Coming Home
American veteran Thomas Hutchings fell in love with Vietnam as a young Air Force crewman. Decades later he’s returned to stay in the only place he’s ever felt at home.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Sep 5, 7:14 PM ET
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — With his long, gray hair, beard, round glasses and Hawaiian shirt, Thomas Hutchings is easy to pick out of the sea of motorbikes cruising through Ho Chi Minh City's District 3.
The 57-year-old American Vietnam War veteran may stand out physically in the country where he once helped target bombing missions, but mentally and spiritually he says he fits right in. So much so, it's become his permanent home.
"I had always wanted to come back," he says, "and when I finally did ... the heat, the smells, the colors, the beautiful Vietnamese women on motorbikes ... it was wonderful."
Riding through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City» View
Hutchings came back to Vietnam in 2005. Although a search for healing was a part of that decision, it was his love of the country and culture that was the deciding factor, he says.
"My manner has always been more Asian," he says from the apartment he rents in a Ho Chi Minh City neighborhood where foreigners are usually a rare sight.
An altruistic act first brought Hutchings to Vietnam in 1970. He and a friend were both U.S. Air Force crew members based in Germany, but the friend got orders for Vietnam while Hutchings was to remain in Germany.
Since the friend was married with children, Hutchings volunteered to take his place.
He says it was one of the best decisions he's ever made.
"I fell in love with the country," says the Altadena, Calif. native.
From February 1970 to August 1971, Hutchings flew 126 missions as a crew member aboard EC-47 aircraft, a modified DC-3 outfitted for ground surveillance and targeting.
"I was known as a 'town rat,'" Hutchings says, "because I spent more time there than I did on base (Tan Son Nhut Air Base)."
Hutchings say he eventually took an apartment in town, married a Vietnamese woman and had a child before his tour of duty was up.
American veteran Thomas Hutchings
overlooks a street in his new home.
The marriage ended in divorce. Hutchings returned to the U.S. and spent the next three decades working an odyssey of careers ranging from postal worker to politics, with a long stint as a counselor for the California Youth Authority. Hutchings says that ended when he shattered a disk trying to break up a fight between two inmates. Now he receives permanent disability from the state of California.
"When I went back to the States in 1971, I felt completely out of step," he says. "Everything was consumption driven. Societal values were based on materialism, in stark contrast to the family orientation of Asian culture."
Hutchings reacted to that disorientation by eventually converting to Buddhism and even spending time as a Buddhist monk in a California monastery.
He says he also came to the conclusion that American involvement in the war in Vietnam was wrong, including his own service.
"We didn't do the shooting, but we did a lot of killing," he says of his specific work on the EC-47.
"I didn't know if it was latent guilt at having to deal with the death of so many civilians," he says. "It wasn't so bad at first, but after doing research and looking at the information available, I came to the realization there was no reason whatsoever for America's involvement in Vietnam."
"The whole war was based on lies and misperceptions," he says. "It was a senseless waste of human life, 60,000 Americans and 2 to 4 million Vietnamese."
Hutchings says he decided to move to Vietnam permanently after a trip here in 2004 that reunited him with some other service members.
Finding a new life Ho Chi Minh City
"A lot of American veterans either dream about coming back," he says, "or shudder when they hear the word 'Vietnam.' For me, I had first come here as a 20-year-old and it was a very emotional, character-building experience."
And despite his past as an enemy combatant, he says he is widely accepted in Vietnam, and not just as a curiosity.
"I feel like I've integrated into society," Hutchings says. "I have a very active social life. I'm welcomed into the community."
He says part of that was made easier by having some connections to the family of his former Vietnamese wife, but much of it was just by trying to fit in.
"When I first got here I rode by motorbike to a little shop down the street," he says. "I just sat there on a plastic stool outside and I would write my novel longhand and talk to the owner and whoever came around. Eventually I just became part of the surroundings."
Because he gets monthly disability checks from the state of California, Hutchings says its not hard to make ends meet in affordable Vietnam. He says he can pay for everything, including his apartment, for $250-$300 a month.
He augments his disability income by teaching English at a local technical university, but also finds time to indulge his creative side, including travel photography and writing a novel of intrigue and betrayal set during, what else, the war in Vietnam.
He says he eventually wants to build a French-style villa in Vietnam, marry again and spend the rest of his life here. Not everyone understands his decision, including members of his own family.
He says his decision to live in Vietnam permanently is not based on anti-American feelings, but simply being in a place that feels right for him.
"I hear from people all the time, 'Why would you leave your country?' But my feeling is I've returned to my country. This is the only place I've ever felt at home. It feels like home to me. I know where I am here."
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