A Letter from a Lost Soul MIA
Dear Mom and Dad,
How long has it been that my soul longs for you every day? I was shipped to Nam with a special oath to fight in a place where bombs and jets pounding days and nights.
It has been 50 years that the daily sounds of jet bombing and artillery are now replaced by the cry of our American souls that roam endlessly in the clouds above.
Somewhere in the jungle of Vietnam, in the valleys of rice fields, in the swamps along the Mekong Rivers, in the Trails of Ho Chi Minh, there lay our unmarked graves. Even after death, our POW-MIAs are still subjected to imprisonment. Some of my lucky buddies had come home as I heard the news during our daily headcounts in our POW camp. RJ had gone home, and he was tasked with delivering all these POW-MIA letters for us. Please continue to pray for me to find my remains someday.
Wherever you are, in the nursing home, or have perished just like me? I just want to come home. I want to see the sunroom looking out to the garden where you used to sit until sunset as if you were watching over my sleep in a letter you wrote. But, Mom, Charlies never gave us any respite from hell. Nighttime was their attacking time. It’s an ironic twist of fate that every day, my soul floats in the clouds above, searching for my remains instead of me riding in a helicopter in our last mission, “Search and Destroy Charlie’s bases.”
Mom and dad, please don’t let my soul fade without a trace. I want to come home.
Your son,
Love
In remembrance of our POW-MIAs at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Jim Huynh
September 16, 2021
