- [Announcer] "Umoja" Is brought to you in part by Veteran Narratives, sharing the experiences of U.S. veterans and discovering new heroes in our midst.

Veteran Narratives, no stories left behind.

Flint Youth Film Festival, giving a voice to young people in an art form they love.

The Flint Youth Film Festival, sharing young people's visions with the world.

The Alan C. Barnes Peaceful Warriors Project.

Celebrating the music of U.S. veterans and their contributions to culture, as well as the Alan Barnes Music Organization, providing grants to help young musicians.

Berston Field House.

Since 1923, a place for enrichment through education, athletics, the arts, and community service.

Berston echoes with the voices of effort, dedication, achievement, and celebration.

(gentle piano music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle piano music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle piano music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) - [Frank-Antoine] Wow!

(speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) - Her name was Lahn, Nguyen Lahn.

She just took a liking to me and I kind of took a liking to her, and we kind of formed a relationship.

My days were winding down.

And one day she just told me that she was pregnant, you know?

And some GI's are capable and able to, I don't know, marry them or bring them back or whatever.

But I didn't have that ability.

Being in a unit I was in and the situation I was in there was nothing I could do.

I'm very family orientated.

So that always stuck with me that I was incapable of doing anything about that.

So I had to continue on and when I got back to the States, I met another lady and ended up getting married.

But I told her that there's a possibility that I have a daughter or son in Vietnam.

And if she had any problems with that, then we could just break it off now, because if I find out and if I can do anything about it, I'm going to try to find them.

So my first wife, she understood that.

And as the kids started coming, I would tell my sons and daughters that they might have a brother or sister in Vietnam.

So ever since they were small, they grew up knowing that they have somebody over there, but we didn't think that we would be able to find them.

- He came home and he told us that he thought he left a son, a child, not a son, but as a child behind.

But he didn't know for sure.

He was a kid, he didn't know what to do.

But he just knew that something was left behind and periodically throughout time, he would say that from time to time with a new girlfriend or sitting around and talking, it was the only thing he ever talked about with us about his time over there.

- I think I was around... from my earliest memory he told us, he told us about this kid.

It was very casual the way he'd bring it up.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- "You know, it's a possibility you got another brother or sister in Vietnam, right?"

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We'd ask stories about, you know, Vietnam stories and he didn't talk about them in depth at this time too much, but it would seem to come up when you asked him about stories about Vietnam.

- [Asamu] It wasn't anything that I was wanting to hide or try to run from or anything like that.

Because I take care of what's mine, no matter where it's at.

No matter what somebody might say.

Means nothing.

Family means everything to me.

- I was very shocked, even though my father told us about our brother or sister from Vietnam.

You know, it was a possibility that he'd never made it.

So when he contacted us, it was very shocking.

When I saw the message, I knew that he would want to know immediately.

- He had talked me into getting onto these Ancestry sites to try to find relatives of ours that we had lost track of.

And lo and behold, he comes over one day, "Dad!"

I said, "What, son?"

"I found him!"

I said, "Who're you talking about?"

"Our brother in Vietnam.

He lives in France."

I said, "How'd you find out that?"

"See?"

He got it up on the computer and showed me, and that's how we found out.

- Turned it on and just showed them the message.

And I was able to see his face seeing the message.

And he was very excited.

(speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) - His wife, Inesia, 'cause she's more fluent in English than he is at the time.

And she was on social media.

He's not that versed on that.

He doesn't even like that, to tell you the truth.

But then she reached out.

So we started communicating and then finally I talked to him on the phone.

I found out how important she was in this whole situation, his wife, because she was realizing how...

I don't know how to say this, but he didn't know his father, he didn't know his mother.

He loved his adopted parents in France, but that's not the whole story and he was yearning for more.

She could see that in him.

And so she's the one that initiated all this.

(speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) - Being an entertainer, I usually don't get too nervous about anything.

But I'm getting a little edgy about this here, because I never expected this to happen.

(gentle music) Every single one of them are excited about this because they knew ever since they was little, they always knew this.

And so here it is.

The Ancestors are looking down on us, right now.

I'm just gonna grab hold to them, like I do all of them.

Tell him how much I love him and then we'll go from there.

(gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (quiet sobbing) (gentle music) (vocalizing) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) - Three people said to me over the last 10 days, that language won't matter because there's gonna be so much love between them.

And they were absolutely right.

(gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) - [Asamu] He asked me to name him.

And I named him Umoja, Unity.

And with him being here unified my family.

(gentle music) (speaking foreign language) (gentle music) (gentle music) - [Announcer] "Umoja" is brought to you in part by Veteran Narratives, sharing the experiences of U.S. veterans and discovering new heroes in our midst.

Veteran Narratives, no stories left behind.

Flint Youth Film Festival, giving a voice to young people in an art form they love.

The Flint Youth Film Festival, sharing young people's visions with the world.

The Alan C. Barnes Peaceful Warriors Project.

Celebrating the music of U.S. veterans and their contributions to culture, as well as the Alan Barnes Music Organization, providing grants to help young musicians.

Berston Field House.

Since 1923, a place for enrichment through education, athletics, the arts, and community service.

Berston echoes with the voices of effort, dedication, achievement, and celebration.