"In conclusion, as I stood at the airport looking at Vietnam one last time, I understand why and how I should help... and I felt like I belonged there!"

I was born and raised in Texas, which makes me 100% American, or so I thought. For this reason, I never thought I would survive a trip to Vietnam without my parents. When I was asked to join a small group of Vietnamese-Americans on a trip to my parents’ birthplace, I was reluctant for a number of reasons—but mostly, I knew it was because I was afraid to know what my life could have been like. The more I learned about the Vietnam War, the aftermath, and the effects on those who survived and those who escaped, the more I was ridden with guilt that more than half of my relatives were still in Saigon.

For Pauline Tran, born in Saigon in 1952, her dream of "Bonjour Vietnam" is "always very pretty." Her motherland has fields coated in green, trees filled with coconuts and bananas, lazy rivers and mountain backdrops. It is nature unravaged.

In May of 2006, I had the opportunity to go and help build a school in a poor and rural village of Vietnam. Prior to arriving at the school site, I felt excited, not knowing what really to expect.

I am enjoying the view of the tall majestic mountains of An Giang, like a worker stopping from a day’s work to remember his childhood memories.