Last month’s column, in which Beatitudes community member Harriet Burke wrote of the unexpected grace and shared humanity of her conversation with three men on a park bench here in Santa Barbara, made me think of the many moments of grace and humanity I had chanced upon in Vietnam after the wars there, before relations were restored. One of these was a conversation with Mai Van On, who in 1967, in the midst of a heavy bombing raid, rescued pilot John McCain from the Hanoi lake into which he had been shot down — a rescue that called for courage and humanity in face of the cries for vengeance from some in the crowd of frightened people who gathered at the scene that day.
I was introduced to On by Chuck Searcy, a U.S. veteran who had returned to Vietnam to be part of the post-war reconciliation and reconstruction, and has spent the last two decades and a half working to mitigate the ongoing effects of unexploded ordnance and Agent Orange. More on Searcy’s work will appear in another column. He had been living in On’s neighborhood for some time by then, and had determined that among all the claims and counterclaims, On was indeed the principal rescuer.
Between the busy boulevard that cuts across that neighborhood and the lake where On rescued McCain stretch layers of close-packed houses and single rooms. To reach On’s room, we turned off the boulevard onto a foot path that led through an ornamental arch where an old woman sat selling small cups of tea and single cigarettes.
The path continued down a gentle slope through rows of two-story houses where Brazilian and Chinese TV soap operas could be heard through the open windows, passed through a short tunnel formed by the sideward extension of the upper floors of two parallel houses, then wound past a print shop and down into a patchwork of single rooms that housed whole families.
On’s room was two removed from the lake, and the last one made of bricks and concrete. It contained a wooden bed covered with a reed mat, pegs to hang clothes, and a picture calendar. Beyond his room, the path continues only a few feet farther, through his neighbor’s house of woven reeds, to the muddy shore of the small lake from which On rescued McCain.
Here is the story of that rescue, in the words of Mr. On:
“The day John McCain was shot down there were so many airplanes bombing, and the anti-aircraft artillery was falling like rain. I saw it all happen — the artillery streak, the explosion in the sky, the airplane falling, the white parachute. Saw him bobbing up and down — and then, how he didn’t come up again.
“I had come home for lunch just before the bombing began. I was sitting crouched outside the bomb shelter, ready to dive in if I had to. I knew it was dangerous, but I couldn’t resist watching.
“People hiding in the shelter kept shouting at me: ‘Don’t go!’ they said. ‘You’ll be bombed. Let him die,’ they said, ‘he deserves it.’ You have to understand how much death there was that day to understand their feelings.
“But I didn’t listen. There was a big bamboo pole lying beside the shelter — one we used for teaching kids to swim. I picked it up and pushed it ahead of me so I could swim very fast.
“I got to the spot where the parachute was floating, and then I clutched the pole under my armpit and pulled John McCain up by his parachute strings. He had a big head, very short hair, a red face. His eyes were closed. Then he opened his eyes and let out a long sound: ‘Aaaaaaahhhh.’ He said some things I couldn’t understand — English words. Thanking me, maybe.
“I remember many details: a big, fat hand, white and hairy; the black leather band of his watch, with its face on the wrist side; the dark hair on his chest.
“While I was holding him draped over the pole, a young neighbor swam out to help, and then there were many, bringing him to shore. We were in water just up to our knees, but the pilot couldn’t walk, so I took him under the arm.
“People began to throng around. Some rushed him and beat him. A local policeman gave him the hardest beating, twisted his arm behind his back. Bombs were everywhere, and people were very scared.
“’Stop it!’ I told them. ‘I have saved his life, now let him live.’
“A nurse bandaged his knee and hip, and splinted his arm with bamboo and torn sheeting. Then we waited for the authorities. The policeman was later fired for wrongdoing. Now he claims to be the rescuer. Many people make the same claim.
“I went back to work, and my fellow workers congratulated me.”
At the time, those who shot down an airplane were rewarded with a cow. Those who saved the pilot were also given a reward, but in the confusion of the bombing, no one was rewarded for McCain’s rescue.
“When McCain was in the sky,” On continues, “he was an enemy. But when he was drowning — I just knew that I had to save him, that’s all. Something instinctive, human. I didn’t understand the impulse then, but now, when I read about McCain’s work for reconciliation, I think maybe I understand.”
On had learned that McCain now returns to Vietnam from time to time, and hoped one day to shake his hand. He didn’t want money, he insisted, just a chance to shake hands.
“Money quickly disappears,” On observes, “but affection endures. You see him, you tell him I asked about his family, OK? Tell him I’m an old man, ready to die, but I’d sure like to shake his hand before I do. You tell him, OK?”
Some time later On got his wish. Searcy arranged a meeting in which they did indeed shake hands, and McCain presented On with a medal.
• • •
What accounts for this humanity in the face of the terror of the exploding bombs and the vengeful anger of his neighbors? On muses on his own past, searching for clues.
“I myself was saved from drowning once,” he tells me. “I was 13. It was in the Day River, near my home. I couldn’t swim, and began gulping water. But a man saved me. I still burn incense to him, because he saved my life.
“After that — I was about 16 — I saw two women bathing in the river, clutching each other and going up and down, up and down. I waded in and grabbed their hair and pulled them out.
“Then again, after I went south, I rescued five school children whose boat had capsized in the river. By that time I was a good swimmer. I used a piece of banana tree floating by on the river to rescue them.
”I was born in a poor family in Ninh Binh. There were four children. My older brother died in 1950, in the war, and his body was lost. My elder sister is still alive, nearly blind. My younger sister still lives near home. So there were six of us to feed on just two sao of land (one sao equals 360 square meters). I was 12 when my mother died. Then my father died — died of sickness, died of poverty — and when I was 17 or 18, I went south.
“I worked as a ‘boy’ for Monsieur Casaire. I did the washing and managed his household supplies. He had a lot of gold, and he used to let me play with it. He loved me because I worked hard — wanted me to come to France, told me he would find me a French wife. I was handsome then. One day I told him I was going to visit my brother, and I never returned. I went to join the resistance. He couldn’t understand.
“In the army I was taught to be a commander. I shot soldiers, but not women or children. I didn’t take watches or personal possessions; when I saw someone killed, I would bury them.
“I was illiterate — couldn’t afford school. But after 1954 [the formal end of French colonial rule in Indochina], I began to study. I went to evening class every day after 7 p.m., and finally passed the fifth grade. I was still in the army, but by then I was kitchen manager — looked after meals for thousands of soldiers.
“I saw to it that there was no pilfering or lost food. Poor we were, but honest. I was rewarded by meeting Uncle Ho — twice. We shook hands and talked at the Presidential Palace. I was a ‘con chim dau dan’ — a model soldier, one who set the standard. I would have been promoted if I had had more education.”
So what prompts us to be decent, enables us to keep our humanity and honor the humanity in others, in the face of death, fear, anger and death? Mai Van On had been rescued himself, had rescued others, and had earned the respect of both the French and the communists for his upright honesty. Gratitude and the experiences and habits of a lifetime may be a partial explanation. But there is also mystery.
To borrow On’s words again: something instinctive, human, an impulse towards a reconciliation unimaginable at the time. A moment of grace.
— Diane Fox is a member of the Catholic Church of the Beatitudes. Readers are welcome to join us for Mass on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Santa Barbara, 2101 State St. Click here for more information, or call 805.252.4105. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are those of the author.