Letters from the Battlefield

Overview

Jacqueline Lundquist's father, Donald C. Lundquist, served in Vietnam in 1967-68. While there, he wrote hundreds of letters and recorded many hours of audio tapes that he sent to his wife and daughter. A mere months after returned from the war, he died. Jacqueline was barely 5 years old. Her mother gave her the letters and audio tapes in her teens, but she didn't read them until the summer of 1997 when she was 7 months pregnant with her son, Sam. She was 34. That set her on a journey of getting to know her dad and retracing his footsteps in Vietnam. She ultimately befriended a North Vietnamese soldier who had fought opposite her father. His family had also kept all the letters he had written back to his wife and daughter. This is their contrasting yet similar story.

Jude Pago