VIETNAM EPILOGUE

If the actions of the young Vietnamese men involved in the Good Guys tragedy represent the worst nightmare for an immigrant’s family, then author Andrew Lam surely represents such a family’s most honorable and best dreams (“Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge,” March 13). It was a tough, honest, perceptive and poignant article by a great writer.

S. KANANI FONG

La Habra Heights

Lam’s article is journalism at its best, providing facts and insight into a modern-day tragedy that might easily have been dismissed as “just another hostage situation.” His bridging of the Vietnamese and American cultures serves both well. We are all better humans for the understanding he has given us.

J. C. BETTENDORF

La Habra

The people of Vietnam were not losers. They had opted for secession from the world imperialist-colonialist system, for the right to run their own affairs, for their freedom. We peace activists still celebrate their victory over a ruthless invader that bombed, killed, wounded, maimed and poisoned an innocent people.

BEATRICE BOYER

Flushing, N.Y.

Vietnamese living in the United States, and Americans, too, can stop saying they were on the losing side of the war. Although we did not enjoy a traditional military victory, the action helped lead to the fall of worldwide communism. No one need hang his or her head and worry that the war was fought in vain. Nor should the war be used as an excuse for violent, antisocial behavior of the type described in Lam’s article.

MIKE WEISS

Los Angeles

Lam is so determined to shoehorn these murderers into his own romantic scenario that he, while reminding us constantly that he’s a journalist, has neglected to interview the people who bred and raised three killers--their parents. And where does the end of this article find us? Alongside Lam, placing an offering on the graves of the murderers.

Give me a break.

PATTI STEGER

Whittier

I hope Lam’s article doesn’t leave readers with the impression that Vietnamese youths are a bunch of gun-toting, ginseng-crazed, dysfunctional people whose only aim is to kill all the Viet Cong to avenge their fathers’ lost glory. I don’t think that the Vietnamese community wants to be known by the number of times it appears on the 11 o’clock news. Let’s see that event for what it was, an unfortunate and isolated occurrence.

MAI L. NGUYEN

La Mirada

Bravo for printing such an emotionally provocative article. Lam has moved this ordinary, middle-aged white woman’s soul to shed extraordinary tears. I am changed forever.

HILDA BEAVER

Orange