This gallery is dedicated to a dear friend: Le Tam.

I noticed a mausoleum when visiting her family compound in Cu Chi. The mausoleum
had pictures of three young men. She told me it was dedicated to her uncles and
that they had died in combat during what the Vietnamese call the American War.

The US soldiers who fought and often died during the Vietnam War were brave young
men and women who served their country proudly. The Vietnamese served their country
just as proudly and died no less heroically but in far greater numbers. US losses
were over 50,000, mostly military. Vietnamese losses are estimated at 1.3 million,
evenly divided between combatants and civilians.

Theirs was a war against imperialism, a war which they ultimately won with the
withdrawal of US forces beginning in January 1973. Ours was a war against communism,
a war which we ultimately won with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In June of 1999 I recited the Hebrew blessing for the dead at the Vietnam War Memorial
Wall in Washington DC and located the name of a friend's brother who died during the
war only days after he had arrived. In February 2006 I recited the same blessing at the
mausoleum of Le Tam's Uncles.

I had asked her to tell me her family's war history by e-mail. Below is her response, unedited:



Hi Ira,

I hope when you receiving this e.mail, you're already at home and had a very good sleep.

As I promised I will tell you about my Mom's family stories.

My Mom's family is living in Cu Chi province long time ago until now. My Grand
Parents were farmers, they loved the land was borned and feeded them to growing up.
And of course they could not stand to see the American came to destroy the land
and kill Vietnamese people on their land.

My Grand Mother has 7 children, 4 boys and 3 girls. In Vietnam we are counting
the first child is number 2 and then coutinuing. So I have 4 uncles, second uncle,
4th uncle and 5th uncle, they are all my Mom older brothers and they all died during
the war. The yougerst uncle was still alive after the war but he died few years ago
due to accident.

My Grand Mother was commended "Vietnamese Heroic Mother" by Vietnamese Government.

The second uncle was killed on the battle and he was a soldier that American called
"V.C." or "Viet Cong" and he died when he was very young 25 year-old, has never had
girlfriend. My fourth uncle was a guerilla, he was killed during his visitting the
family. His wife just delivered a baby and he came back to see his son that time my
cousin was 2 months. He was detected and killed at the field in the back of my house
after seeing his first son. They shooted him, moved and left the body on the market
for few days to warn the Vietnamese.

The 5th uncle, he was a song writer but he followed Vietnamese Army and died somewhere
between Vietnam and Cambodia's forntier but until now we could not find his body.

After the war, Grand Mother could not stand a lot losses, she had mentality problems
and died few months after Vietnam National Unity in 30 Apr 1975.

My Aunts still are widows until now and we are living on the same land with 3 generations.
We have a happy life and we all think of the better future for our younger generations.

That's all stories about my family.

I don't talk about political issues, but let's think of the losses happened
during the war and stop unmeaning wars.

Tammy.