Ca Mau: Viet Cong veteran Vo Ban Tam remembers the first time he crossed paths with John Kerry on the banks on the Bay Hap river, a day that ended in bloodshed.
Almost a half-century later, the now 70-year-old Mekong Delta shrimp farmer locked eyes with the US secretary of state on Saturday and they warmly grasped hands in mutual respect.
Mr Kerry returned to the Vietnam waterway at the end of a visit to the Communist nation, less than a week before he was to leave office, searching for the spot where he won a Silver Star for bravery as a young US Navy Lieutenant.
On February 28, 1969, as the skipper of Swift Boat PCF-94, Mr Kerry was patrolling when Mr Vo Ban Tam’s unit launched an ambush.
The plan, the Vietnamese guerilla told his former adversary on Saturday, was to use rifle and grenade fire to lure the heavily-armed American craft into range of a shoulder-held rocket launcher.
This tactic had paid off for the Viet Cong in the past but on this day Mr Kerry made a dramatic decision, deliberately beaching his boat then storming ashore to pursue the operator.
Grabbing an M-16 rifle the then 26-year-old chased down the guerilla and shot him dead, saving his crew from a counterattack.
Vo Ban Tam remembered the dead man, 24-year-old Ba Thanh, as a respected member of the Viet Cong’s main force in Ca Mau province, trained to use the prized launcher.
“He was a good soldier,” he recalled, speaking through an interpreter on the banks of same river, shortly after Mr Kerry re-visited the scene of the ambush for the first time.
Mr Kerry had never before learned the name of the man he shot. During his unsuccessful 2004 White House campaign, opponents tarnished his war record by claiming he killed a teenager. But US officials preparing for Mr Kerry’s visit tracked down Mr Vo Ban Tam and his account confirmed Mr Kerry’s memory that his slain adversary was an adult.
Mr Vo Ban Tam admitted that thanks to Kerry's action the Viet Cong had not been victorious that day. But he recalled proudly how his comrades often had the upper hand.
“We were guerrillas, we were never there where you were shooting,” he boasted, telling Mr Kerry they could hear his boat coming that day a kilometre off. “Well, I’m glad we’re both alive,” Mr Kerry said.
Mr Kerry returned from Vietnam later in 1969. Despite holding Silver and Bronze stars for valour and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action, he became a prominent anti-war activist.
The tall, young, erudite Yale graduate stood out among veterans and his devastating testimony before a Senate committee in 1971 sealed his celebrity. He forecast that Washington’s search-and-destroy missions and brutal pacification measures would fail to overcome the Vietnamese determination to resist foreign occupation. On behalf of his own American comrades in arms, he famously demanded: “How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Mr Kerry went on to become a senator, a presidential candidate and finally Secretary of State — and he never forgot Vietnam.
