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Vets with a mission
This video was created in collaboration with the Community Films Foundation for Vets With a Mission. It highlights the humanitarian work they are doing in Vietnam.
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Vietnam vet Chuck Ward, the group’s executive director, pauses at the memorial to Newberry County war dead near VWAM’s downtown headquarters. Veterans who go on missions, he says, “never expect to be appreciated like they are by the Vietnamese.”
Photo by Walter Allread
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Heart surgery candidate Nguyen Hoang Vinh in 2009 with Dr. David Jester. VWAM’s medical director, Jester says the surgeries often give a child, teen or young adult “a chance at life, because without the operation, the individual would die."
Photo courtesy of VWAM
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Dr. Timothy Stafford, Newberry optometrist, examines a patient in Vietnam.
Photo courtesy of VWAM
Next year, when the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War rolls around, a milestone of mercy and kindness will likely occur as well: Vets With A Mission will fund its 60th heart operation for Vietnamese children in 15 years. The Newberry-based international humanitarian organization is this year marking its 25th year of service to Vietnam veterans, carrying out programs and projects in Vietnam since 1989.
Executive director Chuck Ward says, “We’ve built over 30 medical clinics, a couple of orphanages and other facilities.” The Newberry Electric Cooperative member praises local residents, including about 30 people from Newberry County who have gone to Vietnam on VWAM missions. Medical professionals, Rotary Club members and church groups have participated, he notes.
They’ve been joined by scores of Vietnam veterans from across America. Their experiences helping impoverished Vietnamese fill the group’s website, but Ward says the untold story is how the veterans’ good deeds are often repaid: “They find out that this is one of the most positive, life-changing experiences of their life. They never expected that. They expected to serve, to help the Vietnamese. They end up getting helped themselves.” Some find closure, he says, or relief from troubling wartime memories.
Over its quarter century, VWAM has brought medical aid to the communist Southeast Asian nation and something else, reconciliation — “soldier to soldier, people to people, country to country,” as Ward says.
Reconciliation Dinners on the trips bring together former American and Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers. “Every once in a while we find out two guys were in the same place, the same day – they may have fought against one another,” Ward says. “It’s remarkable because you find out soldiers are the same everywhere. They’re just doing their job. They just hated that they had to kill people. Sometimes people break down and cry.” The warriors-turned-friends sometimes stay in touch via social media, he adds.
While it’s against Vietnamese law for foreigners to proselytize citizens, Ward reminds visiting veterans that actions speak loudest: “Sometimes the only Bible people ever read is you. They’ll watch you. They see how you act, what you say.”
Thanks to Vets With A Mission, a message of love and peace is winning in a place of death, destruction and defeat. Ward notes that young Vietnamese eagerly vie to serve as translators and later keep in touch, curious about democracy and a better life.
“It’s a great experience,” he says.
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Unknown territory - On ‘China Beach,’ a chance encounter is prelude to VWAM trip to North Vietnam