There’s something about Vietnam that thrusts you back into the late 60’s and early 70’s. We have been traveling here for a week and it has become an unavoidable journey into the past. I do not consider myself a political person, nor one with a great awareness of history, and I am aware that this is a “non-political’ blog, but as David and I travel from North to South Vietnam we have both been unavoidably confronted time and time again with the horrors inflicted upon both sides during the “American War,” as it is called here.
Everything looks different on this side of the world. We are 180 degrees around the globe and things are literally upside down. The Vietnam I remember from press and television coverage was a hellhole of GI’s struggling through humid jungles and muddy rice paddies. The Vietnam that tourists see today is a country with a growing economy, framed by the remnants of the war that reshaped this area of the world. In the U.S., the Vietnamese War has been eclipsed by the horrors of the current conflict in Iraq. Here that war continues to be very much in evidence..
The Vietnam we are seeing had its historic landmarks destroyed by bombing, much in the same manner that we deplored the bombing of the enormous Buddhas of Afghanistan. The Vietnam we are seeing is green and beautiful with thousands of Australian pine trees planted by UNESCO on hillsides denuded by American chemical attacks. In the Vietnam of today, you can tour the prisons of Hanoi where photographs of a young and handsome John McCain line the walls – the model prisoner. In the Vietnam of today, I found myself apologizing for the war in the still Communist feeling North and cringing in the green fields of Central Vietnam where craters mark the absence of historic palaces. For the last two nights we slept in luxury in Hue, the site of the terrible ground battles of the Tet Offensive. It is very confusing to be here and be a tourist while hearing that three million Vietnamese died during the war.
The young, English-speaking Vietnamese who dominate the tourist industry are quick to laugh and gentle in their demeanor. Whether college-educated tour guides or illiterate mountain villagers, the Vietnamese have all seemed just like us – eager to take of their children and assure them of a good education. The Vietnamese matter of factly recite their history of foreign domination – China, France and the U.S. have all had a hand in shaping their past. The Vietnam of today is a country that has survived numerous wars and invasions. Whatever act of aggression prompted the U.S. involvement in Vietnam’s internal conflicts, the war here failed to do much except create craters and hostility towards America.