Visiting Vietnam

Vietnam

Background -- -- I had been traveling with a group of CEOs visiting various cities in China from June 21, 2009 through June 29: Beijing, Qinghuangdao, Hangzhou, Haikou . We then proceeded on to Vietnam for four days.

I was excited just knowing we were going there --- Vietnam was a watershed event for my generation, especially for Vietnam era servicemen. The prospect of being called for the Vietnam war lasted for years and colored our youth with an anxious gray gloom --- Robin William's 'Good Morning Vietnam' captured the absurdity and gallows humor of the day. Vietnam was the seminal passage of my youth, and it was about to provide another seminal event.

Flying within China was exciting, particularly landing in a new city --- I always enjoy the cab ride from the airports to the cities. You get a glimpse of real life, not just a five-star hotel experience -- -- the trip from the airposts typically goes through some real neighborhoods and you get a sense of the way the native people live.

It was all that and much more flying into Hanoi. We were staying in the Hanoi Hilton no less, namesake of the infamous North Vietnamese prison camp.

I had been a captain in the United States Army. I was trained in the combat branch infantry and also was an intelligence officer in the Army security agency. I had attended the combat platoon leader training course in Fort Benning, Georgia during the months of March and April in 1967. Many of my infantry fellow officers had been in Vietnam already and most all of them upon graduation were assigned duty in Vietnam. I was extremely fortunate not to go. My thoughts often wandered back to my classmates in Vietnam.

As we flew into Hanoi on June 29 it brought back all the feelings of anxiety anybody in the service during the war had in the pit of their stomach. I also thought of the many US servicemen flying into Vietnam during the war -- -- and the incredible anxiety and angst they felt. Many never came back alive and many more were harmed for life. Even though it had been forty three years ago, I was surprised at the present intensity and strength of the feelings --- more than a sightseeing excursion Vietnam demanded homage as a hallowed ground, where many of my fellow servicemembers gave their life.

We arrived in Hanoi around six o'clock in the morning. The cab ride took three quarters of an hour, most of which was spent in the city stuck in rush hour traffic -- -- the likes of which I have never seen. It seemed like a roller derby of scooters and motorcycles crisscrossing in every direction. It seems we nearly got in an accident about every five minutes, just veering off at the last second. I sat up front next to the taxi driver so I could take it all in. It was so crazy that craziness became mood -- -- instead of fear, it seemed humorous and other worldly --- reminsent of the Vietnam era gallows humor --- 'Good Morning Vietnam,' humor as survival mechanism.

We crashed at the hotel for only a few hours and then took a three-hour limousine drive to Ha Long Bay. The limousine was so rickety and the driving so crazy that several CEOs attempted to tell our Vietnamese speaking driver to slow down. It was really interesting to see the small towns, rice paddies, water buffaloes walking free, roadside stands and the countryside of Hanoi. The poverty was striking -- there were several poverty driven customs that were surprising. For example caskets are reused after five years, the Vietnamese thought being that the spirit leaves the body within five years so the casket can be reused. I'm sure the real reason is the cost and I'm also sure there are other similar poverty necessitated customs.

About a dozen CEOs went on the Ha Long Bay trip and boarded a Vietnamese junk for a tour of the bay and an overnight stay. I slept alone on the open upper deck of the junk and enjoyed a

sense of vulnerability and adventure --- and the view of other Vietnamese junks with multicolored night lights reflecting off the still soft water beneath a gloroois Vietnamese sky. The beauty was enrapturing and accompanied with a tinge of guilt thinking of my fellow servicemen in Vietnam in a different, more difficult, era.

Next it was off to Saigon --- currently known as Ho Chi Men City. Another crazy taxi ride with water bug traffic -- -- several passengers got upset but I thought of it as a caricature of the city and the zany mantra 'Good Morning Vietnam.' Many of our CEOs were upset with a second class hotel and further irritated that the person who organized the China and Vietnam trip bailed out in the Saigon airport and went home to the USA. In the spirit of Vietnam of the 1960s I anticipated things would be crazy and found a certain wacky romance in the whole ordeal. I upgraded my room, the rest of the CEOs reluctantly stayed, and we proceeded with our tour of Saigon.

The War Remnants Museum was built by the North Vietnamese memorializing their victorious war. It was a different experience being an American in a museum built by our erstwhile victorious enemy. About half the people in the museum were Vietnamese and most of the other half were Orientals with a few Europeans. The only Americans present were fellow CEO American entrepreneurs in our group. It indeed felt strange and we caught the eye of several Vietnamese --- everybody was respectful if a bit tense.

There were many anti-American photographs, stories, testimonials, and American weapons and captured American fighter jets -- -- all of which we presented in a sinister way. Americans get a steady dose of the evils of the German Third Reich which I am sure is overly dramatized --- so I arrived expecting a dose of the same. The themes seem to be one half describing the horrors of war, and the other half describing the brutality of the American military.

As an American serviceman I thought about half of their characterization of the American behavior was fair. The shoe was on the other foot, and all although it was uneasy, I was glad to visit.

One striking Museum image I think of often, even now a year later, is the agent orange used in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of our Vietnam era veterans now suffer severe neurological damage because of agent orange. In Vietnam the suffering is tenfold -- -- it was in their country we dropped it. They had a separate enclosed theater with a movie showing the horrors of agent orange which would replay all day long. This is a horror the United States is truly responsible for, I don't think our Department of Defense has fully knowledged the damage suffered by our own veterans and I'm sure we have not reconciled what we did to the Vietnamese people.

We spent a lot of time walking downtown Saigon. There is a beautiful Notre to Dame cathedral built by the French contiguous to a beautiful Central Park area in a completely redeveloped downtown with upscale hotels and gourmet restaurants. We walked several hours for two days throughout the city and along the Saigon River.

The most poignant stops in the city were war related. The US Embassy, scene of the last Americans leaving by helicopter from Vietnam, the People's Palace was the headquarters for the South Vietnamese government now occupied by the current government, the US hospital, and the War Remnants Museum.

I had hoped to meet a Vietnamese who had been in the war. It happened on July 4 at 4am taking a taxi to the airport for our 6:05am departure to Hong Kong ---- the driver had been in the South Vietnamese Navy. I explained my background and interest and he was excited to meet me and very cordially escorted us to see the war related sites mentioned above. he was obviously pro-American and mentioned working closely with the U.S. Navy during the war. It was interesting that he was in the war for the duration -- -- he had spent eight years fighting in the Mekong Delta --- our servicemen had a one-year tour and then they would rotate 'out of country.'

I asked what happened when the US military left Vietnam in 1974 when after about one year the North Vietnamese communists overran the country-- -- I was specifically asking how they treated military personnel and what it was like. This was the one question the cabby would not answer ---- there was an awkward silence and I realized he couldn't fully answer the question due to the political climate, so I let it go. I found out later that hundreds of thousands of people were murdered and military offices above the grade of Captain were rounded up and mysteriously disappeared. Ironically much of this sad detail was filled in by my local barber who was at the US Embassy when the last US helicopter flew off. She told me of the many people sacrificed when the Communists took over and the terror of living under the communist regime.

I found what I had been looking for -- -- the driver was of my generation and he likewise asked me many questions about the US military and our domestic reaction to the war. We connected with a certain kinship and it broadens my empathy for those who sacrificed during the war, to include the many Vietnamese who paid a heavy price. It was a wonderful warm reunion and I hated to arrive at the airport. We hugged and exchanged affectionate and respectful salutations.

I was the only ex-serviceman in a group of touring CEOs and had a very different take on Vietnam than my colleagues. Their main focus and interest was of the thriving Vietnamese

economy and their sense of the war was only as a distant historical footnote. For me it was witnessing a path not taken -- -- many of my contemporary infantry comrades paid the ultimate price in Vietnam. The Vietnam era memories and strong emotions were palpable and still affect how I see the world.