April 30, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: 'A Sense of Duty': Engrossing Dual Memoir of Vietnamese-Born American Marine Aviator and His South Vietnam Air Force Officer Father
The past is never dead. It’s not even past. -- "Requiem for a Nun" by William Faulkner
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. -- William Faulkner, Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, Dec. 10, 1950
April 30 is remembered in expatriate Vietnamese communities in the U.S. and elsewhere as "Black April." The last day of April marks the end of the independent nation of South Vietnam and the frantic departure of American diplomats and many Vietnamese from the capital of Saigon and elsewhere on April 30, 1975. Many of America's former Vietnamese refugees have formed vibrant communities in California, Texas, Minnesota, Virginia and elsewhere -- in the nation that more than a few former refugees believe abandoned them to the Communist onslaught.
Quang Pham's dual memoir "A Sense of Duty: Our Journey from Vietnam to America" (Presidio Press/Ballantine Trade Paperbacks, 288 pages, $14.00) was first published in hardcover on the 30th anniversary of "Black April" in 2005. It's now in an illustrated trade paperback edition, with a new epilogue by the author, a Vietnamese refugee who became a U.S. Marine aviator, serving in combat in Desert Storm and elsewhere in the early 1990s. He's a successful businessman in Orange County, California, an American success story.
It's a truism that the winners of wars are the ones who write the histories of the war. In the case of the Vietnam War, Americans -- who lost the war to the Communist regime of North Vietnam -- have written one-sided books on the war, Pham writes. There are a few exceptions, which he cites in his engrossing memoir, which reminded me in many respects of Pat Conroy's novel "The Great Santini."
Ten-year-old Quang Pham, his two sisters and his mother, fled their native city of Saigon just a few days before April 30, 1975, with his father, Hoa Pham, making sure they were on the plane bound for the Philippines and then a refugee camp on Guam and later in Arkansas. The family eventually settled in Oxnard, in Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles.
Hoa Pham should have accompanied them, it turns out, since he was eventually tracked down by the conquering North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces and spent many years in the gulags of the regime before arriving in America in 1992. Hoa Pham's career as a high-ranking officer and fighter pilot in the South Vietnam Air Force undoubtedly contributed to his long "re-education" imprisonment: His son reveals that a fellow officer in the South Vietnam Air Force was a spy for the North and kept meticulous records which he turned over to the Hanoi regime.
Quang Pham very quickly became a typical American boy, playing on a Little League team, working a paper route delivering the Los Angeles Times (the paper where I worked from 1976-1990!) and attending schools that forced him to quickly learn English -- his third language, after Vietnamese and French -- and become a fairly typical Southern Californian. He attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which he jokingly says was called -- among other monikers -- "University of Caucasians Lost among Asians" because of its large Asian student body.
Pham says he was an indifferent student in Westwood until he encountered a Marine recruiter and learned about the Marine Corp's Officer Candidate School program. Between his junior and senior year he went through the grueling OCS in Quantico, VA. After graduation, he had fixed-wing flight training in Corpus Christi, Texas, earning his wings flying T-34 jet trainers, soloing in 1989, and after that he went to Tustin, California to be certified to fly the Corp's CH-46 combat helicopters. Pham was the first Vietnamese American to become a Marine Corps aviator.
A universal thread throughout "A Sense of Duty" is Quang Pham's struggle to understand his often enigmatic father. His resolution of this conflict before his father's death at the age of 65 in 2000 makes the book an outstanding counterpoint to the stereotypes of the "Model Minority" that many Asians in America -- including Pham -- detest. Pham also deplores the sexualization of Vietnamese women -- portrayed in such movies as "Full Metal Jacket," "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon" and "The Deer Hunter" -- pointing to the striving of his mother and sisters to become independent, educated women.
I wanted to talk to Quang Pham about lessons learned from the American involvement in Vietnam and if we have learned anything from the war that might be applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. In a telephone conversation from his home in California, he emphasized that his opposition to President Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan shows that we have failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam as enunciated by Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf. "The generals in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't have the experience of learning the lessons that Powell and Schwartzkopf learned about counterinsurgency in Vietnam," he said. Powell and Schwartzkopf acted properly in response to the invasion of our ally Kuwait, he believes, having learned the lessons of Vietnam Pham also said that he values his Marine experience, but didn't want to spend his working life in the Corps, especially at a time when the Corps was shedding officers and his retention would be viewed as affirmative action.
Many of his comments are included and expanded in the epilogue for the paperback edition. I urge everyone to get their hands on "A Sense of Duty" to understand our Vietnam involvement from the perspective of an American who was born in Vietnam.
About the Author: Quang Pham is a business owner, motivational speaker, decorated Marine veteran, and the founder and CEO of Lathian Health, a provider of pharmaceutical data and marketing services. He serves on the board of the Marines' Memorial Association. Quang has received numerous business, civic, and military awards and was a candidate for Congress. He lives in California with his wife and daughter.
Author's web site: www.ASenseofDuty.com
Publisher's web site: www.presidiopress.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'A Sense of Duty': Engrossing Dual Memoir of Vietnamese-Born American Marine Aviator and His South Vietnam Air Force Officer Father
The past is never dead. It’s not even past. -- "Requiem for a Nun" by William Faulkner
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. -- William Faulkner, Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, Dec. 10, 1950
April 30 is remembered in expatriate Vietnamese communities in the U.S. and elsewhere as "Black April." The last day of April marks the end of the independent nation of South Vietnam and the frantic departure of American diplomats and many Vietnamese from the capital of Saigon and elsewhere on April 30, 1975. Many of America's former Vietnamese refugees have formed vibrant communities in California, Texas, Minnesota, Virginia and elsewhere -- in the nation that more than a few former refugees believe abandoned them to the Communist onslaught.
Quang Pham's dual memoir "A Sense of Duty: Our Journey from Vietnam to America" (Presidio Press/Ballantine Trade Paperbacks, 288 pages, $14.00) was first published in hardcover on the 30th anniversary of "Black April" in 2005. It's now in an illustrated trade paperback edition, with a new epilogue by the author, a Vietnamese refugee who became a U.S. Marine aviator, serving in combat in Desert Storm and elsewhere in the early 1990s. He's a successful businessman in Orange County, California, an American success story.
It's a truism that the winners of wars are the ones who write the histories of the war. In the case of the Vietnam War, Americans -- who lost the war to the Communist regime of North Vietnam -- have written one-sided books on the war, Pham writes. There are a few exceptions, which he cites in his engrossing memoir, which reminded me in many respects of Pat Conroy's novel "The Great Santini."
Ten-year-old Quang Pham, his two sisters and his mother, fled their native city of Saigon just a few days before April 30, 1975, with his father, Hoa Pham, making sure they were on the plane bound for the Philippines and then a refugee camp on Guam and later in Arkansas. The family eventually settled in Oxnard, in Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles.
Hoa Pham should have accompanied them, it turns out, since he was eventually tracked down by the conquering North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces and spent many years in the gulags of the regime before arriving in America in 1992. Hoa Pham's career as a high-ranking officer and fighter pilot in the South Vietnam Air Force undoubtedly contributed to his long "re-education" imprisonment: His son reveals that a fellow officer in the South Vietnam Air Force was a spy for the North and kept meticulous records which he turned over to the Hanoi regime.
Quang Pham very quickly became a typical American boy, playing on a Little League team, working a paper route delivering the Los Angeles Times (the paper where I worked from 1976-1990!) and attending schools that forced him to quickly learn English -- his third language, after Vietnamese and French -- and become a fairly typical Southern Californian. He attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which he jokingly says was called -- among other monikers -- "University of Caucasians Lost among Asians" because of its large Asian student body.
Pham says he was an indifferent student in Westwood until he encountered a Marine recruiter and learned about the Marine Corp's Officer Candidate School program. Between his junior and senior year he went through the grueling OCS in Quantico, VA. After graduation, he had fixed-wing flight training in Corpus Christi, Texas, earning his wings flying T-34 jet trainers, soloing in 1989, and after that he went to Tustin, California to be certified to fly the Corp's CH-46 combat helicopters. Pham was the first Vietnamese American to become a Marine Corps aviator.
A universal thread throughout "A Sense of Duty" is Quang Pham's struggle to understand his often enigmatic father. His resolution of this conflict before his father's death at the age of 65 in 2000 makes the book an outstanding counterpoint to the stereotypes of the "Model Minority" that many Asians in America -- including Pham -- detest. Pham also deplores the sexualization of Vietnamese women -- portrayed in such movies as "Full Metal Jacket," "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon" and "The Deer Hunter" -- pointing to the striving of his mother and sisters to become independent, educated women.
I wanted to talk to Quang Pham about lessons learned from the American involvement in Vietnam and if we have learned anything from the war that might be applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. In a telephone conversation from his home in California, he emphasized that his opposition to President Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan shows that we have failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam as enunciated by Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf. "The generals in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't have the experience of learning the lessons that Powell and Schwartzkopf learned about counterinsurgency in Vietnam," he said. Powell and Schwartzkopf acted properly in response to the invasion of our ally Kuwait, he believes, having learned the lessons of Vietnam Pham also said that he values his Marine experience, but didn't want to spend his working life in the Corps, especially at a time when the Corps was shedding officers and his retention would be viewed as affirmative action.
Many of his comments are included and expanded in the epilogue for the paperback edition. I urge everyone to get their hands on "A Sense of Duty" to understand our Vietnam involvement from the perspective of an American who was born in Vietnam.
About the Author: Quang Pham is a business owner, motivational speaker, decorated Marine veteran, and the founder and CEO of Lathian Health, a provider of pharmaceutical data and marketing services. He serves on the board of the Marines' Memorial Association. Quang has received numerous business, civic, and military awards and was a candidate for Congress. He lives in California with his wife and daughter.
Author's web site: www.ASenseofDuty.com
Publisher's web site: www.presidiopress.com
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