BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
You’d think Cupid’s arrows would have a hard time finding their marks in the midst of the Vietnam War, but Mickey and Tuyet Bath are proof that not even mortar and artillery rounds could prevent him from bringing two people together.
It’s a story of a Florida boy meeting a Vietnamese girl, the two getting married and then making a life for themselves and raising a family in the Sunshine State. The Baths, who live in the Brooker-Graham area, will celebrate 53 years of marriage in August.
As Mickey put it, “Things seem to have worked out,” though neither he nor Tuyet can really tell you how one thing led to another.
“I really don’t know when we fell in love,” Tuyet said.
She explained that they became friends first.
“Then, one day, we’re talking about, ‘Let’s get married,’” Tuyet said.
Coincidentally, with Valentine’s Day approaching, it was on Feb. 14 that Tuyet arrived via plane to Florida, having left her home country behind her to start married life in earnest. Yet the day held no special significance for her at that time.
“It wasn’t different from any other day because we don’t have Valentine’s Day in Vietnam,” Tuyet said. “It was actually a year later before I knew that (Feb. 14) was Valentine’s Day.”
A life occupied by working in healthcare, raising two daughters (Patricia Bath and Christina Harris) and spending time with five grandchildren (Gabe Cook, Gavin Cook, Kendall Cook, Reagan Harris and Rylie Harris) got its start a long way from Bradford County.
A couple of ‘kids’ meet at an A camp
Mickey and Tuyet Bath first laid eyes on each other in 1969 at a Special Forces A camp in the Mekong Delta. Mickey was serving in Special Forces, while Tuyet was working at the camp as a nurse. She had actually been there for two years before Mickey showed up. Army doctors trained Tuyet and other young, Vietnamese women to be nurses.
“Our camp was probably about 10 miles from the town she grew up in,” Mickey said.
Mickey said Tuyet probably spoke better English than the interpreters the Army was relying upon. That was because of practice.
And Charles Schulz’s Peanuts books.
“She said one of the guys (at the camp) told her, ‘You’re going to learn to speak English.’ So he handed her Charlie Brown and made her sound out the words,” Mickey said.
Tuyet said, “I think that helped me, but I didn’t know what I was reading for a long time,”
She had the option to take English in high school, but Tuyet chose French instead, which seemed the more reasonable choice because of the French influence on Vietnam. She said she told herself, “I’m never going to speak English.”
When they met, Mickey was 21, while Tuyet was 20. Tuyet asked Mickey who he was when she first saw him. He introduced himself and said he was the camp’s new weapons man. Tuyet responded by saying, “You’re just a kid. What are you doing here?”
“She always called me a kid,” Mickey said.
Tuyet said, “Actually, we called each other ‘Kid’ for many years.”
Perhaps it was a good thing being a “kid,” as it actually led to Mickey spending time with Tuyet.
“As the youngest guy on the team, one of my jobs was to escort Tuyet to her hometown to buy groceries,” Mickey said, adding, “Every two or three days, we’d have to run down to her village. She’d buy bread and fruit and stuff to supplement our diet with.”
At the camp, they’d eat every meal together.
“We were just friends for a long time,” Tuyet said. “We talked every day.”
Mickey said at some point, some of those talks must’ve been about getting married. All he can remember specifically is that the camp they were at was going to close. He was going to another camp on the Cambodian border, while Tuyet was going to a hospital at Mickey’s company headquarters. Mickey said Tuyet told him, “Gosh, we’re never going to see each other again.” His response was, “Well, we’ll just get married.”
Taking a break from war to get married
Mickey was busy with his service duties, so he didn’t have much involvement in his wedding other than being a part of it.
“She had to do all the wedding planning by herself,” Mickey said of Tuyet. “She even made a suit for me.”
Mickey said his boss was OK with him getting married and said he would provide a helicopter to fly Mickey to Tuyet’s village. The wedding would be held at her home.
“It was a crazy thing because helicopters didn’t normally go to my village,” Tuyet said.
Of course, in a time of war, if a helicopter is needed, it can’t be spared to fly someone to his wedding. Mickey, who was being accompanied by his brother Ronnie, who was also serving in Vietnam, had to wait until a helicopter became available.
While waiting for Mickey to arrive, Tuyet said she made the remark, “Well, it could be we’re going to have a wedding without a groom.”
Personnel from the hospital Tuyet worked at were going to fly to Mickey’s camp, find him and bring him back, but just as their medevac helicopter was taking off, the helicopter that was bringing Mickey was landing.
Mickey dashed indoors to change into his suit. The ceremony took place. Then he changed and was back on the helicopter, going back to his camp.
“It was a short wedding,” Mickey said, adding, “I don’t know that we had time (to think about being married).”
The wedding took place during the Delta’s dry season, but Tuyet said a hard rain fell during the couple of days she remained at home, helping her mother clean up. She said a man in her village believed the rain was a good omen for the newlyweds, saying, “You two are going to be very rich.”
“We’re still waiting,” Tuyet said.
The short wedding was actually the first of two. Mickey and Tuyet made a trip to a justice of the peace when Tuyet came to the U.S.
“We had to have a marriage certificate for her to apply for a green card,” Mickey said.
A life together
Just as their wedding ceremony practically went by in the blink of an eye, so, too, has life. Tuyet said once she and Mickey settled down in the U.S., they always seemed to be busy with school, work, raising children and attending all the activities their grandchildren have been a part of. Mickey said it’s been “go, go, go for the last 52 years,” while Tuyet said, “Before you knew it, it was, ‘Oh, my goodness. Here we are, retired.’”
Mickey worked for a while before serving a second stint in the Army for three years. He then went to the University of Florida for its Physician Assistant program. Afterward, he worked in hospitals in Lake Butler and Ocala and also alongside the late Dr. Pete Gianas. Mickey worked two separate times for UF, which is where he retired from in 2012.
Tuyet worked as a nurse at what is now known as HCA Florida North Florida Hospital in Gainesville. She first went to school to become a licensed practical nurse. The hospital paid for her to participate in a bridge program so that she could become a registered nurse.
Mickey said before Tuyet was set to retire in 2013, she took a leave of absence so that she and he could travel in their motorhome to Alaska.
“She said she was going to find out if she could stay with me for two months, every day, in close quarters, before she retired,” Mickey said.
Traveling is something the couple enjoys. Though the Alaska trip was planned out in advance, most of their trips are spontaneous, including visiting the cabin they own in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.
“We kind of take it a day at a time,” Mickey said. “Tomorrow afternoon, we might say, ‘Let’s run to North Carolina and check out the cabin.’ We have driven up to North Carolina, spent the night at the cabin, got up the next morning, got a cup of coffee and headed back to Florida.”
Mikey and Tuyet like to fish, though Mickey said, “We have fished less since we retired than we did when we were working.” He recalled a funny incident when he and Tuyet went fishing with their daughter Christina and her family and their daughter Patricia’s sons. Mickey said he fixed every pole and baited most everyone’s line, but he was the only one who didn’t catch a fish.
Still, no fish doesn’t ruin the experience.
“I like to catch fish, but if I don’t, I don’t mind at all,” Tuyet said. “It’s nice to be out there. There’s something relaxing about it.”
They enjoy a variety of sports, especially when it comes to the Gators. They have season tickets for UF football and used to go to Gainesville with their motorhome to tailgate.
Tuyet first fell in love with ACC basketball during Mickey’s second stint in the Army.
“She’d be at home, so she’d watch TV,” Mickey said. “We were in North Carolina (at Fort Bragg). They’ve got teams called North Carolina State Wolfpack. They won the national championship that year. She was watching them. She was watching Duke. She was watching North Carolina. She was watching Maryland.”
A lot of the sports they watch now involve their grandchildren.
Of course, family, in general, takes up a lot of their time. Their house is the hub of many events.
“We stay very active with the kids and the grandkids,” Tuyet said. “We get together here a lot. Most of the kids’ birthday things are done here.”
What Mickey described as an “unlikely meeting, unlikely courtship and unlikely wedding” has taken him and Tuyet from a time in which they called each other “kid” to now, in which they’re known by what Mickey said are their new names: “Grandpa” and “Grandma.”
“It has all been atypical, courtship, wedding and all,” Mickey said, “but it’s lasted a long time.”
