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January, you are killing me. Today I got an email from a young woman who claims to be the daughter of my long-lost half brother George. She tried to contact me on FB and I ignored her, and then she found my OSU email (easy to do) and so I answered asking who she was and she said she was George's daughter and sent me two pics to corroborate. She says he is alive and well and they live in Florida. I assume that my mother has passed away by now, but I do not know and she did not say. I told her to have him (George) contact me. So we shall see what happens.
I am suspicious and distrusting in general, but I'm fairly sure this is legit - there is simply no reason for someone to pretend to be my long-lost half brother, especially if they are already in the states. I am freaking the hell out. Here is some backstory, some of which I may have told before.
So my father was one of the very first military advisors that the US sent to Vietnam before getting too involved in the war. We're talking like 1965. He met my mom there, in the imperial city of Hue, and knocked her up. She already had a son from a previous relationship (I think with another American soldier, but I am not certain). Then his tour ended and he came back to the states. This was in January of 1967, and they already knew she was pregnant when he left. Of course in January of 1968, the Tet Offensive happened. I was just a few months old, my brother a year older, and my father in the states. Somehow my mother kept her two halfbreed kids safe. My father got himself reassigned to a second tour of Vietnam later that year. He showed up in Vietnam again in September of 1968 and managed to send the three of us back to the states to stay with his mother and her new husband in the tiny town of Quincy, CA. To facillitate this he claimed George as his son. So we stayed with my grandparents for a year or two. When my father finished his second tour of duty, he collected his new family and took them to his new military assignment in Fort Leavenworth Kansas.
Shockingly, his Vietnamese wife did not adjust too well to life in Kansas in 197whatever and he decided it was time for divorce. This is like 1970, and the war is in full force now. So my father puts me and my brother and my mother on a plane and ships us back to Vietnam, because he is a prince of a guy. My grandparents showed up at the airport in San Francisco and took me from my mother, and let her and her son go back to a country in middle of fucking civil war.
So here we are. Have I mentioned that I am freaking the hell out?
I am suspicious and distrusting in general, but I'm fairly sure this is legit - there is simply no reason for someone to pretend to be my long-lost half brother, especially if they are already in the states. I am freaking the hell out. Here is some backstory, some of which I may have told before.
So my father was one of the very first military advisors that the US sent to Vietnam before getting too involved in the war. We're talking like 1965. He met my mom there, in the imperial city of Hue, and knocked her up. She already had a son from a previous relationship (I think with another American soldier, but I am not certain). Then his tour ended and he came back to the states. This was in January of 1967, and they already knew she was pregnant when he left. Of course in January of 1968, the Tet Offensive happened. I was just a few months old, my brother a year older, and my father in the states. Somehow my mother kept her two halfbreed kids safe. My father got himself reassigned to a second tour of Vietnam later that year. He showed up in Vietnam again in September of 1968 and managed to send the three of us back to the states to stay with his mother and her new husband in the tiny town of Quincy, CA. To facillitate this he claimed George as his son. So we stayed with my grandparents for a year or two. When my father finished his second tour of duty, he collected his new family and took them to his new military assignment in Fort Leavenworth Kansas.
Shockingly, his Vietnamese wife did not adjust too well to life in Kansas in 197whatever and he decided it was time for divorce. This is like 1970, and the war is in full force now. So my father puts me and my brother and my mother on a plane and ships us back to Vietnam, because he is a prince of a guy. My grandparents showed up at the airport in San Francisco and took me from my mother, and let her and her son go back to a country in middle of fucking civil war.
So here we are. Have I mentioned that I am freaking the hell out?
