Gay vietnam vet and vietnamese civilian find each other - in Portland. Photo from the Oregonian
Now this is the kind of story we don’t really get to feature very often – a quiet story, a story of love, of pain – both physical and emotional, and yet also a story of reconciliation, of perseverance, and joy.
It’s a story about Don’t Ask – Don’t tell, about war, about art, about survival, but also about how sometimes love and happiness find their own unconventional ways into our lives.
The Oregonian featured a lovely story about the relationship between two very different survivors of the Vietnam war – one, a soldier, one, a vietnamese civilian. Both are gay, and have endured tremendous hardships in order to find each other in Portland. Fearing being gay, Tom Norton becomes a soldier, eventually earning a purple heart, all the while denying his feelings for other men, and eventually suffering a stroke at age 27. Bao Nguyen flees the war in vietnam, only to be sold into sex slavery and eventually earning an art degree in Portland, where they both meet by coincidence.
A very touching story.
