by Peter A. Huchthausen and Nguyen Thi Lung
Foreword by Sylvana Foa

In 1967 the Mekong River was a dangerous place:

"As we waited for the mike boat, Donovan arranged with the Ninth Division for a pair of Cobra gunship helicopters as escorts when we started downstream again. While we waited, two figures suddenly bolted from the tall grass across the canal, soaking wet and running through the grass like gazelles toward the canal.

'Hey, they're ours, sir, they must'a swam for it,' Queenan shouted. 'Over here,' he called, just as a dozen shots rang out from across the canal. I watched as the two survivors jumped through the grass in slow motion. Behind them two figures in green sun lulmets raced toward us. Time seemed to stand still ... I suddenly realized I was yelling and my voice had changed to a shriek."

That fateful year, Peter Huchthausen, then the captain of a U.S. Navy river patrol boat, and his crew, rescued a badly wounded Vietnamese child, Nguyen Thi Lung. Huchthausen and his men arranged for Lung's treatment and education, only to lose track of her when her town was overrun by the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive.

After the war. Lung led a difficult and shadowy life under the communist regime. Finally, in 1982, she managed to smuggle a letter and picture to Sylvana Foa, then a reporter for United Press International. Ms. Foa, now spokesperson for the Secretary General of the United Nations, published Lung's story and assisted her departure from Vietnam, while Huchthausen sponsored her entry into the United States.

In alternating chapters, Huchthausen and Lung recall the experience of war on the vast Mekong River and the terrifying years that followed for her. Echoes of the Mekong casts a fresh light on the American involvement in Vietnam as it follows two people caught in the war from youth to maturity.

". . . the most endearing account of all those I have heard is the poignant story told by then Lieutenant Peter A. Huchthausen of his shared experiences with a gallant Vietnamese girl in Echoes of the Mekong."
ADM Eimo R. Zumwalt, Jr. USN (Ret.), former Commander, Naval Forces, Vietnam

"A small gem of a dual memoir in which a former US Navy riverboat commander and a young Vietnamese woman tell amazing, intersecting tales of war and peace." -KIRKUS REVIEWS



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