U.S. veteran finds lost love in Vietnam — and she has a surprise for him

RP Members another Good Nes story with a happy ending!

Alone in a hotel room in a small Vietnamese town, Jim Reischl waited restlessly. Recounting the story later, the Vietnam veteran said he had traveled 8,500 miles, with an arthritic knee, for this long-sought reunion.

“I am getting a bit excited,” he said. “Geez, I haven’t seen her in 45 years!”

Then came a knock on the door.

On the other side stood the woman he’d left behind when he shipped out of Saigon in July 1970. The young bar hostess who’d told him she was pregnant. He hadn’t believed her, but he’d also never stopped thinking about her. Now she was about to walk back into his life.

Reischl, 68, came to Vietnam as a 21-year-old Air Force sergeant and was stationed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.