Birthday Not Forgotten

Today marks what would have been my father's 77th birthday. It's an occassion we had learned long ago never to forget how important this day was to him. And so in his honor we shall continue to have a birthday dinner featuring his favorite enchiladas and remeber the man who he was and how we know at peace he is.

A Son's Journey One Year Later

It was a year ago that I embarked on my famous journey to participate in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's Memory Day Ceremony held across from "The Wall" in Washington D.C. I had never been on a more significant journey filled with both awe and sorrow. It was there on that hot steamy Saturday morning that I inducted my late father Luis Eduardo Rosas-Luca Sr. into the VVMF Virtual Honor Roll. As the sole family representative and only son, it was a duty of utmost importance that I attend and bestow this honor for my late father who had served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966.

It has been year this weekend since I stood on that grass when I took this photo of the 300 families that were in attendance. It was very hot & humid with rain appearing here and there. In a sense, the overcast during the ceremony was fitting for in a sense it reflected both my happiest times and the complicated relationship I had with my father. The war in Vietnam had long passed yet the echoes of the war lived on through him and in unexpected ways through me.By accepting the connection to Agent Orange linking my father's death and my own health problems and thus further by extension that of my children's complications, the truth has set us free. There is no longer blame or the "Why Me?" or the fists waving at some unseen god's indifference to our sufferings. Both the problem and the responsibility is entirely man made and man owned. The important thing to know is that it was not our fault nor our fathers who were exposed to this toxin that damaged their genes before they brought us into the world after their tours ended. For the time being, there is no medical help or proper way to connect the toxin to our own complications that any government agency or medical insurance company will validate thus we are on our own. And while there is nothing that can be done for those of us carrying the multitude of ailments inherited by Agent Orange, we must all find our way to soldier on. In one sense I am grateful to know this community of sorts comprised of Vietnam Veterans and their families. I am grateful to know that I was not the only one who had a complex relationship with a war we did not fight that raged within our father's psyche. Knowing the truth has given me the freedom to learn, and to respect the man like I never knew before while he was alive. While much of the war may be never truly understood and its lessons lost on future generations, it is up to us the children of this war to carry on the legacy and honor our fathers who fought bravely on behalf of the unqualified against the unfortunate for an ungrateful nation. In this task, we shall never waiver nor shall we ever forget. 

Remembering My Father

It was three years ago that I got the call that my father had passed away in the night. He went quickly from Pulmonary Fibrosis which doctors link to a scarring of his lungs from a "toxic substance" at the ages of 25-26. It was during the ages of 25-26 that my father Luis Eduardo Rosas-Luca was then an Avionics Specialist 4th Class serving in the United States Army in Vietnam where he had been repeatedly been exposed to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange in an effort to deprive the Viet Cong of the sanctuary of the jungle for cover. My father lived an extraordinary life despite being shortened by ten years, he left large shoes to fill which to this day I continue to struggle to fill.

Since that time I had attempted to unite the surviving family in vain. No one can say I didn't try. But in that time I did accomplish one mission he never completed and that was to return of W.O. Douglas Niles's dog tags which I took to the Vietnam Memorial Wall when I went there this last June to induct my father into the Vietnam Memorial Fund's Virtual Honor Roll. And while some of my efforts bore no lasting fruit, the work continues as we work on a screen play dramatizing the story of his tour in Vietnam and continue to sell copies of his book MY FATHERS WAR IN VIETNAM AND THE LONG SHADOW OF THE HON CONG MOUNTAIN. And as we hold a private memorial service for him today at our Koyasan Buddhist Temple (for which he was given the honor of being presented a posthumous Buddhist name) we continue to remember all that he had taught us and the example by which he chose to live by. We hope somewhere out there he's pleased with our efforts. But there is much more to do and we must be ever mindful that as we continue to carry on his legacy, we too are creating our own legacy and must never forget those who came before us and showed us how to live. Until we meet again, smile from heaven dad because we are thinking of you.

Just as my fingernails are stained with the pigment from balsam flowers,
my heart is painted with the teachings of my parents.
Although the stars in the sky are countable,
the teachings of my parents are not.
Just as ships that run in the night are guided to safety by the North star,
I am guided by my parents who gave birth to me and watch over me. 

-Chinsagu No Hana

50 Years Ago This Week: America Enters The Vietnam War

It was 50 years ago this week in 1965 that then Resident Lyndon Baines Johnson announced on American Television that he would be sending the Air Mobile Division to Vietnam thus embarking our nation to a war few people understood yet wanted to fight that tore our nation apart. 

Here is an excerpt from that famous speech:

"We intend to convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. They are not easily convinced. In recent months they have greatly increased their fighting forces and their attacks and the number of incidents. I have asked the Commanding General, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me. We will meet his needs.

I have today ordered to Viet-Nam the Air Mobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately. Additional forces will be needed later, and they will be sent as requested."

Among the many men of the 1st Air Cavalry Air Mobile Division that would be sent halfway around the world to Vietnam was my late father Luis E. Rosas-Luca seen here from his bunk aboard the troop ship that took him to the war zone.

Memory Day 2015

This year as in many years passed, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund honored 165 former servicemen who died from service related illnesses connected to the Vietnam War in Washington n D.C. at the Vietnam Memorial. Better known to many as “The Wall,” the Vietnam memorial served as a backdrop for a ceremony that had over 1400people in attendance among them yours truly the son of former 146^th TAW Alumni Luis E. Rosas who had made the journey to honor his father and induct him into the VVMF Virtual Honor Roll which contains the names and pictures of some 2000 Vietnam Veterans who largely died from complications related to their exposure to Agent Orange during their tours of Vietnam. 

Luis’s surviving son American Mishima author Louis Edward Rosas Jr. was accompanied by former U.S. Army Sergeant Jim Beaver who served with Luis Rosas at Fort Benning and at An Khe Vietnam as members of the 1^st Air Cavalry Division, 15^th Transportation Corps Battalion, Delta Company to pay tribute to his service during 1965-1966 as a member of the Avionics Shop which paved the way for a lifetime career in both civilian and military aviation maintenance. This was a deep emotional journey which we plan to write about in a future book titled "A SON'S JOURNEY TO THE WALL."

The Memory Day Service is an annual event. If you have a family member who has passed away from a service related illness from the Vietnam War, you may apply to have them inducted into the Virtual Honor Roll whose names and photos will one day go on display at a future planned VVMF museum set to be constructed adjacent to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Selected non-perishable items left at The Wall will one day go on display there. 

Since the Wall's construction, people have left everything from teddy bears to dog tags at the base of the Wall. For Louis Rosas Jr. he left the dog tags of his father’s friend he had kept and a newly released paperback copy of his father’s book MY FATHER’S WAR IN VIETNAM AND THE LONG SHADOW OF THE HON CONG MOUNTAIN. He did this so that in his own words as he refers’ to his father gracing the cover:”We did this so long after I am gone, my father’s smile will still be here to greet visitors and in doing do live on.”

To Read about Luis E. Rosas life and service in Vietnam please visit:

MY FATHER'S WAR IN VIETNAM AND THE LONG SHADOW OF THE HON CONG MOUNTAIN

To find out more about the VVMF Memory Day please visit:

VVMF MEMORY DAY