Family Man

Preston, the 14-year-old, declares happily that when a friend told him he looks like Richard, "I was, like, 'All riiight!'" Mitchell, 12, recalls how his teacher, reading from one of Rob's letters to a relative about Richard, which Mitchell had brought in to share, "started crying halfway through."

"I'd like to go to college and go to OCS," Preston says. "I'm not thinking of a military career, though."

"Just a taste of it," Rob prompts.

"All my friends talk about what they're going to do when they grow up," Preston continues. "I say I'm going into the military to get a taste of it and they all look at me like I'm nuts. ... Kids say they're afraid of dying, but the world would be a better place because of the teamwork and leadership skills they'd learn in the military."

Rob looks at his son with pleasure.

In his basement office, he has Johnston's Nha Tho An Hoa picture on the wall along with Richard's medals, mementos of his own service – crossed ceremonial swords, his captain's bars – and framed quotes from James Webb's Vietnam novel "Fields of Fire" ("Do not stand at my grave and cry./ I am not there, I did not die") and John Stuart Mill ("A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight ... is a miserable creature").

Rob's quest, Laura explains – again, he's out of earshot – "has unfolded in a way that has opened doors and healed him ... and it feels right.

"In the beginning, he was just trying to find out what happened. ... It was an obsessive thing then, [but] now he's mellowed out. He was very angry because of his brother's death, and angry he wasn't able to go to Vietnam – for revenge or whatever. He was trained, and not invited to the party."

Then: "It's been a very long and drawn-out grieving process for him."

Vietnam

The big jet, lumbering southwest, enters Vietnamese airspace.

Rob, passing the time, has started a journal. "Family and friends have had some varied reactions to my taking this trip," he writes.

They range from, "This sounds like a great experience" to "Why in the hell do you want to go there?" I think their perception is that I am continuing to deal with some sort of grief that won't settle. I see it much differently.

Marine Corps recruit Richard Sutter (front row, at left) goes through training in the operation of the .45 automatic pistol. (Courtesy USMC Training Depot, Parris Island, S.C.)

Of all my family, I am the only one, other than Richard, who served as a Marine. The tactics we were taught were those from Vietnam. The Marines we served with were veterans of Vietnam. The dominant concern of males my age, throughout high school and college, was Vietnam. [It] defined my era. It took a great toll on our country, my family and me.

I want to stand on the ground of this little country that had such a profound effect on us all. I want to smell it, taste it and feel it.

He's not going alone, but with a large group of retired Marines who saw heavy combat in the war and from whom he hopes to learn what his brother's life and death had been like. As he listens intently, sensing their anguish and enjoying the camaraderie, he begins to realize that their experiences – taken as a whole – are the story of America's continuing struggle with Vietnam, his own personal quest writ large.

While Rob had watched the conflict from afar, these men have been here before. Some, like Richard, had gone by ship – but many had flown like this, on a commercial airliner.

There they'd sat, young trained killers in camouflage fatigues, being asked by stewardesses if they took cream and sugar. Then, minutes later, they'd stepped out into the oven-hot sunblaze.

Richard Sutter during basic training at the Marine Corps boot camp on Parris Island, S.C. (Courtesy USMC Training Depot, Parris Island, S.C.)

This is not a trip about death, loss and grief. It is a trip about respect, gratitude and life. It is a "debt of honor." ... More than anything else, [it] has to do with simply being a Marine. Perhaps this is what my siblings have never been able to comprehend, for being a Marine holds a special magic. ...

The jet lets down over a familiar tan-and-green symmetry of rice paddy, dike and tree line.

Rob peers out the window. "It's like Kansas," he murmurs.

Hanoi looms into view.

From the air, as we approached, there is still very visible evidence of the heavy bombing that took place during the war. Large craters pockmark the ground near the runway. The entire left side of the runway is lined with Russian-made MiG-21 fighter planes. ... This is not your typical civilian airport.

The plane lands and Rob, with the others, hefts his carry-on and waits. The door opens.

He steps out.