It's 0h-seventeen hundred hours along a dusty road connecting the far reaches of the Mekong River Delta to the epicenter of South Vietnam, Saigon City. As buffalo graze near the asphalt, families of three and four stream by, carefully balanced on a single motor scooter. In a distant field, young men play volleyball and soccer as weary Americans ride this road attempting to stave off sleep after an exhausting day of maneuvers.
That was 1968, or was it 2015? Can you tell the difference? In 1968, my dad would be the American, surrounded by a melting pot of Latinos, African-Americans and other poor Southern farm boys and street wise city kids banded together by their early-20s age range and the fear of Vietnam's early dusk. You see, what makes 1968 Vietnam's twilight hours different from today's is that we were on our way to the safety of our hotel room nestled amongst the vibrant night markets and street vendors awaiting in what is now called "Ho Chi Minh City" by the Hanoi-based government.
Dusk marked the start of a nightly hell on Earth for American G.I.s as the shadows closed in and made men wonder if they had just witnessed their last sunset.
Today, our exhaustion was the culmination of river cruises and samplings of coconut candy, cheap souvenirs and fresh fruit. We had been dodging people selling post cards and bamboo carvings of Jesus along our pathways, not Bouncing Betty land mines and trap door ambushes by the Viet Cong.
So yes, the Vietnam my father left when fate lifted him from the clutches of an un-winnable war was different from the Vietnam I experienced today. When my dad left SE Asia, he left behind the country, but the ghosts of his experiences stowed away in the recesses of his mind. Though the phantoms did not haunt me directly, they did lurk in the hallways of my home growing up. They were there when the slide projector and the bed sheets were brought into the sunken-floor living room dad built for us 10 years after leaving here. They projected a scene that will forever be in my conscious -- those of desolate plains created by Death's slow-acting partner, Agent Orange. They were images of the women who were kind to the G.I.s and the dead VC that were not. These were my specters, and today, I was able to start laying many of them to rest. It is my hope that this trip, with its photos, its stories, its anecdotes -- and a pinch of time's healing hand -- can help exorcise some of my dad's ghosts as well 46 years later.
In a very odd way, Vietnam and Mount Airy aren't that different. When you tell someone who is not from Surry County that you are from Mount Airy, they immediately think about Opie and Andy, and haircuts at Floyd's, a double-cell sheriff's office complete with Otis' personal set of keys. The Vietnam projected onto my 1970s living room wall is the same one written in our limited scope history books. It was the War. It is the War. For most Americans stateside, it is to forever be the War. Vietnam was that place where America had to intervene back when dominos were a war strategy and not a pizza delivery option. The viewpoint of both places -- the one I am from and the one where I am now -- is dated and unfair. I'm proud of what Mount Airy has become since its black and white days on the small screen, and I'm also oddly proud of what South Vietnam has become.
It's is a Communist country, don't get me wrong. The first image thrown in your face off the plane is a blazing yellow hammer crossing a yellow sickle, draped in the middle of a fiery red background. You may know it as the symbol of the Soviet Union back before Gorbachev and the moderates decided that maybe Glasnost was a decent replacement for command economy oppression. But, for every piece of Communist propaganda you see (and there's plenty, I assure you), there's an equal number of McDonald's, Popeye's Chickens, Burger Kings and enough Starbuck's Coffees to cover an entire block of downtown Seattle. Well, maybe that's a stretch.
You see, modern Vietnam is more than the War. It's an interesting blend of "capitalistic Communism" as such. Or, is it?
"Vietnam is Communist only in name alone -- the Party doesn't want to lose their seat," says our guide for the day, Tha Ven. If anyone knows the transition from Dad's 'Nam to my 'Nam, it's him. I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling of his name (especially since I cannot type Vietnamese characters on this keyboard), but we'll go with it. It was such a unique experience to spend the day with my newfound friend. His story boggles the mind. He was a member of the South Vietnamese Army and fought alongside American (and Aussie, and Kiwi, and Spanish, and Taiwanese, and Korean) soldiers in the attempt to keep Ho Chi Minh above the 17th parallel. As we know, the attempt failed, and as the US Embassy was evacuated in 1975, Vietnam was soon after unified under the direction of Chairman Ho Chi Minh. Almost as the last U.S. chopper left Saigon, banging clamored across Tha Ven's family door.
Because of his excellent English skills, the North Vietnamese Army concluded he must be a spy for the CIA. "'Shoot me,' I told them. I always was brave," Tha Ven told us from the passenger's seat of our rented Toyota van. "But, my mother she told me to go with them. For one month, she did not know where I was." One month after watching her son dragged from their home, she found out he was in prison on suspicion of spying against Ho Chi Minh. It would be 23 months later before he would be released. Apparently, it took the government a full two years to determine he was telling the truth. In the meantime, all six of Tha Ven's siblings became refugees stretching from Philadelphia to Houston to Los Angeles. Though he visits his siblings from time to time, he chooses to spend his retirement years in his native country after a successful career with British Petroleum (BP). He balks at the thought of ever calling Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City" and notes that most all men his age in the surrounding area served as members of the South Vietnamese Army (SVA). Most who served with the Viet Cong went to the north after the war.
Interestingly, he says at least 10 American Vietnam veterans currently live in his neighborhood. "It is so much cheaper for them to live here compared to America," he explains. The fact that 22,000 Vietnamese Dong is needed to equal an American dollar, that makes sense. "In South Vietnam, we love America still. For so long, in Hanoi, they hate America. But now, the young people -- the new generation -- they love America, too."
Today, without realizing it, Tha Ven played the role of Ghostbuster for me. Not the traditional Bill Murray type (and I'm assuming not the upcoming Kristen Wiig version either) mind you. But, today, he told stories about Dad's Nam, and American GIs, and the role they played in his life. He talked about quarreling with his British English teacher about the nuances of American pronunciations sounding better -- the ones he learned among the soldiers sent to protect people like him. He told these stories unwittingly as I sat behind his seat fighting back tears. He told these stories prior to learning that he shared the 1967-68 Vietnam with my father. He gave me a connection I so desperately needed to make sense of the scattered puzzle pieces of my Vietnam perceptions.
Today, there were flashbacks to the 1968 Vietnam I heard so much about growing up. Small girls offering to sell gum on the streets. Endless miles of rice paddies and triangular shaped hats darting up from the planting. When trash from the river coiled around the motor of our boat, our shirtless captain clenched a knife between his teeth and swam below to free it again. Then, as he climbed back aboard, he threw the knife to the floor so that he could answer his ringing Smart Phone. I don't think I could have scripted a better example of how the old and the new merged today -- and no, I'm not making that up.
So, today's Vietnam -- the one I am currently sitting in -- it's better. Investments in the 80s, America's investment in an international partnership during the Clinton years and continuing progressions in human rights tell you quickly that this isn't the Communist Party we tried to sequester in the Johnson and Nixon era.
"No one won that war -- America didn't lose, and Ho Chi Minh, he did not win -- but we all lost. We all always lose in war," Tha Ven stated stoically as he stared through the rain pelting . "The Americans, they just didn't do it right. They had to use might. They should have just given money and weapons and support like the Chinese did to Ho Chi Minh. He was smart like that -- I do not like Ho Chi Minh, but his strategy, it was better."
I guess that kinda sums up what happened and why Vietnam is still that red wine stain we can't get out of America's proud military history. Today was about more than just recounting war stories. There was food and laughter and culture and Giant Happy Buddhas and family time. It was no different than our trips to Bali or Nepal, Siem Reap or Langkawi. It just happened to be in Vietnam. Not Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, or Dad's Vietnam or General Westmoreland's Vietnam. Just ... Vietnam. Which, honestly, is a little less weird today than it was yesterday.
And to think, this was just the first day.
