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       Froggy Bottom, a bright, bustling pub and restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., might seem an unlikely place for scars to be healed and souls restored.

       But for the Vietnam War veterans and their families who have congregated at the bar from around the country every Veterans Day for the past 23 years, it has been just such a place. Here, they say, they feel gratitude. They feel understood. They feel loved.

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       “They appreciate us,” said Don Litz, 73, who stopped by the pub Saturday evening, pointing down the bar to where Hoang and Hien Bui, the Vietnamese American couple who own the bar and host this annual gathering, chatted with another group of veterans.

       Litz, from Bellwood, Pa., sat with Jim Vanecek, 73, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, reminiscing over beers about their time together in Vietnam when both served as combat engineers in the 1st Cavalry. And they talked about the less-than-enthusiastic reception they received when they returned home. At the time, they said, no one really wanted to talk to them about the war or their role in it.

       They and the other veterans here credit the Buis for welcoming them in, feeding them and making Froggy Bottom a haven for sharing stories, remembering comrades and talking about a time that others prefer to forget.

       And that talking is essential, they say. The war that tore America apart for the better part of a decade a half-century ago is still deeply felt by those who fought in it, even if most of the country has long ago moved on. Wars are finite. Their wounds last forever.

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       Rich Sanders, 74, wasn’t able to attend this year’s event, but he estimates he has been 15 times in the past. An Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971, Sanders became emotional as he described the gratitude he has felt from the Buis.

       “When you walk in the door it’s almost like a second homecoming,” he said in an interview from his home in Bowling Green, Ky. Sanders choked up as he tried to explain what a greeting from Hien Bui feels like. “I’m having a hard time saying this. She yells your name and rushes across the restaurant to greet you. That’s a homecoming we never got.”

       It is healing for the owners too, Hien Bui said. She and her husband began their life in the United States together in 1982 with just a few dollars between them. They escaped Vietnam on small fishing boats in 1980 and met in a refugee camp in Thailand.

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       She had been a teacher who spent 18 months in a reeducation camp for teaching high school students material that did not meet the government’s seal of approval, she said. He had been an artillery officer in the South Vietnamese army who fought alongside U.S. forces against the Viet Cong. After the war, he too was sent to a reeducation camp for three years by the new communist government in Vietnam.

       For the couple, the war ended in a bitter loss. The Vietnam they wanted was gone. What they never had a chance to do, they say, is thank the Americans who fought with them and for them until the last combat troops left South Vietnam in 1973. Hosting them at their pub on Veterans Day, providing dinner and drinks on the house, is just a small measure of the gratitude they feel, the Buis said.

       “I do it because of my heart,” Hien Bui said at a table near the front of the restaurant. “I feel I owe my life to the Americans.”

       Hoang Bui said the evening goes beyond saying thanks. Like many of the American veterans, he still has dreams about the war. He knows how much it affects them. “We want to help them make sad days become happy days,” he said.

       Asked how much it costs to pay for the annual get-together, Hien and Hoang both wave their hands.

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       “We don’t care, we don’t count,” Hien said. “We owe them a debt, and this is a little token to them to return the favor. Come to eat, come to drink, stay as long as you want.”

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       The Buis first lived in a small apartment in Northeast Washington when they began their life together here. They moved to Virginia, raised two sons who are now both educators and then, in 1999, decided to open a bar and restaurant in Foggy Bottom.

       It was soon after they opened that they connected with Vietnam veterans at the bar, and planning for the first event in 2000 was hatched. That year about 25 people showed up, Hien Bui said. Over the years it would grow to more than 200, with children and grandchildren of veterans attending.

       Parents and children of troops killed or missing in Vietnam have also come over the years, Hien said, “to meet their father’s or son’s friends, to cry, to talk about the things they did not have a chance to know.”

       David Mann Jr., 54, of Metamora, Ill., is one of those children who didn’t know his father. Mann was born in August 1969, two months after his father, David R. Mann, a combat engineer, was killed in action in Dak To. His father was 20 years old and had been in Vietnam six weeks.

       As Mann arrived at Froggy Bottom on Saturday, Hien Bui greeted him with a long hug even though they had met only twice before.

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       “This is just wonderful,” Mann said. “It’s just a very healing thing. I grew up not knowing other kids whose parents were killed in Vietnam. Here I get to meet and talk with people who’ve gone through some of the things my dad did. They’ve all welcomed me with open arms.”

       Jim Stepanek, 75, served as a Marine in Vietnam in 1969 to 1970. He and his wife, Marcia, flew up from their Citrus Spring, Fla., home this weekend to visit with other veterans and celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps. They’ve been visiting Froggy Bottom on Veterans Day for more than 20 years, including its previous location on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

       Stepanek said that at first, he was leery about coming to the gathering hosted by the Buis. “I went to Vietnam to fight a war, not to make friends.” That apprehension disappeared immediately after his first visit to the bar.

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       “They were fantastic. The welcome they gave was just amazing,” Stepanek said. “I was surprised and, honestly, overjoyed.”

       When he first returned from his tour in Vietnam, Stepanek said, he and other veterans “were treated like garbage.” He said he was fine with people protesting the war, but he still remembers the vitriol he heard when he returned. The reception the Buis provide has been a welcome tonic.

       Peter Bui, Hien and Hoang’s younger son, said he thinks the annual event “means everything to them.”

       “It’s not only a source of friendship and camaraderie; it’s a huge sense of closure,” he said. “It’s a transformation of something bad into something good.”

       The lives his parents have lived and their accomplishments fill him with pride.

       “They’re the coolest people I know,” he said. Laughing, he added: “Don’t put that in there. They’ll get big heads.”

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       Hien Bui said the family has gone back to Vietnam twice to visit relatives. But Vietnam has changed, she said, and it doesn’t feel like home. The couple acknowledge that America has its faults and problems. It is not perfect, they say. But they can’t imagine a better place to live.

       “You know when I feel home?” Hien said. “When I get to Dulles Airport and scan my passport and I hear the agent say, ‘Hien Bui, welcome home.’”

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