About Ron

Gold Star Son

On February 28, 1968, Ron Reyes was born in Southern California while his young father, Marine PFC Ronald “Ronnie” Reyes, was fighting at Khe Sanh during one of the most intense periods of the Vietnam War.

Ronnie served with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, known as “The Walking Dead,” from July 1967 until March 1968.

On March 30, 1968, while attempting to rescue a seriously wounded fellow Marine during combat near Khe Sanh, Ronnie was mortally wounded. He was just 19 years old.

His son Ron was only one month old.

Father and son never had the opportunity to meet.

Ron grew up knowing his father through photographs, letters, stories, and the memories of those who knew him. Vietnam was always part of his life, but for many years it remained largely in the background.

As he grew older, Ron began learning more about the war and meeting others whose families had also been forever changed by it.

A turning point came in 2013, when Ron visited the AV Wall while it was displayed in Simi Valley, California.

Standing before his father's name affected him in a way he had not expected.

After decades of living with the Vietnam War largely in the shadows of his life, Ron made the decision to embrace that history and begin a journey to better understand his father, the war, and the legacy it had left behind.

In 2015, Ron traveled to Vietnam for the first time as a founding participant in The 2 Sides Project, an initiative that brought together sons and daughters who had lost fathers on opposing sides of the Vietnam War.

During that journey, Ron traveled to Khe Sanh and stood for the first time on the battlefield where his father had fought and died nearly five decades earlier.

That first journey changed the direction of Ron's life.

Ron remained closely connected to The 2 Sides Project as it continued bringing Gold Star sons and daughters to Vietnam.

Over the years, he has provided research, guidance, planning, and support for additional journeys, including trips he did not personally attend. His continuing research into his father's final battle and his experience locating battlefield sites increasingly allowed him to help other families find and understand the places where their fathers had served and died.

In 2019, Ron returned to Vietnam on a personal journey with his future wife, Stephanie.

The trip carried special meaning for both of them. Ron was returning to the country where his father had served and died, while Stephanie was returning to the country of her birth.

Stephanie is Amerasian, born in Vietnam during the war era to a Vietnamese mother and an American serviceman. Although their stories began very differently, both of their lives were shaped by the Vietnam War long before they ever met.

Together, Ron and Stephanie traveled through Vietnam and returned to Khe Sanh and the area where Ronnie was killed.

Sharing that experience with the woman who would later become his wife added another chapter to a journey that had begun as a son's search for his father.

Vietnam was becoming more than the place where his father died. It had also become a place of friendship, discovery, service, and an important part of Ron and Stephanie's shared story.

What began as a deeply personal journey continued to grow into something much larger.

Ron has returned to Vietnam numerous times and has assisted with the planning and research of other journeys. His work has taken him to more than 30 sites connected to Americans who were killed during the war.

He has helped Gold Star families locate battlefields and better understand the circumstances surrounding the loss of their fathers and loved ones.

Along the way, Ron developed lasting friendships with Vietnamese families, veterans, government representatives, and others whose lives were also shaped by the war.

Those relationships transformed his understanding of Vietnam and reinforced his belief that reconciliation is built through personal relationships, shared experiences, and a willingness to understand one another.

That belief has also taken tangible form through humanitarian work. Ron has helped provide 15 Peace Homes for families in need in Vietnam, turning a family legacy born from war into one that also represents service, friendship, reconciliation, and hope.

In 2025, ten years after making his first journey with The 2 Sides Project, Ron returned to Vietnam with the project in a very different role.

This time, he served as an advisor and guide, helping another group of Gold Star sons and daughters make the journey he had first made a decade earlier.

The group traveled throughout Vietnam, visiting eight sites connected to where their fathers were killed. Ron helped with the research and logistics necessary to bring families to those locations.

The journey also included meetings with Vietnamese families and officials, humanitarian work, and opportunities to continue building relationships across a divide created more than half a century ago.

For Ron, helping other sons and daughters stand where their fathers last stood brought his journey full circle.

He had gone to Vietnam in 2015 searching for a connection to a father he never knew.

A decade later, he returned to help others make that same connection.

Ron has shared his story throughout the United States and internationally through speaking engagements, interviews, documentaries, and media coverage.

His journey has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Vietnamese television, along with numerous other media outlets.

He has also appeared in the nationally broadcast PBS documentaries “The 2 Sides Project” and “They Were Our Fathers.”

Service has become another continuing thread in Ron's life.

He spent approximately 15 years serving with the Ventura County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team and later served his community as a congressional district staff member with the United States House of Representatives.

Today, Ron works in government affairs, continuing a career centered on public service, community engagement, advocacy, and bringing people together.

More than five decades after his father's death, Ron continues to research and learn about the 19 year old Marine whose name he carries.

The letters his father wrote home, military records, firsthand accounts, battlefield research, and relationships with the Marines who served alongside him have allowed Ron to understand his father in ways he once thought would never be possible.

What began as a son's search for the father he never knew has become a lifelong commitment to preserving stories, helping other families find answers, honoring service and sacrifice, and building relationships where war once created division.

Ron cannot change the past. He can choose what he does with it.

Through his work, his travels, and sharing his family's story, Ron hopes to inspire others to understand where they came from, honor those who came before them, embrace even the difficult chapters of their past, and use those experiences to build something better for those who follow.