Subj: Operation homecoming U.S.A.
Date: 6/22/2005 10:54:41 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: speck<>@hotmail.com
To: letters@gratitude.org
Dear Linh Duy Vo,
It was my pleasure meeting you for the first time and God please let it be the first of many meetings with you as well as your family. I wanted to let you know how proud I am to have met with you. I am the sister of Bruce Bowland 101 st. Airborne 1970. We are about the same HEIGHT as you pointed out upon our meeting in Branson at the canteen. Please tell your family "Thank You" and how wonderful they are for graciously letting us share you for such a blessed event as Father's Day not to mention the entire event of Operation Homecoming U.S.A.
I am including a photo of you, my brother (in white t-shirt ) and the other guy is nick named
snake-man his real name starts with a W. I met so many brothers this last week. Eventually I will get to know them better. This was just my second event that I have shared with my brother. Holy
Indescribable is all I can manage to say at this point as it is all sinking in. May God continue to bless each veteran sharing in this great healing of ours as well as their families and our Nation.
Thank you again for your time
God bless you and yours
Sandy Houghtaling
Gooooooood Morning, Vietnam!
Thirty years ago, looking back for the sake of history/memory, not to live in it, I have gotten the meaning of my
journey. I have been present to my journey, not my destination. For me there is no destination, for it's when my journey ends. Why should I let it be ended? --Linh Duy Vo, Poet
Subj: Dear white Man/ Operation Homecoming U.S.A
Date: 6/27/2005 3:04:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
To: poet@gratitude.org
Dear Linh,
On reading Dear White Man, I was taken back to a vision still in my mind of you and I walking together on the mountain top. As we walked together I observed other vets with confusion written on there faces. A Marine walking with the enemy that cant be! I could see they were still trapped in that time so many years ago. But could also see the want and need for healing. We saw this healing at the wall by many who gathered around us to hear your healing words, your heart felt devotion to the Black Granite Wall that calls us all to remembrance. I pray for those I saw with this wondering look, pray they come to peace with themselves and others, and it will be their good fortune to come upon your work and know your heart as I do. So many people in our country fail to remember that we are all aliens to this land. My family came here in 1740 and have fought in every conflict our nation has seen, but I am no more an American than you or others who give their heart to her and work to make her the marvel she is today. It is those who come here for nothing other than to take what they can get, and give nothing back that cause those looks you write of in your poem. I remember as a child those who lived in my neighborhood who came from what they called the old country wherever that may have been, they were so proud of being here, but most especially of being Americans! I thank God for becoming your friend (Family) I pray for continued success in the path God has put you on. I would also like to send thanks to Monique, Tam, Tan, and Trung for their sacrifice of your time and attention to them. I pray that they know that the healing your words and actions bring are no l less important than a cardiologists prescription for a heart patient. Ours is a condition of the heart! I must say after attending Operation Homecoming U.S.A. and meeting you has helped to improve my personal heart condition greatly, and because of that I will be able to help others do the same.
Sincerely,
Garry and Jane
This note is for Gary Linderer
My name is Garry L. Summers I was with Linh at Operation Homecoming U.S.A. I am a former Marine served 67/68. I cant begin to thank you enough for your hard work and dedication to us all in this event. Being in public transportation I know the logistical problems you must have encountered. I also know that you cant please everyone and it seems those are the only ones you hear from. So I'm writing to personally thank you for an incredible week of healing and treasured times with my wife Jane, and fellow Nam Vets. I wish you could have seen the healing that came over an amputee that Linh wrote a poem for, and a nurse who worked for the Vet Center. Also those who gathered around at the wall to listen to him read his work. You could see them saying to them selves this is the something positive we have been searching for thirty-seven years, seeing what we did, what we endured, and those who gave all was not in vain! Again thank you for all of your hard work and know it will not be forgotten by this old Marine.
God bless you and your family
Garry
Subj: From California with Love and Gratitude
Date: 6/26/2005 9:32:57 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Poet Linh D Vo
To: glind@operationhomecomingusa.com, blind@operationhomecomingusa.com
Dear Papa-San Gary and Ma Barbara,
Here are some photos that you have blessed me with (gratitude.org/branson.htm).
If it were not for your loving invitation, I would not have treasured such warm memories. Operation Homecoming USA in my heart was and is a monumental task.
And with your difficult physical/medical condition, you went on to make it happen. It's such a gift you have created in the face of expectations from all directions.
Thank you and God bless you, yours and God bless America.
Prayerfully yours,
Linh Duy Vo and Family
Subj: Re: Love and Thanksgiving
Date: 11/30/2004 8:29:38 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: Scribe17@aol.com
To: Poet Linh D Vo
Hello, Linh
Sorry I had to wait until after Thanksgiving to write about your interest in becoming an embedded poet in Iraq. Now, I have a few questions. The sooner you can answer via E-mail, the sooner I can put the column in the Press-Telegram. Tom Hennessy
1. Why do you want to be an embedded poet?
My eternal debt of love and gratitude to the U.S.A., as I once was a teenage refugee from Vietnam. It's my innate altruism that is the core of my desire to be there with our American troops. As an embedded poet, I can be a witness to the sacrifice of America's sons and daughters. I will be present to the positive results that the Americans have brought to the innocent Iraqis: the liberty, the transformations that enable the Iraqi people to do and have things that Saddam Hussein had
once controlled.
2. To whom have you applied?
I have contacted friends to ask them to find me sponsors: the media who have sent their embedded reporters to Iraq.
3. Aren't you concerned about the risks of being in the war zone?
I am aware of the risks, and have chosen to face them. When I was a young boy in Vietnam, I was ducking bullets, evading booby traps laid by the VC.
4. What would you see yourself doing as an embedded poet? Would you read your works to the troops or write new poems about them? Or both?
I am inventing a possibility for both. I would capture in my blessed poems the good things that the troops have made happen such as new schools for children, the freedom for women -- that your readers can appreciate. Even with one American soldier I will meet, I am just happy to say "Thank You, Sir, for giving your all for America's calling."
My pen will never be as great as Emily Dickinson's, but with my pure desire to pay tribute to the great sacrifice of America's sons and daughters going off to war, my pen will make her proud -- I so pray. It's a blessed calling.
"If I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on
And morn should beam
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done...."
-- Emily Dickinson
5. How did you come to get this idea?
You. The Press-Telegrams has in the past sent its writers alongside the Cambodian Americans to Cambodia for the special series. And the brave combat journalists from all news agencies have joined our troops as embedded reporters.
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