Mekong Delta

Five years ago, when a student from a rural region of the Mekong Delta earned a full scholarship to an international university in Ho Chi Minh City, it seemed like a dream come true.

He was a Green Beret captain and Vietnam veteran with a fake right leg and a hook as a right hand, standing in for the real ones he lost to a grenade in a Mekong Delta firefight nearly 15 years before.

“I’m not talking about blind optimism here. … It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!”

He commanded a Swift boat on the Mekong Delta for four months in 1969, earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

Mr. Sasser was stationed in the Mekong Delta, a riverine agricultural hub in South Vietnam that the Viet Cong could easily reach by crossing the nearby Cambodian border.