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An Australian veteran has givien VND1 million to a young girl from Dong Nai province who was badly injured when a wartime artillery shell exploded, killing her parents last week.
John Papadopoulos, who is on holiday in Vietnam, has promised to visit 13-year-old Truong Thi Nga again and do anything else she requested.
Papadopoulos read about her in Thanh Nien Daily last week and came to the newspaper’s office in Ho Chi Minh City to find the address of the hospital where Nga is being treated.
With Thanh Nien’s help, he visited Children’s Hospital No 1.
He said he was a conscript and served in the Vietnam War from 1969-1970.
“Hour after hour, day after day, night after night for a whole year, I was part of an artillery unit firing high explosive 105mm artillery shells all over the Dong Nai and Long Khanh countryside,” he recalls.
“And I know some of those shells failed to explode and were lying buried, waiting for another day.
“It is a period of my life which often intrudes into my present existence causing me to feel flashes of guilt and shame for my past actions.”
He says he felt partly responsible for what’s happened to Nga and her parents.
He plans to visit Nga with a translator next time and bring her some gifts.
“Maybe a portable CD player and some CDs. Any small gesture to cheer up this sad little girl, now an orphan.
“I cannot right a distant wrong. All I can do now is at least show her she is not forgotten,” the kindly man said.
