I seem to get two reactions from Vietnam vets when they hear I have been in Viet Nam twice recently - and am soon to return for a third time. They either want to go back too - - - or they think I am out of my mind. (I've noticed the ones who want to go back tell me so surreptitiously.)
I've wanted to go back for years. As I am blessed with a poor memory, I have few of the haunting dreams others are plagued with. On my first visit in July of 2002, I went back with Vets With a Mission - an outstanding Christian organization the provides help to the Vietnamese, and a support mechanism for vets.
I have a theory as to why many vets don't want to go back.
Have you ever gone to a high school reunion? Or college reunion? Or a reunion of fellow vets? If your reaction to your first reunion was "Who in the hell invited all these old people?", then you know why vets are leary of returning to Viet Nam. Our memories of school chums are rooted in the "old days", but we have grown and moved on. Our memories of Viet Nam stay rooted in the past too. We vets are comfortably middle-aged now (or older), yet the Viet Nam in our minds is the Viet Nam of our youth. It remains a land of large convoys of deuce-and-a-half trucks, of helicopters, of a reeking smell of decay in the cities and the smell of burning shit on the fire bases. Our minds remember flares in the night sky, and Coke girls outside the villages.
But, just as we have moved on, Viet Nam has too. Reminders of the war are hard to find. We laboriously filled sand bags for bunkers that are long gone. Creaky old French buildings in Saigon have been replaced by concrete and glass skyscrapers. Most of the dirt-floored whattle huts in the villes have been replaced by small concrete block houses. Because 60% of the population has been born since the war ended in 1975, most people have no memory of the war. Vietnamese youth are like our youth - wars are for old men to tell stories about.
Today you see a bustling country. The people want "the good life" for their children as we do. Yes - the government is still Communist, and that is a hobble. But any veteran returning will be struck by the incredible beauty of the countryside, and the warmth of the people.
And you won't even see an AK-47.
