What do dream of doing with your life? Where is your wellspring of
inspiration? What “lights your fuse”? These are just some of the themes of
Rocket Boys, a true story about an American boy whose dreams of a better
life were ignited one chilly October evening over a half century ago as he
gazed expectantly into a starlit sky to catch a glimpse of the first satellite to
orbit the Earth.
Although Homer Hickam grew up in Coalwood, West Virginia, a small
town whose existence was built on mining coal, his story of hope,
persistence, and overcoming adversity is a universal one played out in
countries around the globe. Rocket Boys is a story about faith, “a firm belief
in something for which there is no proof,” hope in the unseen.
As fate and history would have it, Homer Hickam’s life has also been
indelibly touched by Vietnam, a country filled with heart-wrenching and
inspirational stories of faith, perseverance and victory against all odds,
where he spent some time during the 1960s. In 2006, when I first screened
October Sky, the Hollywood movie based on Mr. Hickam’s life story, for a
group of university students in Hanoi, Homer asked me to share this
message on his behalf:
To the people of Vietnam who have come to see October Sky: I feel
honored that you have come to see my story. You should know that I came
to your country years ago along with many other young Americans at a
time of war. I arrived with so many misperceptions about you. I left with a
profound love for Vietnam and the Vietnamese and I still cannot get you out
of my mind. In so many ways, I have never left the emerald green valleys
and mountains of the Central Highlands. They are as much a part of my
history as Coalwood, the little mining town in the United States where I
grew up.
