Jacqueline Lundquist’s father waited for her in a long-ignored box.
That’s where her mother stored more than 300 letters and more than 60 hours of recorded audio Lt. Col. Donald C. Lundquist sent his wife and his daughter in 1967 after he left home for the Vietnam War.
Lundquist was only 3 1/2 when he left, 4 1/2 when he returned, and just shy of 5 when he died of a massive heart attack six months after getting home.
When she was a teen, her mom gave her the box of correspondence, but she didn’t dare look through it until her mid-30s, when she was pregnant with her son.
Colorado Springs trumpet player plays in elite groups, composes for indie films, documentaries
Colorado Springs resident Jacqueline Lundquist is pictured as a child with her mother and father.
“It was too much for my mind to process. I pretended he never existed. That was easier,” said Lundquist, a Colorado Springs resident. “I’d go to his grave and not really feel anything because I didn’t know him. A child gave me the fortitude to deal with the loss. And reading those letters and hearing his voice made him real. For the first time, 30 years after he died, I finally mourned him and realized how much I had missed out on and my poor mother missed out on.”
When she finally did open that window into her father, it led to a 2011 book, “Letters From Vietnam: A Daughter’s Search for Her Father,” a 2014 book, “Letters From the Battlefield,” and now an award-winning documentary based on that second book, which premiered last April on the film festival circuit. Colorado College will host two free screenings of “Letters From the Battlefield” on Thursday at Cornerstone Arts Center. Lundquist will do a Q&A after each showing.
After first reading those letters in 1997, Lundquist, who worked in advertising, public relations and media, traveled to Vietnam where she retraced her father’s steps and wrote daily letters to him throughout her trip. Both sets of letters, his and hers, became the basis of her first book, which attracted interest from Hollywood. She eschewed offers, though, to make her own movie.
After hiring a screenwriter and traveling again to Vietnam, they met with a production company owned by a family, and in a twist she couldn’t have predicted, the father of the family had fought with the North Vietnamese army in the Vietnam War, essentially doing battle with Lundquist’s father. She learned that man also spent the duration of the war writing letters home to his wife and children.
“He was writing about the same battles, the same engagements, but from the other side,” Lundquist said.
Colorado Springs family refutes new Max documentary ‘Six Schizophrenic Brothers’
During research for a movie based on her book, “Letters From Vietnam: A Daughter’s Search for Her Father,” Jacqueline Lundquist met a North Vietnamese soldier who fought in the Vietnam War, essentially doing battle with her long-dead father. She befriended him and his family for her new documentary, “Letters From the Battlefield.” Courtesy Jacqueline Lundquist
It was around this time that the pandemic settled in and halted movie making. She began watching documentaries and was inspired to start gathering footage in the Springs and eventually Vietnam, shooting interviews with herself, her mother, husband, son and the Vietnam soldier and his wife. She also talked with a Springs psychiatrist about why it took her so long to read her father’s letters.
The result is “Letters From the Battlefield,” an hour-long documentary featuring her father’s letters, her letters and the Vietnamese soldier’s letters to his family. It’s now been featured in 10 film festivals and won eight awards, including best narrative film. Post-film festival circuit, Lundquist hopes to sell it to a streaming platform, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Her film, an homage to her father, also portrays the “senselessness of war,” she says. And she’d like for it to remind people of the value of the written word, especially in this time of ephemeral communication via texts, phone calls and FaceTimes. While yes, there is a purpose to those forms of communication — a friend of hers was able to know instantly if her loved one in Iraq was still alive — there’s much to be said about a tangible letter or recorded video.
Former Colorado Springs resident, award-winning flutist from Harvard to release first album
“My mom had to wait up to 10 days for a letter to arrive,” she said. “The pain of isolation was so real back then, but thank God we had all those words, otherwise I’d have nothing. Write it down or take a video is what I tell people. Make a video of your stories so future generations can hear your voice and see your face.”
And know it’s never to late to address your feelings, even if they’ve been stuffed in a box for decades.
“It’s never too late to grieve,” Lundquist said. “It was only after all of this that I went to my dad’s grave and spoke to him out loud and cried and told him what I’d done to honor him.”