Forty-five years ago, as the Vietnam war raged on, US Army Specialist Chuck Hagel and Nguyen Tan Dung were on opposite sides of combat serving in the Mekong Delta — both wounded more than once as they battled for their countries.
This weekend the two men — now US secretary of defense and Vietnamese prime minister — met at a formal dinner at the start of an international security conference here, working to help build the US’ growing military partnership with Vietnam.
Hagel’s first trip to Asia as Pentagon chief has been a bit of a walk down memory lane for the former infantry soldier.
Photo: AFP
While Hagel and Dung knew of each other’s service in Vietnam, they had never met. So when they spoke on the sidelines of the dinner, they had the chance to exchange war stories.
Back in 1968, Hagel was a specialist in the 2nd Battalion of the US 47th Infantry Regiment, fighting in the Mekong Delta. Dung, who joined the Vietcong in about 1961 when he would have been about 12, and served as a corpsman, then later led a surgery unit reportedly operating in the Delta’s U Minh forest.
According to defense officials, the two men talked briefly about their time at war and the fact that both had bled for their countries.
Hung invited Hagel to visit Vietnam, and the secretary said he looks forward to going, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting.
Hagel also recalled family war history during a private meeting on Saturday with Philippines Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Gazmin.
According to defense officials, Hagel said that his father served in that country during World War II with the 13th Army Air Corps.
Officials said Hagel told Gazmin that during a visit to the Philippines in the 1980s, he was surprised to see a photograph of his father in a foxhole on display in an exhibit — the same photo that had hung in the Hagel family home.
The secretary’s first stop on this Asia trip was in Hawaii, where he recalled going on leave with his brother Tom during the middle of their Vietnam war tour. Hagel ate at the same — although updated — restaurant in Honolulu during this trip as he had back in July 1968, when he and Tom got together at the Halekulani Hotel with their mother and other family members.
To secure the memory, Hagel stood for a photo at the same large tree that his family had posed in front of during that reunion.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
RSS