Voice leads to reunion

SEATTLE – A Vietnam veteran’s chance trip to a grocery store and his distinctive, almost shrill voice have reunited two friends who faded from each other’s lives more than 30 years ago.

It happened a few weeks ago when Wesley Fisk, 63, was in the checkout line at a north Seattle store, chatting with friends. A diminutive man who was bagging groceries sidled up to Fisk and pulled on his sleeve.

“I used my quiet voice,” said Thin Binh, 58. “I said, ‘Are you Fisk?’ “

Fisk searched the man’s face, found nothing familiar, and scanned down to his name tag. The name jogged his memory, and Fisk let out a yelp and clutched Binh as shoppers and puzzled workers looked on.

“The first thing I heard was yelling and then, ‘I know you! I know you!’ ” said Danyella McAllister, a checker who was working a few feet away.

“The guy had such a grip on Thin. They almost hit the floor. It was clear they hadn’t seen each other in a while. Then we heard it was since Vietnam. Everyone up front started crying.”

Fisk, who was a medic in Vietnam, was abruptly airlifted home to Seattle after injuring his knee in a fall in 1969. He had no time to say goodbye to Binh, an interpreter who helped Fisk’s unit navigate the Vietnamese countryside while quietly steering them away from Viet Cong encampments.

For decades, Fisk believed Binh had been killed after the war for helping U.S forces. But Binh survived, married and raised a family. He moved to Seattle in the mid-1990s, with no idea that his old friend lived just two miles away.

Their paths didn’t cross again until late March, when Binh recognized Fisk’s trademark voice in the checkout line.

“When I heard it, I started to get emotional,” Binh said.

Fisk was born in Seattle in 1941. He began playing violin as a child, and was majoring in music in college in 1965 when he broke his wrist in a bicycle accident and was forced to drop some classes. He received his draft notice 18 months later.

Thin (pronounced “tin”) Binh was born in 1947 in the Vietnamese village of Duc Co. He is a Jarai, one of the country’s minority highland tribes. In school, he studied French and English, and learned Vietnamese and seven tribal tongues.

During summer vacation from his college courses in 1965, Binh took a job with the U.S. Special Forces as a translator and interpreter.

He was later assigned to help Fisk’s Army Medical Civic Action Program, which attempted to win local allies by sending small teams of medics to distribute aid in remote villages. Fisk was stationed near the Cambodian border when he and Binh began their friendship.

“I was drawn to him on my first encounter,” Fisk recalled. “We could talk to each other. He understood what we needed to do.”

It was years later that Fisk realized that Binh also was helping the medics avoid hidden guerrilla camps in the highlands.

“I’m sure Binh saved my life on many occasions,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind. In several cases, villages were overrun but only after we left. Too many times for coincidence.”

For Binh, Fisk stood out from the start. He learned the language and some highland traditions, was friendly and talkative. He also was a bit noisy — “you could hear him from far away,” Binh recalled.

“He was respectful. He seemed to care about us,” Binh said. “He was my friend.”

Then one day, Fisk disappeared.

“I didn’t know what happened to him,” Binh said.

Fisk got married, had two children, developed and kicked a drinking problem, and rose to the second violinist’s chair in the Seattle Symphony. He never knew what happened to Binh, but never expected to see him again.

“I thought he was dead,” Fisk said.

Since meeting again, Fisk’s and Binh’s families have enjoyed regular dinners, reading Fisk’s old letters from Vietnam and viewing several hundred slides he took while overseas. Binh’s children laughed when they saw their dad and mom at age 20.

Both men still marvel that their meeting might not have happened if Binh hadn’t recognized Fisk’s voice in the grocery line.

“When I heard it,” Binh said, “I started thinking that this person is a friend of mine. But then I doubted it. I saw him and I thought I must be wrong. It’s been so long.”

“Just think if we’d gone to a different store!” Fisk said.