Vietnam Veteran Looks for Long-Lost Child

A Vietnam veteran by the name of Jerry Quinn finally decided to embark on a journey to find his long-lost son. His voyage is not an unusual one, as many former soldiers have gone on similar quests to find children they sired during the war. Making the task more difficult is the fact that little of the region remained unchanged following the Vietcong occupation, so certain landmarks cannot be found without information from the locals. Vietnam veteran Quinn relied heavily on such help in his search.

The offspring of American soldiers were hated by the Vietcong as living reminders of their opposition. Unfortunately, some of them were equally hated by their own fathers, as reminders of the difficult times they went through during the war. Quinn is not the sort of Vietnam veteran who could turn his back on his own offspring for much longer, however, and believes religiously that he has been called to the region as a missionary so that it would be easier for him to make amends to the son he abandoned.

Quinn found himself lucky in that some people around Ho Chi Minh still had connections to his life from so many years ago. He brought along photographs to show people, and he was fortunate to get in touch with the daughter of the woman who delivered his son. The Vietnam veteran thought he had reached a dead end there, as the midwife was unable to give him much information. Quinn’s former girlfriend, Brandy, had feared for her son’s life if the Vietcong were to find out he had an American father, and as a result much documentation had been burned.

Social networking luckily saved the day, as Quinn posted the photographs online and received a response from Gary Bui, who turned out to be his son. It turned out that Bui had been raised as an orphan, his mother leaving him as she evaded death at the hands of the Vietcong. Vietnam veteran Quinn felt further remorse when he found how rough his son’s life had been, but he retained hope that he could be a part of Bui’s life after so many years, the BBC News reports.

The Vietnam veteran may not have been able to be a part of his son’s life due to American troops pulling out of the country, but after forty years he has tracked down his son and begun to make amends. Gary Bui has a family of his own now, a wife and children. While they may have reservations about Quinn’s late arrival into their patriarch’s life, the Vietnam veteran is determined to maintain a relationship with his son for whatever period of time he has left on Earth.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE