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Glenda's avatar

Thanks! Informative and beautifully illustrated.

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gmc's avatar

A big thanks to your Cartographer !! I have a story about a South Vietnamese Captain who was stationed in the Mekong Delta near me during the War, and he was a cartographer by trade. I never met him in the War , I met him in 2001 in Cozumel Mexico while living there for a few months. He and his wife were easy to spot and I introduced myself and began a conversation. Later that night we met for tea and beers and talked a long long time about his life in the Delta. He was educated in Paris a short time, and started to learn cartography etc. etc. Very interesting conversation.

He told me he worked with many of our MAC V guys and when things looked bad for the South Vietnamese Army , he still didn't believe they would lose. Well, they did lose and he was placed in a " Re-Education camp" but he got his wife out just before that. He told me about the camps and the torture, suicides etc. and then he told me that he couldn't take it any longer and escaped towards Cambodia and made into Thailand where he was in a refugee camp. Luckily, he remembered some of the men he worked with in MAC V , and they helped him make into the States. I'v run into other men who were put into those re-education camps while was in Saigon - 2019 - same story about the camps, but they didn't know anybody to help them - 8 years in one one those camps and some of them still remember their military style english and never held bad feeling towards me - I was most humbled to be around such men.

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