In July 1969, under the light of the midsummer full moon, on a Buddhist holiday called the “Night of Wandering Souls,” a woman warrior known to U.S. intelligence as the “Vietnamese Annie Oakley” emerged from her underground hideout to begin a night mission, not knowing she had been betrayed by her bodyguard for the reward for her capture. The lead force sent to capture her was an elite unit of ex-Viet Cong guerillas (Communist fighters who had switched sides) advised by former Marine and Foreign Service Officer Richard Stevens, now Dr. Stevens, longtime history teacher at Hawaii Community College-Palamanui and the UH Center at West Hawaii.
What Dr. Stevens saw “Annie” do that night, answering calls to “Switch sides, you don’t have to be a prisoner!” with a hand grenade, running through a hailstorm of gunfire, diving into a river and swimming with bullets hitting all around her, and what she endured later in captivity, never revealing any of her comrades, changed Stevens’s mind about what humans were capable of, especially those motivated, like her, by their love for their people and the land, and about the war.
Stevens was the sole American advisor to a South Vietnamese unit of 105 “ex”-Viet Cong whose mission was to uncover enemy activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
In 1995, after teaching History of the Vietnam War at the former UH campus in Kealakekua , and telling “Annie’s” story, he was urged by a student to get her side of it. Dr. Stevens went back to Vietnam to search for her, hoping she was still alive, that she would talk to him, and that he would be able to tell her something he had been keeping ever since that fateful Night of Wandering Souls.
Stevens recounts that fateful night, Hoang Thi Nu (Annie) was captured, her subsequent detention and torture and his journey decades later to find the woman in his latest book “Trail to Redemption, Love and War in Vietnam”.
“This fast-paced, real-life adventure story captures the frenzied and fearful flavor of a war in which it was often difficult to know who the enemy was. Trail to Redemption is a story of betrayal, capture, interrogation, imprisonment and escape, and the intertwining paths of a Vietnamese woman warrior and a former U.S. Marine. Above all, it is a story of personal courage, love and respect,” writes one book reviewer.
Bill McWhirter, Vietnam correspondent for Time and Life magazines wrote of the book “Richard Stevens became one of the few Americans to ever penetrate into that Asian Heart of Darkness – the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That almost impossible feat became an even more improbable pursuit of war and love in this remarkable personal story. Like Stevens himself, it is a life and a Vietnamese encounter that is one of a kind.”
Stevens joined the Marines soon after high school and later became a Refugee Advisor for the US Agency for International Development and a Foreign Service Officer. He served in Vietnam for three years in both military and civilian roles, was wounded twice, went missing once and received several Vietnamese medals and the Purple Heart.
On a reconnaissance mission, he realized the U.S. was fighting against nature and would lose, and the Viet Cong were working with nature and would win, and there were worldwide lessons to be learned from this.
Returning to school, he wrote two books on organic gardening in Hawaii and two on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the role of nature in the Vietnam War. He has taught for over 30 years and has received numerous awards for teaching, native tree planting and ancient trail restoration.
Dr. Stevens will discuss the book at Kona Stories Bookstore in the Keauhou Shopping Center on August 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. The book is also available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online outlets.