Vietnam vet traces war diary author after amazing sleuthwork. Now he'll visit the family

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Peter Mathews spent the past 56 years wondering about the owner of a small booklet he found in a bookbag on a hill in Vietnam — who he was, whether he survived the war, and what the meaning was behind the beautifully intricate drawings and handwriting that filled the book’s pages.

Next month, the Bergenfield, New Jersey, veteran will travel to Ha Tinh province, where the diary’s author, a North Vietnamese soldier, had lived, to present the book to two sisters who have spent the years mourning a brother who never returned home from the war.

“This has been a humbling experience,” Mathews said. “I was amazed. I thought it would be a long search. I told them I hope his writings ease their pain.”

Mathews found the book as an Army sergeant with the 1st Cavalry Division in November 1967, while he was searching with his unit through an area of South Vietnam's Central Highlands near Dak To.

American soldiers during the war were told to look through enemy belongings for any notes or writings that could offer potential information about battlefield strategy or plans. But Mathews, moved by the beauty of the book’s pages amid the violence of war, stuck it in his pocket and kept it instead.

After he returned home to New Jersey, Mathews tucked the notebook away. It sat in an attic for decades until about a year ago, when Mathews, now 77, began looking for information so he might return the book to the soldier or his surviving relatives.

Posts on social media seeking answers got Mathews only so far, but when a story about the veteran and his quest to find the diary’s owner ran on NorthJersey.com late last month, it got the attention of a reporter for Dan Tri, a major newspaper in Vietnam.

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The reporter sent the story to a government official from the province on Vietnam’s north central coast that was listed in the booklet as the soldier’s home address.

After a brief but intense search, Tran Nhat Tan, the provincial chairman of Ha Tinh, was able to verify the identity of the book’s author — Cao Van Tuat — gleaned from information in its pages.

Now, a little more than two weeks after the story ran, Mathews is planning a trip back to the country he left as a young soldier a half-century ago. Vietnam Airlines has offered to fly Mathews and his wife from San Francisco to Hanoi.

From there, the couple will travel to Ha Tinh province, where a press conference will be held before Mathews visits with Tuat's family and gives them the book.  

Mathews said he does not expect to recognize the Vietnam of his memories, and he doesn't plan on visiting places where he served as a soldier.

“I’m not going to see a country I knew at that point in time,” he said. “I have no interest in trying to rekindle any more memories than what I have. I don’t think if I looked at these places it would erase anything.”

The booklet is not a day-to-day diary, but more a collection of artwork, poems, personal reflections and love letters, Tan, the provincial chairman, told NorthJersey.com in an email.

On its lined pages are notes to Tuat's mother and sister and a girlfriend in the countryside, Tan said, and other writings that “show the soldier’s will, optimism and faith to win and unify the country while on the battlefield.”

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The search for Tuat’s identity was complicated by a difference in the middle name between “Cao Xuan Tuat,” the name written inside the book, and “Cao Van Tuat,” the one listed in the file of soldiers from Ha Tinh. But the names that the soldier had written of his father, mother, sister and hometown were identical, and another soldier from the province recognized the handwriting.

Tan asked Shannon Gramse, a writing professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage who last month visited Ha Tinh as part of an educational exchange program, to help him connect with Mathews.

“He sent me the link to the story and asked me for help,” Gramse said. “This means a lot to people in Vietnam. That Mr. Mathews held on to this for 56 years, on their side there’s a sense of reconciliation and connection.”

Tuat’s body was never recovered. During the war, the family was given a death notice that provided few details.

'Honoring him all this time'

According to Vietnamese records, Cao Van Tuat died within two months of when Mathews found the booklet at the bottom of a hill near Dak To. He could have been killed in that battle, an intense, monthlong fight that cost many American and Vietnamese lives, or sometime soon after.

But his family, who has waited for decades for any information about the soldier’s fate, is hopeful that Mathews may be able to provide information to help them find his grave.

Tuat was the family’s only son. Mathews will meet his two surviving sisters and a nephew when he visits their home next month.

In traditional Vietnamese culture, it is believed when someone dies their spirit is still present, Gramse said. In nearly every Vietnamese home is an altar for the family to honor relatives who have died.

“The family of this soldier has been honoring him all this time, lighting incense, praying,” he said. “And then to have such a tangible connection to him, it’s very profound.”

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The response in Vietnam has been overwhelming, Mathews said. Since the initial story ran, Vietnamese newspapers and magazines have published more than a dozen pieces detailing the search for the soldier, stories of his life and service and of the family’s emotional reactions to the book’s discovery.

When the sisters were told that the book was confirmed to be their brother’s work, it was a deeply emotional moment. According to Vietnamese news reports, the women were in tears seeing pictures of their brother’s handwriting and illustrations.

When he spoke with the soldier’s family, Mathews said, he told them he was sorry for holding on to the book for so long.

“I apologized that I kept it for 50 years before I did anything,” he said. “I wanted to put the war behind me. I tried to block everything out, all those memories. In hindsight, I wish I got it to them sooner. I hope it’s some sort of closure, for them, and I think for myself as well.”