Books > A Million Shades of Gray >

Behind the Book

Behind the Book with Cynthia Kadohata

Many times when people tell me that I should write about this or that, the subject doesn’t click with me for one reason or another. But in 2005, I got an e-mail out of the blue from a woman who had adopted a Montagnard boy many years ago. Someone had suggested she take a look at my website, because I write a bit on the site about adopting my son from Kazakhstan.  

She said I ought to write a book about the Montagnards. I had never heard of them. She followed her first e-mail up with a number of others, each filled with information about the Montagnards. I read that they were the indigenous people in the Central Highlands of the former South Vietnam, and that they had fought valiantly side-by-side with the American Special Forces. But what finally won me over was a picture of a young Montagnard boy with a rifle in his hands, a cigarette in his mouth, and a look of world-weariness on his face. As soon as I saw that boy, I knew I had to write about him.

When I expressed interest, the woman put me in touch with Retired Special Forces Soldier Eulis Presley. Eulis had served with the Special Forces during the Vietnam War. I called him up to talk and still remember him exclaiming, “God, I love the Montagnards!”

More than half of all adult male Montagnards are thought to have lost their lives fighting with the Americans, and afterwards we abandoned them.
 
This is their story, and I hope it makes them proud.