"Fur Elise"
(Dedicated to our beloved American POWs and MIAs)
Across from CBS Television City, Los Angeles
Saturday, March 9, 1996
The former combat correspondents gathered,
Memorializing the dead journalists in Indochina.
My eleven-year-old daughter, Tam, played "Fur Elise"
On her Yamaha keyboard
I gave a speech alongside other reporters
The Los Angeles Times' Bob Pool was there
My daughter passed out my book of poetry
It's my sharing of "Dear Daddy," the volume's title.
A slim man came
He asked me to autograph my gift book
His business card said: Dith Pran,
The "Killing Fields," Cambodia Holocaust.
One million plus humans were murdered
Not only by Pol Pot,
But by Communism.
It eerily reminded me of the history chapter:
Six million Jews were cruelly exterminated
Not only by Adolf Hitler, but Nazism
I came from there, Vietnam
The whole country is now "Hanoi Hilton"
The owner: Communism.
Linh Duy Vo
Memorial Day 1999 ©
I had the honor of meeting, and signing my gift copy of "Dear Daddy" for Miriam Eaton, the mother of Bob Ellison, who died in 1968 at Khe Sanh after shooting a cover photo for Newsweek and a seven-page picture story on U.S. Marines being under siege. The related article by Bob Pool appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Sunday, March 10, 1996.
© Copyright by Linh Duy Vo. All rights reserved.