Injury Date: 1992
Injuries: partial blindness in right eye; loss of both arms; fragmentation; flash burns
District: Vinh Linh
Intake Date: VMP, June 2001
CPI Assistance: working prosthetics; physical rehabilitation; cataract surgery
Occupation: firewood merchant

Huu Duc was cutting thatch for his roof on the former US firebase at Con Tien when he struck a piece of Vietnam era ordnance. In the explosion, he lost both arms. At the time he was engaged to marry. Huyen’s family sent her to college in Hue, then when she finished sent her south to live with family, away from her beloved, because they would no longer approve the marriage. He also lost the music his hands had made with the guitar, a delight and balm to his family and friends. The stay in the hospital was long and expensive, exhaustive of his inner resources, and the resources of his immediate family.

But Duc refused to give up: after the initial shock and dismay of losing “everything”, his livelihood, music, and fiancé, he rose from his bed. Family cared for him, supported him when and as they could. Duc started a business dealing in firewood. Today, for every cubic meter of firewood he sells along the road, he makes 20,000 VND, or $1.30 US. A bowl of noodles costs 3-5,000 VND at a street stall.

And so, as against all odds he settled back into a life in the community. He began to write letters to his beloved Huyen, the pen attached to his stump by rubber bands, the penmanship impeccable. For six long years they wrote love letters and poems [I’ve heard many of them read from a stack as thick as my thigh]]. He made and saved money to help her while she was in college and often traveled to Hue, where they met in secret on a bridge over the Perfume River. The letters continued after her parents sent her to the south. Finally he asked in a letter her if she “dared” for him to come and for them to make a life together.

Huyen agreed and Duc joined her. They moved away from her family and near to his. He began business again, and she taught school, having finished her college education. They built a house. After awhile Huyen’s family consented to their marriage and they returned to Vinh Linh. Here, in Quang Tri Province, Huyen and Duc have built yet another house together, have a three year-old daughter named Huong, and live along Highway One among relatives. Here, the family firewood business is booming.

Duc was selected for assessment during June of 2001 by the VMP. CPI has been providing medical care since, and recently, Duc poured tea from a pitcher into cups for the first time in almost ten years with his working prosthetics. He hopes that in time he will be able to play guitar again, with the instrument across his lap. He is no longer ashamed to go out in short sleeves, yet sometimes his injuries still work against him. Recently he went to the bank for a loan, and they turned him down because of his injuries.

He hopes in future to be able to share with others, in an even more public way, about his trials and triumphs, and when last visited related the story of the Director of a company in Viet Nam, with no arms, whom he saw interviewed on TV: “Anything is possible,” he said. “I am very hopeful for our future. Huyen has finished her certification for a tenured teaching position, and though she isn’t working now because she had to give up the temporary position, business is good and I am not worried.”