Finding the Son I Never Knew in Vietnam

Nissan's electric vehicles run on a special electricity. Not the electricity that turns on light bulbs or runs through your outlets.

I'm talking that spine-tingling, goose-bump feeling that electrifies your body and soul. It could be the simple win of leaving on time for your morning commute or scoring the largest deal of your career. Nissan is continuously evolving and changing the game through electric vehicle engineering. Because the electricity of their cars not only moves engines, it also moves the emotions of those who drive them. To learn more about Nissan's electric vehicle lineup, visit www.NissanUSA.com Introducing Uber Teen Accounts. An Uber account for your teen with always-on enhanced safety features. Your teen can request a ride when you can't take them. You'll get real-time notifications along the way. Your teen can feel a sense of independence. You can follow their entire route on a live tracking map. Your teen will get assigned the top-rated drivers. You will get peace of mind.

Add your teen to your Uber account today. Available in select locations. For details. Hit play and feel the real with Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. Breakthrough immersive audio makes all your music feel more natural than ever by taking it out of your head and placing it just in front of you. Like listening without wearing earbuds at all. And the high fidelity audio and world-class noise cancellation are tailored to your ears only. So everything's personalized and hits just as it should. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

Dive in deeper at Bose.com forward slash iHeart. This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show. And we love hearing your stories. Up next, a story from a listener on 1100 KFAB in Omaha, Nebraska. Brent Evanoff joined the Army right before the Gulf War.

Here's Brent. I was born in Council Plus, Iowa, raised good Midwestern values. I come from a history of family serving in the military all the way back to World War I. Both grandparents fought in World War II. Father, Vietnam era, countless aunts and uncles that had served over the years. That influenced me quite a bit, and I decided to join the military, graduated high school early. Just didn't really quite know what I wanted to do in this world other than serve the military and go on to do good things. December 1989, I enlisted as a cavalry scout, and I went through cavalry scout training in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and found myself assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fort Bliss, Texas, May of 1990. And being a new private, you know, everything's still new to me.

I'm training. In August of 1990, we were out on a two-week field training exercise when Iraq invaded Kuwait. To all intents and purposes, Kuwait has ceased to exist as an independent sovereign nation.

Good afternoon, everyone. Well, at this hour, Iraq remains in firm control of the tiny oil-rich country of Kuwait. We had a warning order to prepare to deploy to the Middle East.

Didn't really understand the consequences of that. We roll back on post, and there's trains everywhere. We're loading tanks and Bradleys on trains to go to Beaumont, Texas.

We're loading live ammunition into these armored vehicles to go to Beaumont, Texas. We had about 10 days to, you know, kind of finish shots. And we did some training. Being an 18-year-old kid, about to turn 19, the last three days, we kind of had our own personal time. To be quite honest, I only remember about a third of that time, you know, being young kids, off to war. You know, we trained hard, and we kind of partied pretty hard.

Well, you know, I go over there overseas and get on with my life. Get out, go to college at the University of Iowa, and I graduated. I was an Omaha fireman for a little while, and then I proceeded to get interested in anesthesia and left and became certified registered nurse and esthetist. And found myself getting married to a woman, and we had three beautiful children. And, you know, my son is interested in going in the military, graduating high school much like I did.

And great kid on head on the shoulders, but I understand where he's coming from. You know, you don't know what you want to do. And so he was going to enlist in the military. And, you know, I'm in my anesthesia practice, and I think, you know, I'm in my mid-40s and comfortable in my lifestyle. And, you know, I think I've got the world by the tail. And I find myself in a case, anesthesia case, and my sister texted me about noon, said, hey, can you talk? And I text her back, I'm in a case, can I call you later? She said, well, call me when you get home.

And I get home that day, it was in February of 2018, and I clicked back in the recliner, remember it vividly, and the ceiling fan was on low. And she said, Bren, are you sitting down? And she's 12 months younger than me.

And I know people out there with siblings, they know when they're messing with you or when something all of a sudden is very serious. And I said, yeah, I'm sitting down, sis, what's going on? She bluntly told me that I have a 26-year-old son I don't know about. And I vividly remember looking at the ceiling fan, I watched the blade go around three times, and I kind of said, sis, I'm going to need a little more information. Well, the back story was my mom was our housekeeping at another hospital, retired two years earlier. She got into genealogy and swabbed her buccal membrane and sent it in. And she gets like an email back saying, hey, you two need to really talk. And my mom didn't know what to do, so she contacted my sister, and my sister kind of was emailing this guy. And it turns out this guy was in the United States Navy Station in Italy. And he said, you know, on my birth certificate, it says father unknown. If this person doesn't want to be a part of my life, I understand that.

If they could tell me a little bit about maybe my genetic history, if I need to be concerned about anything, I'd appreciate it. I'm just floored. You know, here I have the world by the tail, and then something like this happens to you unexpectedly. You're only on this earth, you know, a snap of a finger fraction of a second of time. Why would you not want to get to know someone like that? And so I said, yes, Chris, I would love to, you know, get a hold of him. And my sister sent me a picture of him.

You know, we look alike. His mother was down at Fort Bliss, Texas, the same time period I was. And, you know, I just harken back to that time where being a, you know, raise your hand if you've never done anything irresponsible. I remember vividly video conferencing with the Skype and up pops this handsome young stud in the United States Navy serving overseas. And we kind of just, you know, said hello and, you know, got to know each other a little bit. It was really a wonderful experience. And, you know, as I, you know, a month later, I kind of talked to my family and, you know, told them the story and how good head on the shoulders. You know, and we just kind of fomented this relationship of, you know, getting to know each other, you know, and this this kid has an amazing ability to, you know, I felt guilty, you know, because I missed being a father to him during impressionable years. And I felt guilty a lot of time. And he kept interrupting me saying, hey, let's not look in the back the rearview mirror, let's let's look down the road and just enjoy what we have. And, you know, a lot of times it brings me to tears, to be quite honest, that this young man can be so strong. And it really humbled me in a lot of ways.

So fast forward. My son's in the United States Army. And again, I call my my son that I've always known, my old young son and Tyler, my new old son. You know, he's in the Navy overseas in Italy. My son, my son, Nicholas, my old young son is in the Army in Korea.

And I've got two high school girls. And, you know, when I got out of the Army, I spent four months backpacking through part of North Africa and Europe and quite an adventure. And come to find out, my my new old son has traveled extensively through Europe and has military history entrance interests, much like I do. And my son, Nicholas, my old young son, I thought, wow, you know, what an amazing experience. My two sons had not met that summer. I flew Tyler from Italy to meet his sisters for the first time.

Unfortunately, my son was already in the Army and in Korea at that time. So I thought, how can we all just kind of take this blessing and tie it all in together? I came up with the solution to I'd never traveled to Far East Asia. So I put this out there and it kind of came together in May and June. We spent 30 days backpacking through South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia to be able to see my sons meet for the first time and just kind of can try to connect ourselves as a family as best we can underneath the circumstances.

And boy, was it humbling and an amazing experience. So we're traveling, getting to know each other. Tyler, my new old son, does not have sisters. So watching them interact and new big brother, kind of as we're spending 30 days together, literally staying in hostels and kind of roughing it. You know, that's kind of what the venture we were looking for, teasing his new sisters. And likewise, the sisters teasing their new older brother back and brothers and brothers kind of interacting. You know, as a as a father, it it really, you know, kind of I was very, very happy. And you're listening to Brett Evanoff. He finds out he has a 26 year old son he never knew. And this became the gift, a blessing, as he said.

And the son says, let's not look in the rear view mirror, dad. When we come back, more of this remarkable voice, this beautiful story, Brett Evanoff's story here on Our American Stories. Hello there.

This is Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History. eBay Motors is here for the ride. You saw the potential through some elbow grease, fresh installs and a whole lot of love. You transformed a hundred thousand miles and a body full of rust into a drive entirely its own. Look to your left.

Look to your right. No one's got a ride like this. There's nothing else that sounds like, feels like or looks like the set of wheels in your garage. With over one hundred and twenty two million parts for your number one ride or die, you can make sure your ride stays running smoothly.

So there's no limit to how far you can take it. Brake kits, turbochargers, engines, exhaust kits, roof racks, LED headlights, bumpers. Whatever your baby needs, eBay Motors has it. And with eBay Guaranteed Fit, it's guaranteed to fit your ride the first time, every time for your money back. Plus, at these prices, you're burning rubber, not cash.

Keep your ride or die alive at eBay Motors dot com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. On Heart of the Game, we're talking with some of the most successful families in sports to learn what's really making them tick from staying healthy to fostering strong family bonds. We'll hear from athletes such as Kurt Warner on what lessons are being passed down to a new generation of athletes. There is a level when we play that we feel we're invincible. You feel like it's not going to happen to you. But then any time it does, whether it's you suffering an injury or teammates suffering a traumatic injury, that's what stops you in your tracks. And it makes you go, OK, we're not invincible. And it becomes more personal.

It's a part of the process to have to work through those things, you know, and understand the risks that go into it and understand the rewards or the love for the sport. Listen to Heart of the Game every Thursday on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, check out this news from boost infinite. You can now get the latest iPhone every year and unlimited wireless for just sixty dollars a month. This includes the new iPhone 15 Pro. Now, just think about that. You get the latest iPhone, not just this year, every year.

The earth goes round the sun. You get the latest iPhone and unlimited wireless from boost infinite and free candy. No, no free candy. But you know, those people who always have the latest tech gizmo before everyone else. Now you could be one of those people without even trying. And when people ask you, is that the latest iPhone? You could just be all cool about it and say, oh, yeah, I mean, I get the latest one every year.

You know, that's just how I roll. That can be you with boost infinite infinitely better to learn more. To learn more, visit boost infinite dot com. That's boost infinite dot com. Terms apply after 30 gigabytes. Service may be slowed. Receive a comparable iPhone model each year with an acceptable trade in every year.

Requires credit qualification and 36 month phone financing agreement. And we continue with our American stories and Brett Evanoff story. And the family is reuniting.

My new old son, my old young son and his two daughters. Well, tripping around in Southeast Asia, getting to know each other better. Let's continue with the story. We decided that we wanted to see Vietnam. And in order to see really Vietnam, they don't have a reliable public transportation system. So you have to ride motorcycles.

And I threw a lot of research. I found a guide out of Da Nang and we spent five days touring on motorcycles. My daughter riding behind me and my other daughter riding behind the guide and my two sons riding their own motorcycles. And we drove along the Ho Chi Minh trail out of Da Nang, headed south to the Asia Valley. And we got a permit from the communist government to climb Hamburger Hill and rode to Quezon. And everywhere we're going, we're stopping in little villages and meeting these people and still seeing a lot of remnants from the war in a lot of ways. And we find ourselves at Quezon.

And, well, we're looking around at some of the bunkers that had collapsed and were there. And a local villager came up to me and he had some trinkets and he wanted to sell them. And I looked at him and the first thing I saw was a U.S. military dog tag. And then I saw a North Vietnamese, rusted North Vietnamese army medal and so a few other trinkets and so forth.

And I knew I wanted them. So I paid I think I paid like seven dollars. You know, we went on with our trip, connected as a as a as a family and had an amazing experience. You know, my my son that I've never known comes into my life and we kind of come full circle with the family that he's never known and my family with a son they never knew.

Well, we get back from our trip to Omaha and I go back to work and I start researching, you know, on my time off this this name on this tag. Well, this name kind of had a unique first name spelling. So I first thing I did is I use Internet search to find see if he was maybe one of the sixty eight thousand that were killed in the Vietnam War. And his name wasn't on there, which kind of gave me hope that maybe I might be able to reconnect this piece of property to a U.S. military serviceman.

My preliminary Internet searches weren't coming up with anything. My wife got interested and she kind of helped me look around. And because of the gentleman's unique first spelling of his first name, we come across an old obituary from Minnesota of a gentleman that perhaps was this guy's father in the print that said, survived by this gentleman and his wife.

And my wife took the first name of his wife and the last name and looked on social media and found a Carol Hammond. And we got a phone number and I called and it was a voice machine. And I said, you know, hello, sir.

You know, my name's Brent Evanoff from Omaha. I just returned from Vietnam. And if I came back with a piece of property that that you may have left over there, if you're, you know, the mister that happened to lost this property over there, would you please call me? And so a week went by and it was a weekend and I'm doing stuff around the house and I get a phone call from this gentleman. And he says, yes, you know, this is me. I did serve. I served actually two tours in Vietnam.

You know, how can I help you? And I proceeded to tell them that, you know, it was traveling over there and and purchases dog tag. And he the first thing he asked me, he goes, what numbers are on there? And I proceeded to tell them and goes, oh, that was from my second deployment. Well, he proceeded to tell me his story.

And he grew up in northern Minnesota and got in a little bit of trouble three months before graduation from high school. And back then, you either went to jail or you went in the military. And he chose the military and found himself in one hundred seventy third airborne in Vietnam. Nineteen sixty seven.

Nineteen sixty eight. He told me that, you know, that he was wounded with a roadside bomb that was command detonated. And, you know, if it wasn't for him wearing the radio that day, that he probably would have lost his life because a large piece of shrapnel had torn into the radio and he was wounded in the leg and and and got knocked out, actually, and came conscious and and recovered from that and went on to serve in Berlin, Germany during the 60s and the Cold War, decided that he wanted to go back to Vietnam. So he found himself in the hundred and first airborne in 1969, 1970 in Vietnam.

And he said that time was, you know, a lot different than this first tour. They were doing missions, you know, that they didn't necessarily always wear their rank or their insignia or patches. And and he was in the Battle of Tamki and there is platoon of thirty five found themselves surrounded in a gun battle for at least a day. I thought maybe he said two. And and when the battle was over, he out of the thirty five, he was one of seven survivors.

And in fact, of those seven, two were not wounded. And he was one of them. He proceeded to tell me that he decided that, you know, back home in North Woods, Minnesota, was a place that he'd like to go and found himself there.

And he actually runs a retreat for a local veterans group up there. And hopefully one day I can meet him. Well, we had a wonderful phone call. I hung up and I told him that I'm going to be mailing this piece of property to him. And I said, I bought it from a villager in case on. And he goes, wow, you know, I never stepped one foot on case on. I operated it about 50 miles south of there, actually.

The only thing I can come up with is, you know, trading over time, villagers and so forth. And and he doesn't remember one incident where he specifically lost his dog tag. But I mailed it to him and, you know, I get an email about a week later from his wife. And it's, you know, his wife says it really my effort to track him down and return a piece of property from his past really meant a lot to him. And, you know, in my story, just kind of comes to a conclusion that two circles have been closed. A son I never met before reunited with his father and family that he's ever known and that through our travels together as a family, forming a new relationship that we're able to kind of bring full circle a veteran's past to him by reuniting him with something as simple as a dog tag, which any member who's been in the military knows how much that is a part of their life at the time. So, you know, that those two experiences combined really humbles me as a as a father, as a, you know, human being and an American that, you know, just when you think that you think you have life figured out, you know, the older I get, the more I firmly believe life is truly stranger than fiction. Indeed. And that's what we learn here every day, telling stories, especially our listeners, telling stories.

Great job as always by Robbie on the production and a special thanks to Brett Evanoff. And what a thing to do for a guy. Most people would have taken that dog tag and stuck it someplace. But he decided to track the person down who it belonged to. And I only know that my my grandparents would have loved to have had a dog tag or letters or anything from the son that died in World War Two. And all we got was a flag. So for anybody who served and lost somebody or even not lost somebody, the importance of this paraphernalia.

Well, it's not small, by the way. This show, as you know, is free to you, but it is not free to make. And any donations you'd like to make to us to continue to hear beautiful stories like this. Well, they'd be appreciated. Send any donations to our American stories dot com.

We're a nonprofit and we love what we do. And I know you love listening to these stories. And we want to keep telling them. Brett Evanoff story straight out of 1100 K F A B in Omaha, Nebraska.

Here on our American stories. Introducing Uber teen accounts, an Uber account for your teen with always on enhanced safety features. Your team can request a ride when you can't take them. You'll get real time notifications along the way. Your team can feel a sense of independence.

You can follow their entire route on a live tracking map. Your team will get assigned the top rated drivers. Thank you.

You will get peace of mind. Add your team to your Uber account today. Available in select locations.

See after details. Now is the time to experience America's pastime in a whole new way. Major League Baseball has teamed up with T-Mobile for business to advance the game with next gen 5G solutions. Going deeper with real time data visualization, new camera angles that put fans on the field with their favorite players, and even testing an automated ball strike system in the minor leagues. This is the 5G era of baseball. See what we can do for your business at T-Mobile dot com slash now. Major League Baseball trademarks used with permission.

Officially licensed product of MLB Players Incorporated. Crypto is like the financial system, but different. It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score or your outrageous food delivery habits. Crypto is finance for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken. See what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payword Ventures Inc. PBI. DBA Kraken. View PBI's disclosures at Kraken dot com slash legal slash disclosures.