Le ly hayslip wiki

1989 memoir by Le Ly Hayslip

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is a 1989 memoir by Le Ly Hayslip about her childhood during the Vietnam War, her escape to the United States, and her return to visit Vietnam 16 years later. The Oliver Stone film Heaven & Earth was based on the memoir.

Plot summary

The story began during Hayslip's childhood in a small village in central Vietnam, named Ky La. Her village was along the fault line between the north and south of Vietnam, with shifting allegiances in the village leading to constant tension. She and her friends worked as lookout for the northern Vietcong. The South Vietnamese learned of her work, arrested and tortured her. After Hayslip was released from prison, however, the Vietcong no longer trusted her and sentenced her to death. At the age of fourteen, two soldiers threatened to kill her in the forest. Once they arrived, both men decided to rape her instead.

She fled to Da Nang where she worked as a maid, a black-market vendor, a waitress, a hospital worker and even a prostitute. While working for a wealthy Vietnamese family with her mother in Saigon, Hayslip had a few sexual encounters with the landlord, Anh, and discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby son at the age of fifteen. Several years later, she married an American contractor named Ed Munro and gave birth to another son. Hayslip left for San Diego, California in 1970, shortly after her 20th birthday.

Hayslip's entire family was torn apart by the war: one brother fled to Hanoi, and did not see his family again for 20 years. Another brother was killed by a land mine. The Vietcong pressured her father to force Hayslip to become a saboteur. Rather than give into the pressure, he committed suicide.

The memoir alternates between her childhood in Vietnam, and her return in 1986, to visit the friends and family she had not seen for so long.

Heaven & Earth is a 1993 Vietnam War film written and directed by Oliver Stone and based on the life of Le Ly Hayslip, who wrote about her experiences growing up as a young Vietnamese woman throughout the different phases of the war. Le wrote her biographical experience in the books When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace. The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones, Haing S. Ngor, Joan Chen, and Hiep Thi Le (as Le Ly).

The film was part of director Oliver Stone's unofficial "trilogy" of Vietnam War-themed films, coming after 1986's Platoon and 1989's Born on the Fourth of July.

The cast also includes Dale Dye, former US Marine and veteran technical adviser on military productions such as Platoon, The Pacific, and Band of Brothers.

The following weapons were used in the film Heaven & Earth:

M1911A1

Gunnery Sgt. Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones) is seen with two M1911A1 pistols while in an argument with Le. An Army captain also carries an M1911A1.

Carl Gustav M/45

When government troops enter Le's village, an American advisor is seen with a Carl Gustav M/45.

M1A1 Thompson

Some government troops and VC fighters are seen armed with the M1A1 Thompson.

M3A1 submachine gun

The M3A1 "Grease Gun" is seen carried by both VC fighters and government soldiers.

M16A1

The M16A1 is seen in the hands of US troops in the film. An M16A1 fitted with a suppressor is seen in the hands of Gunnery Sgt. Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones) during the evacuation.

Author

Le Ly Hayslip ([lej˨ˀ˨ʔlɪj˩ˀ˧]; born Phùng Thị Lệ Lý; December 19, 1949) is a Vietnamese-American writer, memoirist and humanitarian. Through her foundations, she has worked to rebuild cultural bridges between Vietnam and America following the Vietnam War.

Early life

Hayslip was born in Ky La village in Hoa Quy, now a district of Da Nang in central Vietnam. She was the sixth and youngest child born to farmers. American helicopters landed in her village when she was 12 years old. At the age of 14, she endured torture in a South Vietnamese government prison for "revolutionary sympathies".

Life in Vietnam and the United States

She fled to Saigon, where she and her mother worked as housekeepers for a wealthy Vietnamese family, but this position ended after Hayslip's affair with her employer and subsequent pregnancy. Hayslip and her mother fled to Da Nang. During this time, Hayslip supported both her mother and an infant son, Hung (whom she would later rename Jimmy), while unmarried and working in the black market, as an occasional drug courier and, once, as a prostitute.

She worked for a short period of time as a nurse assistant in a Da Nang hospital and began dating Americans. She had several unsuccessful relationships before meeting and marrying an American civilian contractor named Ed Munro in 1969. Although he was more than twice her age, she had another son with him, Thomas. The following year Hayslip moved to San Diego, California, to join him, and briefly supported her family as a homemaker. In 1973, he died of emphysema, leaving Le Ly a widow at age 24.

In 1974 she married Dennis Hayslip. Her second marriage, however, was not a happy one. Dennis was a heav