Kat Fitzpatrick | Making Vietnam History Accessible to a New Generation

Program Description

The format of this program can be crafted for your class’s current studies of history or writing.

While the format is flexible, the goal remains the same: to share stories of Vietnam that will bring history alive, make it relatable, and offer students the opportunity to interact with someone (a civilian) whose life was directly impacted by the Vietnam War.

In addition to sharing a multitude of stories of my own and of other people’s, I have years of experience in writing and teaching writing. My parent’s “regular” letters were a key ingredient that made these stories come alive. I can lead programs in writing “today’s history” as part of either a social studies or ELA class.

Briefly, my family story is this: a civilian family of nine resided in Saigon in 1974-75 as the North Vietnamese Army was making its way toward the doomed city. At the eleventh hour, my father, a CIA official, coordinated the rescue of over 1,000 South Vietnamese who would have otherwise faced a fate worse than death after the communist takeover.

My Vietnam publications include “For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story never heard” (2023) and “The Fight to Write: what the Vietnam War taught me about truth and writing” (2015).