SINGAPORE — Forty-five years ago, as the Vietnam war raged on, Army Specialist Chuck Hagel and Nguyen Tan Dung were on opposite sides of combat serving in the Mekong Delta — both wounded more than once.
This weekend the two men — now America’s defense secretary and Vietnam’s prime minister — met at a formal dinner at the start of an international security conference here, working to help build America’s growing military partnership with Vietnam.
Hagel’s first trip to Asia as Pentagon chief has been a bit of a walk down memory lane for the former infantry soldier.
While Hagel and Dung knew of each other’s service in Vietnam, they had never met. So when they spoke on the sidelines of the dinner Saturday, they had the chance to exchange war stories.
Back in 1968, Hagel was a specialist in the Second Battalion of the 47th Infantry Regiment, fighting in the Mekong Delta. Dung, who joined the Viet Cong around 1961 when he would have been about 12, served as a corpsman, then later led a surgery unit reportedly operating in the Delta’s U Minh forest.
According to defense officials, the two men talked briefly about their time at war and the fact that both had bled for their countries. Dung invited Hagel to visit Vietnam, and the secretary said he looks forward to going.
On Sunday, Hagel toured the Navy’s new small combat ship, the USS Freedom, the first of a new class of warships recently deployed to Asia.
Docked at Changi Naval Base in Singapore, the Freedom has been participating in naval exercises with countries in the region.