Vietnam--Winter Break, 2012: A Preface

The Vietnam War pretty much encompassed my childhood.  Hanoi, Saigon, Hue, Danang, Gulf of Tonkin, Mekong, Ho Chi Minh Trail—these are words I knew about even in elementary school, and I learned they were places in a land called Vietnam, where there was a war, and in that war there were soldiers from my own country fighting in it also.  On television I viewed footage filmed in this far-away place, and in magazines I saw photos—most all of it war related but set in an exotic landscape framed by mesmerizing tropical beauty. 

My family lived in New Jersey when I was in junior high, and I remember some of the girls my age attended an anti-war rally one weekend.  I overheard their discussion Monday morning before the tardy bell rang in first period English, and one of them wrote a poem about it.  It was in her notebook and I listened to her read it aloud to them.  Boys my age were never drafted, but I recall how controversial the issue of the draft became.  In my twenties I saw the film version of Hair—with my brother Phil, by the way—in a theater with a bent for showing artsy movies.  Later on I watched Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and The Killing Fields.  I also met my friend Tien.

During the summer of 2002, after completing my master’s degree in Thailand (at an overseas campus for Michigan State University), I had the chance to travel in both Cambodia and Laos.  We had no time left to fit in Vietnam that summer, but I realized then that Vietnam now occupied a premier position on my very fluid list of places I needed to see. 

Finally, this past December, I entered the nation of Vietnam:  Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi—the city of “the enemy” back in that war of my childhood.  And—technically speaking—there is no city named Saigon anymore; it is Ho Chi Minh City, named after a now revered leader, one lovingly referred to as “Uncle Ho.”  And, by the way, in Vietnam, there never was a Vietnam War; there was an American War.  Still, a rather fascinating twist in this ongoing evolution of all our lives post-war is that today, in the country of Vietnam, American dollars can often be used as payment in lieu of Vietnamese currency.  What would Uncle Ho think?!!

The two weeks I spent in Vietnam added both color and a narrative for the light and shadow images of childhood memories.  It introduced me to a land of magical beauty and such amazing people.  I would return in a heartbeat.