After a good night's sleep, I made my way to the bathroom to shave and refresh while continuing on the train to Danang. It turns out that the father had been a Viet Cong soldier and he and his son were on their way to a veterans reunion in Ho Chi Minh City. None of us spoke the other's language, but signing and looking at my Vietnamese phrasebook I pieced out the following information about this father's life.
Here is a picture he showed me when he was a fresh recruit.
He started out with the Viet Cong as a recruit in Hanoi and then proceeded to move down toward Hue and participated in the Tet offensive in 1974. His specialty was as a bomb disposal expert.
Here are the captured minefield instructions from the US Army that show how a minefield is laid out and the various types of mines to be used.
Here is a page from his journal that has a picture of a hilltop that he had defended.
He indicated that after the Tet Offensive, his group made their way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos to Saigon where they laid siege on Saigon until the fall of Saigon and the end of the "American War". Here are two pictures of him and his buddies in Saigon in 1975.
After showing me all of his materials, he ended up offering me some breakfast so I did not have to buy some from the train staff.
The final picture he showed me was of the last war reunion that he attended and this time he was taking his son to the event. He is on the far left in the white uniform.
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