Thai social media users are joining hands to help a US Reddit user locate a Thai woman, whom he describes as his father’s former girlfriend while he was based in Thailand during the Vietnam War.


The user, “No_Acadia6966”, wrote last week that his father, a member of the American Air Force based near Nakhon Phanom around 1968-1971, misses his Thai girlfriend, whom he knew as “Oi”.


“He kept a large photo of her in our home while I was growing up and I’ve always wondered what happened to her. Based on what he has told me, she would be about 70 years old now,” the post read.


His father spoke of her fondly and wanted to marry her. “My grandfather didn’t let that happen. My dad says her name is pronounced ‘Oi’ in English, but I don’t know how to write her name properly in Thai or English.”


“I’m curious about what happened to her. Maybe you can help?”


He also posted a photo of the woman in question, which has been shared hundreds of times among Thai netizens.


The request has also been reported in mainstream and digital media in Thailand.


Recently, a woman identifying herself as “Noon,” an administrator of a Facebook page called “Justin Family”, wrote that she wondered whether the woman in the photo was her grandmother.


She claimed that her granny’s name is also Oi and she is 77 years old.


“My granny told me that the woman in the photo was her and that she used to have an American boyfriend who was five years younger,” she wrote.


She added, however, that her grandmother had two children with the American soldier, one of whom was her mother.


Noon called the man her grandfather. When the man was about to return to the US, he wanted her grandmother to go with him, but she refused.


The man went home alone and they lost contact.


The latest post by Noon states that it seems that her grandmother is not the woman for whom the US Reddit user is looking for.


The story has, however, inspired her to look for her long-lost grandfather, for the sake of her grandmother, she wrote.

Search on to rekindle Vietnam war-era romance - Thai PBS World