Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #24: Walter Left His Heart in Saigon

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode # 24. Walter left his heart in Saigon

I became a head turner the moment I stepped inside the recreation hall where a lot of garrulous senior citizens were playing bingo games. I could tell at a glance that I was the youngest ever bingo player there. All their eyes towards me seemed to be full of pride as if they’d been the highest intellects in town. A man sitting far in the corner never looked at me. His eyes were glued to his score card. I walked all the way to his table and sat right next to the man, saying “hope this isn’t taken.” No answer came back.

This stolid looking man named Walter did not even say hi until the night’s bingo game was over. As I started to pack my things and head out, this old man finally broke the ice by some throwaway remarks. “Care for a nightcap, young man?” He might have needed someone new who could hear out his life story with no prejudice or judgmental look. “I go by coldhearted Walter here in this town, but I used to be called a man of love back in the 70s. You wanna hear about my life in the Vietnamese War, kiddo?” I did not let Walter know about my occupation, because I wished to hear the raw story of his life in the Vietnam War without his touch of embellishment or distorted reflections about the bitter experience in the war zone.

Walter and his fellow soldiers were stationed as a ground combat unit in Vietnam until the point of withdrawing by November, 1971. I wondered what made Walter’s memory of the war not entirely brutal and poignant. As he mentioned, he went by ‘a man of love’ among his comrades. Yes, he was in love with a local Vietnamese woman named Mimi. Mimi was working as a waitress at a hole-in-the-wall eatery near the military unit. Walter would always eat Bánh Mì, which never seemed as good as his hometown grilled cheese sandwich, but tasted like heaven to him. It was simply because of the lovely girl Mimi at the place that Walter could enjoy any abominable dish there. She was a shy lady with an angelic smile.  Since they did not speak each other’s language, most of their conversations were misled, misunderstood, and misinterpreted. However, Mimi loved to hear Walter humming “Brown Eyed Girl” in the corner. She gave him a shy smile each time Walter sang the song, and all that Walter could do in return was just look her in the eye while carrying the tune. Their love had grown before they even noticed they were in love with each other. In the war zone, loving someone was like throwing caution to the wind and running against the quirk of fate at full throttle.

The time has come that Walter’s unit was ordered to be withdrawn from the camp. When Mimi found out about Walter’s leaving, her face was not shining with her angelic smile anymore. Walter could not show up at the restaurant to say goodbye to Mimi before he left for America. His mind was full of thoughts and blaming himself for being such a bad ass. He’s been asking himself all his life the same questions over and over again. ‘Should I have brought Mimi with me here? Had she ever felt that I’d made an unspoken promise to Mimi that I’d come back home with her? Then did I flake out on her?’  

Walter’s life as a normal family guy back in America had always been tinged with his old memories with Mimi in Vietnam. Whenever his old comrades from the war bragged about their love affairs and even called those girls as their beautiful concubines in the past, Walter said he became so mad. Then he felt ashamed of himself inside. He was one of those irresponsible lovers who ditched their brown eyed girls and left their hearts in Vietnam. Walter put a coin in the jukebox at the bar and chose the song that still hurt him so much. "Do you remember when we used to sing....."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fPFv-lByM 

Expressions

  

   1.  garrulous: tiresomely talkative

   2.  intellects: a person of great intellectual ability

   3.  stolid: having or revealing little emotion or sensibility; impassive

   4.  nightcap: a usually alcoholic drink taken just before bedtime

   5.  to hear out: to listen to the entirety of what one has to say, often when the listener is reluctant to do so

   

   6.  to throw caution to the wind: to disregard any risk or potential disaster when undertaking any enterprise, venture, etc

   7.  at full throttle: at full speed

   

   8.  to flake out on someone: to make a plan/ promise with someone, but never follow through on their word   (*She is such a flake! = She is so untrustworthy!)

   9.  concubine: mistress/ a woman with whom a man cohabits without being married