Saigon Stories

A Hanoi school girl gives flowers to Uncle Ho. An 18 year old Mekong Delta farm boy joins the Viet Minh. A Member of Parliament of the South Vietnamese government protests against his own American-backed regime and then negotiates the surrender of his country, yet he knows nothing about the Viet Cong. A South Vietnamese army officer survives the war, re-education camp, and prison to build Vietnam’s largest English language business newspaper. And an entrepreneur who hid insider her father’s coat during the American bombing raids of Hanoi in the early ‘70s spends 30 minutes chatting with Hillary during President Bill Clinton’s State Visit to Vietnam in 2000.

These are some of the storytellers in Saigon Stories. This book does what most histories and modern descriptions of Vietnam have not done – it brings real Vietnamese voices and experiences to what has happened and is happening in the country that dented America’s soul. Nearly 40 years after the end of the war, Vietnam remains a war and not a country to many people in America and other Western countries. These stories will change that perception for the better.

These oral histories have been captured in audio format. Thanks to the whiz kids of the digital age, these stories can be heard by readers just like the author did when he first recorded the narratives back in 2003 and 2004. In an age when so much political and historical information seems to arrive second hand through cable TV and talk radio, this is a chance to hear about the war in Vietnam from the people who were there in person right up to the very end and beyond. This is rare history akin to having a tape recorder turned on for the final conversations at the Appomattox Courthouse, the Palace of Versailles in Paris, or on board the USS Missouri.

Visit www.SaigonStories.com for more information, stories, and to listen to the oral history narratives that were recorded for this book.