Vietnam War veteran reunites with his first love after 45 years

Reischl shipped out of Saigon in 1970, but not before she told him she was pregnant.

He came back to the states, took a government job, went through two marriages and battled Agent Orange-related health problems, the Post reports. Yet Reischl always remembered his "first lady."

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So he began looking for her again in 2005 after his second marriage ended. He visited Vietnam five times in search of the woman. He placed ads in local newspapers and spoke to journalists about her, sharing memories and pictures.

Although she had been married too, Nguyen Thi Hanh hadn't forgotten the American soldier either.

One day last September, as she sat next to her bedridden husband in the hospital, she stumbled upon an article about kids who were abandoned during the war. Scrolling through it, she stopped when she saw a picture of her younger self in Reischl's arms. She wrote to the journalist asking to be put in touch with the man in the photo.

The flood of happiness was also clouded with sadness as it provoked memories of her first child, the one she had with the American soldier.

She gave birth to the girl, Nguyen Thanh Nguyen Thuy, in December 1970. The name means "First Tear" as it symbolized her life at the time: devastated and alone without love or family. A friend offered to take the child to an orphanage but when Hanh went searching for her daughter, she was told there was no record of the child ever being brought to the orphanage.

After reuniting with Reischl last weekend, the two decided there is only one thing left to do: find the daughter that neither of them has ever stopped thinking about.

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