).
Eleven years later - by now well-known throughout Vietnam - Mr. Chinh visited a remote village in the South. As he got off the helicopter, a village elder mysteriously asked if he had been in Da Nang in 1975. The elder soon took him to one of the village homes. An eleven year-old girl answered the door. Upon the wall was his picture. He asked her why this picture was in their home. "We don't know. Daddy keeps it there, but he never talks about it." Can you go get your father? He should be back soon.
As the father emerged from the woods at the edge of the village, he was carrying a long pole across his shoulders, a bucket of water hanging from one end, a captured lizard, in a covered bucket, from the other. The two men, once enemies, recognized each other immediately and were united in the grace that forgiveness brings.'
As the water spilled on the ground and the lizard scrambled away, they ran to embrace. The jailer spoke first. "I did just as you said. I was imprisoned for only eight months and now I have raised a family, like you told me. My name now is..." Mr. Chinh raised his index finger to his lips. "Ssshhhh, if I know more, I cannot protect you." With that, he returned to his helicopter.
When Mr. Chinh was done telling us his story, we simply asked: "Do you know that you did what Jesus did? You forgave when no one asked." Humbly looking down, he replied that the time for peace had come. He also told us that it was his responsibility to endure the hatred of those South Vietnamese who had spent so much time in the "re-education" camps. "I must forgive them as I hope that they will one day forgive me."
Two days later, we had Mr. Chinh to our home with a veteran diplomat from the Vietnamese Embassy. At the end of the day this diplomat said something to me that I will never forget: "IGE staff are the first Americans not to give me a list and tell me what to do." He suggested that I visit Vietnam in October, 2004; which I did.
*****
Four-and-a-half years later, IGE has signed four agreements with the Vietnamese that transparently build trust while helping to create an environment in which people can choose and practice their faith freely. Last month in Hanoi, we signed an agreement through which IGE will work together with the Government Committee for Religious Affairs in its provincial training seminars for local religious and government leaders. Unprecedented, the tangible impact of this agreement, and the three preceding it, can be traced directly back to Mr. Chinh and his 2004 visit.
Despite multiple trips to Vietnam in these past four-plus years, however, we had not had opportunity to meet with Mr. Chinh again. So my father and I went back to Da Nang and spent the afternoon and evening with him on 17 October.
Amidst a pounding rain, we met him in an open-air pagoda nestled against Marble Mountain. Marble Mountain is at the southern edge of China Beach. The U.S. Army used to land its helicopters on top, while the Viet Cong used to hide in caves at the bottom.
Mr. Chinh was effusive noting immediately that he and his wife had read my father's book about reconciliation with Vietnam, A Missing Peace, and that his wife had cried. He then told us that the original translation of the Institute for Global Engagement's name had not been done properly. "Engagement" had been translated as "intervention," unnecessarily reminding Vietnamese leaders of past foreign "interventions" in their country.
Mr. Chinh argued for its present translation: that "engagement" should be translated as "commitment." He told us that this word was a "symbol of Christian values and the Bible - and that is now how you are received in Vietnam."
He then asked us: "Do you know why I am happy?"
Besides seeing us again, Mr. Chinh told us, he was happy that "Christians in the Central Highlands are returning to their own path, the origin of their faith." He meant that Christians were living out their faith, serving others. The impact was that fewer people now thought of the religion as "foreign" or "American" or as part of the separatist movements in the Highlands that use Christianity to disguise their political ambitions to secede from Vietnam. "IGE must be a family friend if it can travel to the sensitive region of the Central Highlands."
After touring Da Nang and the former military base together, we all went out for dinner. We talked some more about the war and Mr. Chinh told us that everyone in his unit had been killed in the war.
We asked him: Why do you think you were allowed to live?
"I originally thought I managed to live when everyone else in my unit died because of three reasons: 1) support of family; 2) a little bit of luck; and, 3) that there must be a superior power watching out for me...if that's the case, however, let's not count the lucky part. So that leaves the first and third reason, and those two are one."
It is my belief that Jesus himself has used Mr. Chinh to help destroy the "dividing wall of hostility" between former combatants and the countries for which they fought. Indeed, we at IGE have learned to expect God at work in the most difficult places in ways beyond our imagination. Humbled but resolute, we look forward to what God will reveal through miracles like Mr. Chinh as we help build peace in places like Vietnam around the world.
Last updated 06 October 2009