This website is dedicated
to all soldiers of Pilipino descent who served in the United States military during the Vietnam
War. The mission of this website is to reclaim our forgotten military history and heritage in the United States Armed Forces.
We start with the name
list of our Pilipino Vietnam War Veterans from their respective home state of (military) record or state of residence.
Many of the initial listings will come from the State of Hawaii, since my first project is
about Pilipinos in Hawaii
http://filipinosgone2hawaii.tripod.com
A guest page in this website is for the more than 2,000 Pilipinos in the Philippine
Civic Action Groups (PhilCag) and the Philippine Contingents (Philcon) sent by the Philippine government from 1964 to 1971
to serve the medical, dental, engineering and other needs of the Vietnamese. These noncombatant civic groups included Philcag
Chief of Staff Colonel Fidel V. Ramos, a West Point graduate and the future President of the Philippines (1992-1998). A prominent war journalist was Max Soliven,
the Harvard educated future co-founder of Philippine Daily Inquirer & Philippine Star. Philcag suffered its first casualties
in September 1966 when seven Pilipinos were wounded in Tay Nihn S. Vietnam mine.
The Philippines had been traditionally sensitive to the humanitarian needs of the Vietnamese.
In 1954 Operation Brotherhood had sent doctors and nurses to Vietnam.
This people to people program continued its charitable mission until 1956, despite suffering a tragedy when Dr. Jose Alejos,
Adela D. Pimentel, R.N. and Yvonne Ocampo, Nurses Aide died in a boating accident on August 27, 1955. Then, after the fall
of South Vietnam government in 1975, camps were set up in the Philippines to aid and shelter the Vietnamese refugees prior to their resettlement in the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. The repatriation situation became complicated
with more arrivals of Vietnamese fleeing by boatloads from their country. Although, this became problematic to a poor country
like the Philippines, but since the Pilipinos
are generally compassionate and tolerant of people with religion, culture and language different from their own, they tried
their best to accommodate the needs of the Vietnamese asylum seekers. Additionally, since the Philippines is the host country
to the U.S. military bases, the role that the Pilipinos had played in these wars that involved Asian countries like Japan,
Korea & Vietnam can not and should not be ignored.
The awareness of
our unique history is the responsibility of every living Pilipino. I offer you this website as a limited resource for the
Vietnam War. It is my hope that my love for the Philippines
history and culture overcome my lack of scholarly credential.
I dedicate this website
to my two uncles:
George Valdez Embry, a U.S.
Navy Vietnam War Veteran
Joseph Valdez Embry, served in the U.S.
Army during the Vietnam War period
