How did a teacher from Béziers find himself in the middle of the Vietnam War, at the age of 21? André Menras tells us about the war, the prison, the mines, the fear but above all his love story with the Vietnamese.
It all started in 1945 in Tarn then Hérault.
On the banks of the Orb during the school year and in southern Aveyron during the summer holidays… Fishing, poaching, hunting and rugby! Market gardener parents who work day and night and who will transmit all the values of humanity to their only son.
He will be a teacher! He entered the Ecole Normale d’Instituteurs in Montpellier and began teaching. But military service caught up with him. While he tries to escape the weapons, he finds himself at the age of 21, in Saigon.
The war. The Vietnamese. Americans. The horrors. Shock.
The indignation grows so much that he will get involved “humanly” and not “politically”.
For actions as courageous as they are dangerous, he will find himself in prison in Saigon. A “comedy” judgment and here he is 2 years in prison. “This is where I truly become Vietnamese.”
His fight will never end. His love for the people of Vietnam will give him the strength to continue fighting.
The consecration for the one who is already Vietnamese at heart arrives in 2009, when the Vietnamese president, a veteran like him, gives him Vietnamese nationality. An honor and a responsibility for the one who now makes it his duty to tell the whole truth.
His book ” “Vietnam, between the best and the worst” is published by Editions Indes Savantes. Already translated into Vietnamese, he hopes to find a way to distribute it in Vietnam, despite the authorities in place.
