Over the past two weeks, American and Vietnam veterans who had been enemies over 30 years ago met together in Anchorage and Homer as friends. Last year, Michael LeMay organized the event after coming up with the idea of taking his former enemies fishing as a way to reconcile with them. LeMay, a Homer bed and breakfast owner, did a tour with the U.S. Army in the Mekong Delta in 1970.

"I thought of it as 'fishing and healing,'" he said last year.

At welcoming ceremonies a week ago at the Homer Council on the Arts, LeMay's vision became real. After Homer Mayor Jim Hornaday welcomed the visitors with a song, one by one American veterans from New Jersey, Michigan, California, Wisconsin and Alaska emptied vials into a fountain made by Lynn Marie Naden. Vietnam veterans from the north and south brought water from rivers once patrolled by Navy Swift boats. Most explained the source of the water they carried, while others offered wishes for peace.

"I offer this in peace that we may be unified as brothers and sisters for all time," said Louis Block, a soldier severely wounded near the North Vietnamese border.

"It is our hope that our veterans can reach hands, so that our children and grandchildren can lead a peaceful life," said Le Thi Thanh Liem, formerly a captain in the People's Liberation Army — the Viet Cong — in the Mekong Delta.

Block found not just a symbolic enemy at the celebration. In a conversation through translators with Gen. Nguyen Hien, retired, Block and Hien discovered they fought against each other in the same battles in Quan Tri Province.

With 12 days left in his tour, North Vietnamese soldiers tried to overrun Block's position. An NVA bullet struck a shell, and the explosion severely wounded Block. Anchorage was the first American soil he saw on his return, and he was in Alaska long enough to kiss the ground, he said.

"To meet people you fought against and to be able to be friends is really important to me," Block said. "That's why I encourage veterans to go back to Vietnam."

At sessions over the week, veterans like Block told of their experiences. Some came from Homer or elsewhere in Alaska. Others came from the Lower 48, with many affiliated through groups like Veterans for Peace or the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Monday night at the Homer Elks Lodge, Sara Murnane Berg told a tale different from the soldiers. A member of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, Berg, then 22, worked at the 24th Evacuation Unit in 1970-1971. She said she never feared for her life like the soldiers.

"I never had bad feelings for the Vietnamese at all," she said. "They were never my enemy. They were just people."

Once, she cared for a 15-year-old Viet Cong prisoner with a massive groin injury. She had to irrigate his wound with a painful saline and peroxide solution.

"He just needed his mom," Berg said. "How could I see him as my enemy?"

At the storytelling circle Monday night, Berg looked across the room to Liem and the other Vietnamese.

"I felt we went to your country and did them in," she said. "I feel guilty. I ask for forgiveness. I feel guilty because I was part of that machine. I am very sorry."

Liem stood up, walked over to Berg, and embraced her.

Hien told stories of how Americans and North Vietnamese cared for the other side's wounded, both sides treating their enemies during war with compassion.

Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News Participants at the closing ceremony of the Celebration of Peace and Reconciliation hold a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Vietnam War.

LeMay said in organizing the Celebration of Peace and Reconciliation, he asked Homer and Anchorage veterans groups for support. The Anchorage Vietnam Veterans of America chapter helped with welcoming ceremonies there, he said. The Anchor Point VVA and VFW and American Legion Post 16 chose not to support the celebration.

"We didn't want to get in the middle of it," said Bill Sheldon, the legion commander. "We didn't say we were for it, didn't say we were against it."

Sheldon noted that under its bylaws, the legion is limited in activities it can support, and prohibited from getting politically involved like endorsing candidates. Most members of Post 16 are Vietnam War era veterans, Sheldon said.

"We've got some guys who are still pretty bitter," he said. "It probably takes more than 30 years to forget that."

Sheldon said Vietnam veterans in the legion work out their problems together, through its veteran assistance programs or just talking about their experiences with others who understand.

"That's where we come from more than hugging the North Vietnamese," he said.

At the end of the celebration, Naden brought to the end of the Homer Spit a block of ice made from the water mingled together in the peace fountain. About 60 American and Vietnamese veterans and their friends came together one last time. They lit sticks of incense in silent prayer for the dead, the wounded and all the victims of the Vietnam War. The old soldiers pushed the ice into Kachemak Bay and watched the tide take it out to sea. Some threw roses onto the water as Naden, Mary Ann Snowden and Christine Riggs sang an old gospel song, "I Went Down to the River to Pray."

"I'm grateful to all of you who came to deepen the healing between our two countries," LeMay said.

Walking away from the ceremony to catch a ride home, Arnold Stieber, a veteran from Grass Lake, Mich., said he came to the celebration at the urging of his wife. He had bottled up his feelings about Vietnam since he went there in 1970-1971, until in 2003 like a volcano those feelings just exploded. In his research about how others dealt with those feelings, he heard about the celebration. Had it helped him heal?

"It's too early to tell," he said.

Then he smiled. "But it's comforting to find together so many peace oriented people."