Doctor Allen Hassan and his book in Vietnamese.

Reunion after 39 years

The obsession of crimes committed by US soldiers in Vietnam over 30 years ago has been following Hassan.

“I witnessed the painful truth and I must speak about it loudly. I want war wagers to see pains and losses and atone for their mistakes,” the doctor said.

Failure to Atone is Dr. Allen Hassan’s graphic memoir of the trials and tribulations of a Volunteer Physician for Vietnam on the front lines of a no-holds-barred war, and of a courageous people’s battle to survive.

Two years out of medical school, as a doctor from a small town in Iowa, he volunteered for an American Medical Association programme to help war-ravaged civilians of Vietnam. Even for a tough former Marine Sergeant, the experience of trying to give civilians good medical care in the middle of a ferocious war was a difficult, life-changing experience. In a poorly-equipped jungle hospital, Dr. Hassan found himself the only medical doctor in town for hundreds of old people, women and children horribly wounded during the height of the Vietnam War.

As a doctor struggling to treat the civilians of South Vietnam, Dr. Hassan battled tropical diseases, primitive sanitary conditions, and all varieties of war wounds from an endless stream of patients wounded in the war. Performing emergency surgery deep into the night, in unspeakably primitive conditions in a small jungle hospital near the demilitarized zone near North Vietnam, he worked night and day as the only doctor in a hospital in the jungle to save lives, only to see many slip away. The atrocities and brutality he saw and experienced left Dr. Hassan forever opposed to the horror and tragedy of war.

Hassan returned to Vietnam with the information that he received feedback from over 20 American senators who were presented his book. The doctor said that not many veterans dare to speak publicly about the crimes in the Vietnam War while the young generation seems to be uninterested in it.

The American doctor came to Vietnam with a story about Lieutenant William Calley, who was involved in the massacre of 504 women and children in My Lai, the central province of Quang Ngai on March 16, 1968. Calley recently offered an apology for the massacre.

“William Calley has been obsessed and his mind has been tormented for a long time,” Hassan said. “He offered the apology, which ought to have been spoken a long time ago. But that apology is not enough, but it needs to be spoken a thousand times.”

Hassan presented 1000 books to raise funds for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims.

“My book is entitled “Failure to Atone” but I want to go down on my knees to apologise to Vietnamese people,” he said.

Vo Tien