As director of the University's Office of International Students, Jim Lynch has positive memories of the diverse countries he has visited. There is one country, however, whose land and people once held mostly negative memories for Lynch: Vietnam.

"Most of the Vietnamese people I came into contact with during the war were either trying to kill me or sell me something," said Lynch, who was stationed in Vietnam during the height of the United States' involvement there.

But they welcomed him with open arms when he returned to the country last October.

Lynch returned to Vietnam as part of a mission sponsored by Project Hearts and Minds, a nonprofit New York City-based organization comprised of Vietnam vets and others who are dedicated to bringing desperately needed medical supplies to clinics and hospitals in the impoverished nation. Project Hearts and Minds currently has about 14 chapters nationwide, said Tom Conlin, organization president.

Our purpose is to promote reconciliation between the people of the U.S. and Vietnam," Conlin said. "Instead of bearing arms, we're bearing medical supplies."

Members of the group raise money and solicit donations of medical supplies and equipment from U.S. hospitals, Conlin said. Two or more times a year, a group of members, along with several doctors, travels to Vietnam to distribute supplies to clinics and hospitals in the Southeast Asian nation, Conlin said.

The organization spends virtually no money on itself, Conlin said.

"We don't have permanent office space or a secretary," said Conlin, who directs the organization in addition to his regular job as a vice president of New York's Chemical Bank. "Every penny we raise goes toward medical supplies."

The decades-long war, along with years of economic mismanagement by the Hanoi government and the recent cut-off of Soviet aid, has left the country in shambles, particularly its medical system, Lynch said.

"Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world," Lynch said. "It's common for villages of five to 10,000 people to be served by maybe two doctors operating out of a clinic with no indoor plumbing and half a cabinet-full of medical supplies."

Villagers needing more advanced care must travel to the nearest city, a trip that usually involves riding in rickety buses dating from the French colonial era, for distances of 30 miles or more.

Even the city hospitals are hopelessly inadequate, Conlin said.

"What equipment they do have is old and very unreliable," he said, adding that the country's main teaching hospital must use a respirator dating from the 1930s. "They're only able to provide the basics."

Lynch and Conlin saw other horror stories during the missions. In one hospital, Conlin said he saw a gynecological examination table used for mothers to give birth that was covered with an inch of rust. Lynch said many doctors must reuse disposable syringes, contributing to the spread of infections.

On Lynch's mission, the group delivered sutures, bandages and glass syringes, which can be sterilized and used again, to hospitals and clinics in the southern part of the country.

"They were delighted to have those supplies," Lynch said. "Simple things like that were very much appreciated."

The Vietnamese people are not the only ones helped by the missions.

"I was a bit nervous before I went on the trip, because I knew I'd be going through an area I'd operated in during the war," said Lynch, who, as commander of a U.S. Army transportation unit, was ambushed several times during the war. "But I found myself amazingly comfortable and at home there."

Many of the vets who go on the missions meet former Viet Cong soldiers, Conlin said.

"They've established pen-pal relationships with the Vietnamese veterans, they meet their families, they get invited to dinner at their houses," Conlin said.

Politics plays no role in Project Hearts and Minds' mission, Lynch said.

"We take no position on whether the war was right or wrong, or whether we should have normalized relations with Vietnam," Lynch said.

It is the obvious need for humanitarian assistance in Vietnam that motivates the organization's members instead, he said.

"A lot of us feel that the state Vietnam is presently in is at least partially due to the U.S. involvement," Lynch said. "No one argues that we were wrong to be involved in World War II, but we rebuilt the economies of Germany and Japan. We've done nothing for Vietnam."

To this end, Lynch has recently started a local chapter of the organization that so far has about 19 members, including faculty and students.

"I hated the war, but I loved the Vietnamese people and the culture," said Al Turgeon, a Penn State professor of agronomy who recently joined the chapter.

Turgeon, who was shot down several times while serving as a helicopter pilot during the war, hopes to go on one of the organization's missions.

"The war has to be put behind us," he said.

Tuyet Tran, who spent the early part of her childhood in her native Vietnam, joined the group out of a sense of obligation to her former homeland.

"I just want to do my part to help" said Tran (senior-business management). Non-vets are part of the organization as well.

Conlin himself was a conscientious objector during the war. He joined the group after counseling Vietnam veterans who were experiencing a relapse of stress disorders during Desert Storm.

"I believe we were put on this planet to do more than just make money," he said.