At the age of 79, Mr. Ted returned to Vietnam once again on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war officially ending, the two regions of North and South reunited. His feelings towards Vietnam at this time can only be described in one word: love.

Journey of emotions

With a slightly hoarse voice, Mr. Ted slowly told about the bond that tied his life to the S-shaped land, starting in 1966, when he was a student at the prestigious Harvard University.

As the son of a US Marine Corps veteran who fought in World War II, it was no surprise that young Ted was enrolled in the Marine Corps officer candidate program and his father's plan was for his son to continue the family tradition by going to Vietnam to fight.

But the young man hated war and opposed the American war in Vietnam, so at first he refused to comply with his father's arrangement. His father was angry, saying that his son was "spitting" on all family values, and that he would not let him continue his studies if he left the officer candidate program.

Faced with great pressure, Ted is forced to obey his father.

Just one year after graduating from Harvard University, in 1968, Ted packed his bags and headed to Vietnam, stationed in Quang Tri and staying there until 1969 as a supply officer for a field hospital.

The psychology of a person forced to come to Vietnam, far away from family and loved ones and many familiar things made Ted hate everything.

“I didn’t actually participate in combat, but I witnessed many of the terrible effects of war when I returned to Vietnam in 1997 as a tourist,” Ted recalled.

During the time from when he left Vietnam in 1969 until his first return, his emotions had calmed down. He realized that it was a meaningless war, a wrong decision by the US government at that time.

Mixed with that is a sense of guilt about what America did to Vietnam and what he describes as being "bad" to the Vietnamese people.

"That made me, like many other veterans, try to do something more positive for Vietnam. I returned many more times after 1997, working for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in Vietnam for more than 15 years and living in Hanoi for three and a half years. I fell in love with the country and its people, feeling like this is my second home," he shared.

Overcome shyness

When he first returned to Vietnam in 1997, Ted's feelings were similar to those of other American veterans who had fought there. Hundreds of questions ran through their minds, such as: "Will the Vietnamese hate me if they know I once held a gun on the other side of the battle line?" or "What will they do to me if they know I am an American veteran?"

All that shyness disappeared when Ted arrived in Vietnam. "There was almost no hostility here. Everyone was tolerant and welcoming to American tourists," he recalled. His impression of Vietnam at that time was a country that had just emerged from the subsidy period and was implementing "Doi Moi".

By a fateful coincidence, during a trip to China for training within the framework of the HIV/AIDS prevention program also in 1997, he met a Vietnamese person at a conference.

During a conversation with the man whose name he does not remember, Ted and his colleagues expressed their interest in working in Vietnam on a public health program. That meeting opened the way, but it was several years later, in 2001, that the work really began.

There are many ways to heal and reconcile the wounds of war and Ted chose public health work to help do that.

"I worked on a project that provided services and especially clean needles to people who inject drugs to help prevent HIV for their spouses in Lang Son and Ha Giang. That project was very successful in reducing HIV rates among people who inject drugs.

In 2008, we won a new project called the Vietnam Health Policy Initiative, collaborating on HIV/AIDS policy. That same year, I moved to Hanoi for three and a half years. I was the team leader of the project, funded by USAID," Ted recalled.

The job has allowed him to meet many Vietnamese people, from health officials to residents and volunteers, and his company's partners in Vietnam.

"The Vietnamese government's social health insurance program, which covers HIV/AIDS treatment, has been quite successful and now I think HIV/AIDS treatment for all Vietnamese people who need treatment is covered through the government's social health insurance program," he shared his thoughts.