By George Gilland

I know that people who experience physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma are inexorably tied to the time and place of that trauma. As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, I am tied or joined to Vietnam and her people.

The question has to do with the nature of this tie, this joining.

When our VIM team first arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, I experienced some disequilibrium. It came from being in a place that was not familiar any more. I kept looking for something I recognized—something I could mark in space and time.

I found it in the ceiling of the church where we were working, an old mortar stake, formerly used to aim artillery fire. The stake had been reused as a joist in the ceiling we were removing.

I snatched it out of the junk pile, intending to take it back to Oklahoma.

A few days later, four team members traveled to Tay Ninh. In that group were another Vietnam veteran and our construction team leader, John Martin; his wife, Teresa; my wife, Pat; and me.

I hoped to see, along the route, the fire-support base from which I left Vietnam 40 years ago. Maybe, just maybe, some remnant remained. Many times, I had pictured myself returning to that place and to the people I left behind.

A fantasy? No, phantom-like. Ghostly, haunting.

As we drove along, I found not one remnant of the time and place I remembered. Everything had changed.

Rather than being disappointed, I was glad—happy—joyfully content. What I found was a land and people reliant, young, and vibrant.

This vibrancy was seen in the Vietnamese United Methodist pastors, who gathered from around the countryside for training with our team. This vibrancy was found in children and youths, who gathered with great excitement for mission school. The vibrancy was in worship, which was joyful. This vibrancy was found in the hope of people who gathered in places where signs announce they are a United Methodist church—and in places where they cannot put up a sign.

The vibrancy is in a time and place where hearts beat with great resiliency and hope.

Before leaving that nation, I tossed the old aiming-stake into a pool of water beside the Tan Tau United Methodist Church in Ho Chi Minh City.

The war was over. I could let it go. I felt incredible release. It was all right to just let it go.