Hoi An, Da Nang, Tam Ky and Chu Lai--Continued

I have to admit that I’m getting a little confused as to what we did on each day because of not writing every day. Oh, well, xin loi—excuse me. I do know this—on Wednesday, the 25^th, we went to the main Pagoda near “Marble Mountain,” where a military base was located on top. There is actually a very ancient pagoda there, and we were supposed to visit it, but when Song checked it out it was just way too crowded with Tet visitors, including many foreigners. It is the Ling Ong Pagoda and it is located in a cave. However, we did go to the newer and more modern pagoda with the 229-foot statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The statue was actually finished, apparently, about five years ago and according to our local American guide—Don Blackburn, another Oregonian, Vietnam vet who lives here—he watched them put it up. He said that he would come to marvel at the workers racing up and down some not too sound scaffolding as the goddess rose from the ground.

I learned that all of the mountains in this area are actually the “Marble Mountains,” and that US soldiers called the one with the military installation on top by the singular name. The Vietnamese name for the mountains is Ngu Hahn Son-“Five Elements Mountains”—metal, wood, fire, earth and water. The French military built bunkers on the tops of several of the mountains, and the Viet Cong used the caves as sanctuaries during the Vietnam/American War. At the same time, the US built observation posts and artillery platforms high on their peaks. The shrine we went to is the Chua Quan The Am Pagoda, now a significant place of worship for Buddhists and which took six years to build. The name of the pagoda means, “Pagoda of the Goddess of Mercy Who Hears Us and Responds.” The best part of going to the pagoda was that Song was able to arrange a special sitting with the Most Revered Zen Master, Thich Hue Vinh, there, and his chief disciple.

They both talked to us and told us many things that gave us pause to ponder the truths they gave us. Most importantly, the Most Revered Zen Master said that, “The most important thing we can do while we are here in physical form, is to help the poor.” It is such a simple concept and I feel that I have done my best over the years to do that, both for my indigent clients as an attorney and investigator and the work I did with my fellow Vietnam veterans at Central Oregon Veterans Outreach. When he got to me—and I had been thinking long and hard what to ask—I said, “I am sure this is presumptuous, but I think that if I do not ask this now, I will never have another opportunity…Why are we here?” He looked at me intently for a moment and then started laughing and slapping his knees. He turned to his disciple, still laughing and, according to Song, later, said something like, “I cannot answer this. This is part of your final exam and you must try to answer him.” The younger man looked at me carefully and said, “You are not asking the correct question. You should be asking, ‘Now that I am here, what is my purpose’”. It was right out of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I was simply floored and it was immediately obvious that he was correct. Both of the monks were now laughing together, as was everyone else, as Song translated.

After a few more minutes, the Most Revered Zen Master said that we had to stop. We all rose, bowed to him, and began to walk out. Okay, now here is just about the heaviest, most profound thing that has ever happened to me—I mean, ever. As we walked into the sunlight, he was walking behind me talking to Song and Ed and he poked me in the back. I turned around; he looked me directly in the eyes and said—in perfect English—“I think that I will see you again, someday.” I was immediately thrown for a complete loop and I knew that he was not talking about seeing me in this lifetime. I have been thinking about this, almost nonstop, since he said it and I have been pondering the meaning of it all. I hope that he is right because I have the feeling that I could learn much from him. I wish it would be possible to come back to Vietnam, someday, and talk with him, again, but I doubt that will happen, so I guess I’ll just have to wait until the time he was talking about.

On the 26^th, we went to the home of Mr. Nhan, a former South Vietnamese solider who was a tank driver in an armored unit. He is known in Da Nang as the “House Father,” because he worked for many years at the Da Nang Street Children’s’ Center—an orphanage—and has been “father” to hundreds of poor and disabled Vietnamese children and has had as many as thirty at a time living with him and his wife in their small house. Ed and Kate first met him there, where, among other things, he would entertain the children with his guitar. Over the years, Soldier’s Heart has donated the funds to build an infirmary and bicycle garage for the orphanage. While we were sitting in Mr. Nanh’s living room, we could not help but notice that centrally located on his family altar was not an ancestor, but, instead, the picture of an American with his name in bold letters across the bottom—John Howard Priesthoff, II. Then, he told us the story of how this came to, although I do not remember the precise details because I am really overloaded with information.

Mr. Nanh, somehow, came to know Mr. Priesthoff’s parents when they were here on a journey to learn more about Vietnam and to try and locate the place where he died. They had the location’s grid coordinates and, if I heard correctly, Mr. Nanh was able to find out exactly where this was. At some later point in time, the parents and their other son returned to Vietnam with things of importance to their deceased son and brother and Mr. Nanh took them to the location where John had been killed and they performed a traditional Buddhist ceremony for his spirit. Mr. Nanh was so full of feelings for the parents and it was such an emotional experience for him, that he told them that he would consider John Howard Priesthoff, II, as his own son and put his picture on his family altar. It was an overwhelming experience for each of us to hear this story of spiritual connection between these two families and I think that all of us were pretty much in tears when Mr. Nanh was done telling it.

For the record, John Howard Priesthoff, II, was born on April 20, 1946, in Woodland Hills, California. He was a corporal in D Company, 4^th Battalion, 21^st Infantry Regiment, 11^th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. He arrived in Vietnam on June 16, 1968, and died on September 22, 1968, during Operation Burlington Trail, north of Duong Dong and 11 miles southwest of the Tam Ky Airfield. Rest in peace, brother. I was able to get this information from the Coffelt Data Base, the official source of information about the men and women who died in Vietnam and which I have used for years to help my clients with their VA claims.

On the 27^th, we went to an elementary school in Tam Ky which Soldier’s Heart has helped sponsor over the years, including providing books, a computer and, this time, many of us brought donations for the wonderful teachers and beautiful children. The little girls, I would guess were about eight or nine, all greeted us in perfect English, which they are required to study every day.  We all went into the classroom and sat around a long table where they had prepared snacks for us and provided us with a fresh bottle of water. The headmaster and main teacher both addressed us and let us know, once again, how glad they were to see us and how much they appreciated the relationship between them and Soldier’s Heart and the veterans who have visited them and then sent learning materials after they had returned to the States. Ed then addressed the faculty and students and told them how glad we all were to be there and that we had brought many wonderful things with us as gifts to help them with their education and their daily lives, as well as one particular treat.

Brian and Karen brought toothbrushes, toothpaste and Doublemint Chewing Gum. This was a little funny, since I seem to remember Vietnamese children trying to sell us the same gum and Cokes on the sides of the road when I was here during the war. I know that Brian and Karen had other gifts, but I cannot remember everything. Vela brought lots of different children’s books, including one with pop-up animals and a book about the Trojan horse. Later, I remember seeing Karen with a little girl on her lap as she read to her from a book to help them with their English language skills. I brought fifty calculators so that each kid could have their own. This got a big round of applause from the faculty and students. I just hope they can afford to replace the batteries when they run out. They were actually more expensive than the calculators when I checked at Radio Shack before I left.  We also gave the school $200 which goes a long way, over here, to but materials they need for their classrooms.

We left the school and walked to the teacher’s home, where we met her father, another former Viet Cong soldier. She lives at home because she is still unmarried and does not earn enough money to have her own place. Young men and women in Vietnam become teachers because of the honor it brings them and their families. They are revered members of the communities in which they live and are treated with respect and dignity. On Teacher’s Day, they are honored by the entire country. On the third day of the Tet holiday, I believe, people go to see their former teachers to honor them to let them know how important they have been in their lives. Once again, we were treated to food and water and I am sure that many of the teacher’s neighbors helped contribute to what must have cost them a lot of money by their standards. It was another way of welcoming us back to Vietnam and to honor us for returning to try and reconcile with ourselves and with the Vietnamese people. I could not help but reflect on the fact that many people in my own country would not be so gracious in similar situations.

We left Tam Ky and headed for Chu Lai, which was one of Brian’s AOs. On the bus ride to Chu Lai, Brian talked to us about his time in Vietnam and the impact it had on his entire life. He had also spent a lot of time in Duc Pho, a place where there was heavy enemy activity all the time, but the trip was not long enough to visit there, as well as Chu Lai, and I wish that we had been able to do that because it was clear to all of us that Brian had many memories of his time there and that it would have been important o his own healing to have been able to return there. Brian was a door gunner, among other jobs, and had spent a lot of time in the air. I think he said he had been shot down twice, including just after he had gotten in-country. He told us a pretty funny story about ending up running a supply operation, something he had not been trained for, and eventually ended up helping on the beach near Nha Trang to make sure people were safe in an area of the South China Sea that had notorious rip-tides, a significant drop-off and sharks. He told us about an event when he and another “lifeguard” had to save a guy who had been pulled under by a rip-tide and they all almost drowned.

We eventually arrived in a field off the highway near the former Chu Lai airfield that Brian had flown out f and where there is a monument to the VC and NVA soldiers who had fought in this area. Unfortunately, it was located atop a high edifice that had to be climbed and it was just too much for my, by then, aching left knee and lower back from all of the walking we had been doing. While the group climbed to the top of the memorial, I wandered around area and watched a rooster with his harem of hens walking around looking for delicacies. By now, a light rain had started to fall and I was trying to stay dry when the bus driver came over to me with a green pith helmet like those worn by the NVA. As you can see by the picture to the right, he had me put it on and took a picture. It was a little small for my giant head and I had to kind of smash it down so it wouldn’t look too ridiculous.

I remembered that my good friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Billy Bob, had been in Chu Lai at the same airfield where Brian had been. He passed away from the ravages of cancer caused by herbicides while I was in Afghanistan and I was unable to attend his memorial service. I collected some dirt and smooth stones in a baggie and will give them to his widow when I return. At this point, everyone came down from the memorial and we returned to our hotel in Hoi An for one last night and a wonderful dinner at a restaurant on the waterfront. When we left the restaurant, the tide had come in and we had to pick our way around the sidewalk and against the wall of the building the restaurant was in to avoid the water. Across the way from the restaurant was a lively waterfront nightclub with a merry-go-round and loud, live Vietnamese popular music with a large crowd that was dancing their asses off.

The ongoing celebration of the Tet was something to behold and seemed to be participated in by everyone, young and old. Every place we went, parents would be sitting on their stoops, or at one of the many roadside cafes, with their babies and young children all dressed to the nines. Young men were on their motorbikes, many with their girlfriends behind them, going to who-knows-where, but seeming to enjoy just being out and moving with the flow of the traffic. I eventually returned to my room, packed and prepared to leave early the next morning for the bus ride to Hue. It turned out to be an eventful and emotional journey and I will talk about that in my next post. I may not get to finish this blog until after I return home because, sadly, we are flying from Ha Noi to Saigon early tomorrow morning and we will have our final group get-together and farewell dinner tonight. I was really sick this morning and had started an anti-biotic regimen, yesterday, hoping to break this thing up before the horrible 16-hour trip from Saigon to San Francisco. I am hoping to be well enough this afternoon to attend the meeting with the Ha Noi chapter of the Agent Orange Victims’ Association, so I’m going to lie down for a little bit. Chuc Mung Nam Moi—Happy New Year!!

  

Saigon--Some of My Group and Our New Friends Who Used to Be Viet Cong

Myna Bird Blabbing Away

Hoi An, Da Nang, Tam Ky and Chu Lai

I have so much to catch everyone up on. We have been in Hoi An, about thirty minutes south of Da Nang, since early Saturday morning, January 21. It is now January 26 and we are in Hue. I will write about that, and the trip here, in the next blog post. I took the night off while the rest of the group has dinner at a Buddhist pagoda where the food is being prepared by the nuns. I was simply exhausted after we stopped at the site of the former 1st Cav and 101st Fire Support Base Tomahawk, located in one of the mountain passes between Da Nang and Hue. It was very emotionally exhausting. More about that experience, later.

I hardly know where to begin. The flight to Da Nang from Saigon was uneventful, although we were about an hour late taking off due to “technical problem.” They didn't tell us what it was and we didn’t inquire. This is an area where the Marines and various Army units operated during the war and there is little evidence in the cities that anything bad ever happened, here. However, it is not the same when you are in the small, rural farming villages. We are here during the Tet celebration and it’s pretty wild. It is the “Year of the Dragon,” which is the “best year” and it means success and good luck for babies born during this upcoming year. Many Vietnamese and other Asians, who celebrate this holiday, put off having children until the Year of the Dragon so that they can insure good things for their kids. Many of the Vietnamese I have met on the street are very excited about my Afghanistan tattoo which is a dragon above the words, “Afghanistan 2009-2010.” Maybe it was some psychic message that I would be, here, during this time that caused me to choose the dragon for the tattoo.

We arrived in Hoi An early Saturday morning we had the day was a day off except for meeting in the early afternoon to see where everyone was at and discuss how we were all feeling. Peter said that he wanted to do a Warrior Circle, where we would each speak “our truth” that we had learned, so far, and we decided to meet Sunday afternoon and do that. I will admit that, at first, several of us did not really want to do this for reasons that do not matter because we did do it and it was a great experience. Saturday morning, I slept in but got up at nine (we are normally up by seven) so that I could get to the free breakfast buffet before it closed at ten. Man, you talk about a spread. It was more like the breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet because you could get anything from a great omelet to Pho (pronounced “Fuh,” white eyes, not “Foh”)—traditional Vietnamese noodle soup with various meats and vegetables—rice dishes, cereals, fresh fruits and juices of all varieties and wonderful baked goods—croissants, small baguettes and many different pastries. Baking is one of the few good things the French did for the Vietnamese and they learned it really well. I swear I could survive on the bread and various cheeses they had.

After breakfast, my friend, Vela, and I headed to downtown Hoi An to shop for clothes and other things that caught our eye. I bought a beautiful, short-sleeve silk shirt that is so light it is almost like wearing nothing. You can wash it out by hand at night and it is dry by morning. I then purchased a mandarin’s shirt that buttons up the front with little loops over a globe-shaped button. It has an incredible embroidered dragon on one side and Vietnamese writing on the other that commemorates the Tet. I paid a total of $25 for both. Then we found the tailor and each had custom VC “pajamas” made, also from fine silk. My pants, like our former enemies’, are black, but my shirt is a dark jade with a mandarin collar. It has three buttons like the other shirt and long sleeves. I wore them the next day and they are clearly ideal for this weather, particularly the humidity. Any wind, even the slightest breeze, passes right through and helps keep you as cool as is possible. When I told Mona that I had spent $50 on VC pajamas, she thought I had lost my mind since, as she said, “You don’t even wear pajamas.” I explained the difference. Vela wanted leather sandals and while he was trying to explain what he wanted to the sandal-maker, I sat on a small chair to observe the street, which was jammed with people, motor bikes, and cars. I suddenly realized that my head was on a swivel and I was watching every person getting near me. Son-of-a-bitch. Apparently, I came to Vietnam to have a flashback about Afghanistan. Seriously, I had to return to the hotel and Vela continued to shop. I have had absolutely no fear or weird sensations—other than at important sites, for me—since I got here. I will say, again, that the Vietnamese people are the most loving, kind and gentle folks I have ever been lucky enough to meet. I wonder, when, and if, peace eventually comes, if the Afghan people will be as forgiving. I doubt it since carrying a grudge, there, seems to be a national past time, based on my experiences. The rest of my day was uneventful and relaxing.

On Sunday, January 22, we took the bus to Song’s—our tour guide—ancestral village. We were the first Americans to be there since the war and all of the village came out to welcome us. By the way, the Vietnamese call it “The American War” and, before us, it was “The French War.” Difference in perspective, I guess. We went to the home of Song’s cousin where there were altars set up for his ancestors and we each lit a joss stick and placed it in the appropriate place, saying whatever came to our collective minds. His cousin has two Vietnamese acres, which I think he said were 20 x 25 meters, each. At that measurement, Mona and I have thousands of acres. The intensity of their farming is simply amazing. Rice here, sweet potatoes there, beans climbing poles, beautiful lettuces. One of the reasons we went here is that “Soldier’s Heart” donated two cows to Song’s cousin, one heifer, one steer. Our group leaders are Ed and Kate, so, in big white letters, were the names “Ed” and “Kate,” painted on the animals’ sides. It was a riot, as you can see from the pictures. Song’s cousin told us that she makes about $360 a year from her gardens and that, after expenses, she nets $260. The heifer and steer will greatly increase her income because the cow will pretty much stay pregnant and she will sell the calves. The steer will be rented out for stud services and they will be used for plowing. Before this, everything she did in her gardens was done by hand. She had a huge pig that had recently given birth and there was something like a dozen piglets all scrumming for a teat. There was a pen full of ducks and chickens running around, one with brand new peepers. The one with the chicks was actually hobbled with wooden gizmos around her legs so she couldn't run away from the chicks. Pretty damn funny.

One of the women who came to visit was carrying a small child in her arms. It was a little boy who was a victim of herbicides and it just broke my heart. He had Downs-syndrome and a large head caused by being born hydro-encephalitic. The mother and child were carrying on a conversation and it was obvious that he had not suffered brain damage, but he could not walk. I stood there and knew that I had to hold him, so I approached the mother and signed what I wanted to do. She gladly gave him to me and I held him and looked at him as he babbled something to me in Vietnamese. He took my finger and squeezed it and I just completely broke down. It was another sad reminder of the long-term hell we have caused the Vietnamese people—this was a fourth-generation child.

I noticed several ponds in the village that were surrounded by low concrete walls. Song told us that these ponds had been made from bomb craters. Talk about using all available space. We left the village and headed back to Hoi An. Near the hotel, we stopped at a silk factory that was as amazing as it was almost prehistoric. The looms were these huge, old-style machines with a young woman at each one—bang, bang, bang. Our factory guide showed us the entire process and it was unbelievable. The young silk worms are in piles of green vegetation that they eat until they are about an inch long and white and fat. They spin their cocoons and they are either yellow or white. When the cocoons are “ripe,” they are tossed into hot water—yow—and another girl takes them and begins to pull the fine silk thread loose and starts it into the thread extractor. If you can believe this, our hostess told us that they get between 600-1000 meters of thread from each cocoon, which are about 1½ inches long and ¾’s of an inch wide. Eventually, the thread is dyed and then woven into the many products they produce—table cloths and napkins and these amazing embroidered pictures that look like photographs. I bought a beautiful table cloth and eight napkins, embroidered with flowers for $33. I’m guessing that something like this would cost more than $100 at home. The embroidered pictures were way out of my price range and many of them were $600 and more. Outside, I heard a bird singing and saw that it was a type of myna and I made the video to the right as it responded to my clicking and whistling. It was a funny little guy and seemed very happy.

Monday, the 23rd, was Tet, so the night of the 22nd was New Year’s Eve. What a difference forty-three years makes. Although everyone babbles on about the Tet of 1968, the Tet of 1969 was no cake walk, with most major US bases under attack and many small fire bases and LZs also getting hit. That year, the attacks are actually referred to as the Post-Tet Offensive of 1969 and it went on for a month. In Qui Nhon, where I was with the 184th, our ammo dump was hit three times—February 23, March 11-12 and March 23. It was hell and we spent those nights running around inside the dump looking for satchel charges as things were blowing up all around us. This year, there was none of that and I felt extremely relaxed, even when the huge fireworks display began at midnight and lasted almost thirty minutes. It was the first time in many years—maybe even since I returned from Vietnam in 1970 that I was able to watch and enjoy fireworks. The last time I actually remember going to a fireworks display was a July 4 event in Concord, New Hampshire, I think when Jonas was about sixteen months old. I’m pretty sure the only reason I went was because it was his first 4th celebration and my memory is that I was pretty freaked out. Not here, at this time. I’m fairly certain it is due to the fact that, as I have said several times, already, the Vietnamese accept us and have honored us in many ways since we got here. I guess, in some way, coming here has been like coming home and receiving the welcome that none of us got back in the day.

On New Year’s Day, we all went to Song’s home, where we met his wife and two sons, one educated in the US, the other in New Zealand. Both are great guys and now in computer sciences, helping bring their country into the modern age. From what I’ve seen, so far, Vietnam is moving forward at leaps and bounds in this regard, as well as in development of the major cities. Hell, in Danang, there are large apartment complexes going up everywhere outside the city so I guess they’re on their way to having suburbs. On one bus trip, as I contemplated these developments, as well as modern hotels and office buildings going up everywhere, I could not help but think that we had apparently fought these people, not to stop Communism, but to turn them into us. At Song’s we participated in his rituals regarding paying homage to his parents and grandparents at the main family altar, where there were various foods, drinks, paper clothing and shoes and numerous other items needed by people even in the afterlife according to Buddhist ritual. In fact, at the end of blessing the many items and saying prayers to his ancestors, his sons took the paper clothing, shoes and other items and burned them outside in a large container in the street. There was also an altar to “the garage god.” This was to say prayers so that Song and his family would be protected in their car. There is also a “Kitchen God.” On New Year’s Day, the Kitchen God goes to heaven and reports on how the family has been over the past year. It is a very important matter because it all relates to your karma and how you will be received in the afterlife.

That afternoon, we all met in a gazebo for our Warrior’s Circle. I had never done this before and I was a little nervous because I was really unclear about what “truth” I would share with the group. Each person went , in turn, after Ed and Kate, our group leaders, led us in a wonderful Lakota song. I am not going to discuss what each person said, because these things were very personal to each of us. However, John, the former air ambulance EMS, who is now working on his PH.D. dissertation, said something very humbling and wonderful about me that he had put on his blog and it was a little disconcerting as I had written about him just night before in my last blog post and saying that he was one of us, veteran, or not. I knew then that I would share what I had written about him because the inescapable psychic connection was too obvious. Had I chosen to write about him because somehow I knew he would be writing about me? Did he write about me because he knew that I had written about him? In addition to that, given the hell that many of us have lived in for many years as a result of our war experiences, I decided that I would read a few paragraphs from the draft of my book, aptly titles, “This is What Hell Looks Like.” It is about my experiences in EOD in Vietnam and before that at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, where I happened to be when we accidentally dropped a ton of nerve gas on a sheep ranch. This is what I read:

"Hell is a relative term. If you talk to any combat veteran, he or she could tell you stories of devastation and destruction. Each of us has our own private hell and has to find our own salvation.

Anne was an Army nurse, who spent a year up to her elbows in blood at an evacuation hospital. Jerry was the officer in charge of a graves registration unit and still talks to the men he prepared for shipment home. Bob fell off a cliff, broke almost every bone in his body and now cannot stand to cross bridges, or look over the side of the road into deep desert canyons. I was blown up, almost blown up several more times, and saw too many bodies blown to pieces. Each of us has our own version of what hell looks like.

Veterans wonder what it all meant, many for their entire lives after coming back. I want to figure this out, now, so I can move on. Until now, I have not been able, probably been unwilling, to figure that out on my own, and have often been unable to listen to, or seek the advice of, others who might have been able to help. Despite hospitalization in 1987 for drug and alcohol addictions and PTSD, despite the individual and group therapy, I have not found any better understanding of myself, or much solace. I had all but given up until I decided to go into another addictions program in 2007 after withdrawing from prescription morphine.

During one of our classes on anger, the counselor said, “Religion is for those who are trying not to go to Hell. Spirituality is for people who have been to hell and don’t want to go back.” I thought he was talking directly to me."

The Warrior Circle was a moving event and when we were done talking, we passed the pipe, and smoking as we each had our own private thoughts.

I am now in Ha Noi and I want to get this up, so I’ll finish later. Apparently, there was some problem with the internet in Hoi An, but not here. It’s too weird being here, but more on that later.

The Mekong and Ben Tre

The drive from Tay Ninh to Vinh Long was beautiful. Lots of rice paddies, farms, villages and cities whose names are unimportant. We arrived in Vinh Long on the Mekong River, south of Saigon, in the early afternoon and boarded a water taxi. On the trip up the river, I sat on the fantail so I could get a good view of things including the boat with the great paint job on the front and the banana boat in the pictures to the right. Our hosts were Tam Tien and his wife, both former Viet Cong soldiers. Song Tien is a man who simply smiled and laughed all the time and it was infectious. Again, the friendship and forgiveness of our former enemies was painfully obvious.

Tam Tien’s “business” is called “Song Tien Tourist Inn” and I guess you would call it a Bed & Breakfast. We had our own Spartan rooms with a small desk, wall-mounted fan, and hard— but comfortable— bed with the mosquito net like the one I used when I was last here. In fact, I think the fan was the one I left behind in Phu Bai. Man, was it noisy. As soon as we arrived, we had a wonderful lunch complete with huge fish with their heads still attached. I have to admit that I am not a seafood person, so I filled up on noodles, rice and vegetables. They eat a lot of fish and shellfish, particularly shrimp. Believe it, or not, much of the fish and shellfish are farm-grown and at the docks we saw men loading huge sacks of fish food onto their boats to take to the farms. There was great conversation among the group members, as there has been during the entire trip.

I have become good friends with all of the folks in the group and, particularly, with Vela, from Arkansas. His name used to be Tom Smith, but he changed it to Vela Giri during a pilgrimage to India in the 90’s. He is Native American and one of the most spiritual people I have ever known. I know that my son, who is very into the Zen way, would really like him. It turns out that meeting him has reinforced my belief that Vietnam was a very small war, in many ways. Vela was in the 2d Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. This is the same unit that I helped support with the 184th’s on-site team at LZ English in 1968 - 1969. He got to Vietnam in 1969, after this unit moved to Camp Holloway, on the street, or had a beer “together” at the EM Club, or I was on an operation with his company and, of course, we never knew each other, then. Peter was with the 2d Battalion, 94th Artillery Regiment, in Northern I Corps. He was in one of the few Army units at Khe Sanh during the siege that began during the 1968 Tet. We were there at different times, but we humped the same ground. What are the odds? Apparently, they are good because this has happened to me on many occasions.

After lunch, we had some free time so I was working on my last post and a chapter from my book that I will share with the group. Brian—from Pennsylvania and New York—was going to perform a piece from a play he has written and asked me to be his “sound man” since I had the only laptop with a decent sound-system. His play is about Vietnam veterans and suicide and the scene he was going to do has music by Wagner and the Rolling Stones’, “Sympathy for the Devil.” They were weirdly appropriate for what he was doing for us and a group of four other former Viet Cong soldiers and Song Tien and his wife. Our interpreter/tour guide, Song, and his friend, Tran, are former South Vietnamese soldiers. The former Vietnamese soldiers of both sides have fully reconciled and they do not seem to have suffered from the maladies—other than those related to herbicides—that American veterans have, particularly PTSD, high rates of suicide, addictions, homelessness and all the rest. The former South Vietnamese soldiers and VC are one people and this was clear from the obvious friendships between them and the sharing of business opportunities between these former enemies. I have to be clear, though, that the former ARVN are not treated as well by the government and receive no pensions as do the former VC and NVA. I guess that it is just another version of, “To the victor, go the spoils.” Despite this, the love and care they have for each other is palpable.

Brian’s play was extremely heavy and I cannot really explain how it went, other than to say he played the main character, as well as two others. It was powerful and chilling, since my work for veterans over the years has, unfortunately, brought me into contact with men who have ended their lives before their time on the planet would normally have been over. When it was done, he received a long standing ovation from our group, as well as our former allies and enemies. We then formed a circle and had a discussion that lasted more than two hours. The insights of our new friends were amazing and their love for us was obvious and closely felt. They had, largely, no idea that so many of us had suffered so much and that our country had not welcomed us home as returning warriors who had gone, many of us voluntarily, to war to defend our country and our fellow citizens. They could not understand how our government had treated us so shabbily and how we had to fight as hard at home, as we had in Vietnam, for recognition and benefits for our injuries, physical and psychic.

Here, for instance, it is assumed that if you have any form of cancer, or other disease that may be even remotely caused by herbicide exposure, you are cared for at government expense and receive a pension. Even second, third and fourth generation children, thought to be injured by herbicide poisoning, are cared for and their parents receive payment to help care for them. There is no Institute of Medicine taking ten or more years to decide if something that has fucked up so many of us is “presumed” to be caused by herbicide exposure. Every place that you travel, here, you see children with the most horrible deformities imaginable. If our use of these deadly poisons was not a crime against humanity, then nothing is.

Given all of this, the love and forgiveness that all of us felt from our former enemies, and even our former allies, was simply more profound than anything I have ever experienced and I am sure that is true for all of us in the group who served, here. How could this be? By and large, I believe, had something like this occurred in our own country, there would be no forgiveness—ever. It is truly sad to me that so many Vietnam veterans whom I know still have nothing by hatred for the Vietnamese people. Not just the VC and NVA, but all of them. I say to all of you reading this who served, here, that your hate is misdirected. It is our government that your anger should be directed against. It is the military planners and the generals who flew over you while you were fighting for your life that should be the recipients of your ire. We were being shot at, dying and bleeding and they got medals because someone 2,000 feet below them was shooting at us. I ask you…how fucked up is that? When I think of the dozens of men whose VA cases I have handled, who are now dead because of herbicides, I have to admit that it makes me a little homicidal. After our discussion, we all sat down to a wonderful dinner and then turned in. Despite the mosquito net, my ankles were pretty chewed up the next morning. Same same like the last time I was here.

The next day, we split into two groups. One group went to the kindergarten in Vinh Long that “Soldier’s Heart” helps sponsor and those who chose that trip also took many items to donate to the children. The rest of us—me, Brian, his wife, Karen, Lou’s wife Betty, and John—accompanied Lou to the town of Ben Tre. Lou is a retired Sergeant Major, married to a retired Major, and did three years in and around Vinh Long and Ben Tre as an advisor. Much of his time was TDY duty, beginning in 1961. There are several things I need to say, here. John is not a veteran. He is here because he wants to know more about who we—Vietnam veterans—are and to learn why we came on this pilgrimage. However, he has had his own share of trauma exposure as a former flight medic for an air ambulance service. I think he said he did this work for eighteen years. So, as far as I am concerned, he is one of us. You don’t choose to do that kind of work, or the work that many of us chose to do in the military, unless you have a certain commitment to serving your fellow human beings. I have nothing but the highest respect for him. Second, Lou is one of the only other Jewish Vietnam veterans I have ever known. In fact, I don’t think I met another Jew during my time, here, and the only two I know for sure who were here are my cousins Barry—an Army lawyer—and my cousin, Donnie—a squadron commander in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. I know there were other Jews who served, here, but Vietnam was not a war that Jews, in general, supported, my mom being one of them.

The ride to Ben Tre involved another river-taxi ride, a really funky ferry and then a bus trip that just went on and on and on since we were in “rush hour” traffic. We travelled, mostly, along narrow roads that probably have not changed much since Lou was last here. I think it took a little more than two hours. Lou says that Ben Tre has not changed that much since he was last there, other than a substantial increase in population. Ben Tre and Vinh Long Province are, more or less, the “home” of the Viet Cong and was the place where the first major VC attacks took place. The founder was a woman—Nguyen Thi Dinh. General Nguyen Thi Dinh was the soul of the Dong Khoi revolution, which first broke out in Mo Cay District of Ben Tre in 1959, then spread out to the all other provinces of the Mekong Delta. She was also the founder and leader of the renowned Viet Cong “long hair army” or “female guerilla troops”. Coming into Ben Tre, we drove by a huge Catholic monastery, surrounded by a masonry wall that had a giant cross in the stone work every ten feet. Lou told us that at one time they knew that the VC had stored 25 tons of ordnance and ammunition in the monastery’s basement, but they could not attack it, for obvious reasons. What were they going to do? Start a war with the Vatican? We eventually found several places where Lou had either been involved, or lived, including along the river where the Vietnamese Navy had river boats and had helped his advisory team defend the town. Lou said their boats were barely seaworthy. Today, the dock was lined with a long row of sleek power boats with huge outboard motors belonging to the police. We were wondering why they need all of these expensive, powerful boats and I later posited that I would bet it was about smugglers.

Vinh Long Province is a huge farming community and Lou told us that, during the war, it was the first province to actually be able to export its bountiful vegetables, fruits, coconuts and fish of many varieties. The amazing thing about being in Ben Tre is that we realized that we were the only “round eyes” we saw and maybe some of the first Americans to go there since the end of US involvement in 1973. Unlike many of the other cities we had seen, there was no economic or industrial development that we were aware of. No new high-rise apartment buildings, no condo developments for wealthy foreigners, no car dealerships, no advanced shopping districts. Other than the crush of newer moped-like motorcycles, which we saw everywhere, and a large number of small cars—mostly Toyotas, Honda and Hyundis—it apparently looked pretty much the same it did forty-three years ago, when Lou was last here, in 1969. We eventually sat in a sidewalk café and had iced tea, beer, whatever people were drinking. The locals did not seem surprised to see us and we were, generally, ignored. I am fairly certain it is off the beaten “tourist track” because it is basically a simple, poor farming and fishing community. No fancy shops or restaurants, no big Western-style hotels, nothing to attract foreigners with money to spend. I must say, however, given the insanity of Saigon, it was a welcome relief and quite lovely. According to Song, our tour guide, there are 9,000,000 people and 5,000,000 mopeds in Saigon where, by the way, we did, in fact, see a Harley Davidson Sportster. As you might expect, it was a Westerner driving it.

The ride back to Tam Tien’s B&B was quite the opposite of the ride to Ben Tre. Rush hour was apparently over and the bus driver was, in the parlance, hauling ass. We had actually driven so slowly on the ride to Ben Tre that we had not been aware of how really horrible and pot-holed the roads were. Holy crap, the ride back was spine-tingling and we hit every hole—some regular chasms—between the two shoulders. The ride back, including the ferry and river taxi, took about half the time as the earlier trip. We arrived back at the island in the Mekong and had a late lunch. At about 4:00PM, we left Tam Tien’s and traveled to the airpoty in Saigon for our flight to Danang and, then, a short bus ride to our next stop, Hoi An, which is about thirty minutes south of Danang on the South China Sea. We got to the Hoi An Hotel and Beach Report at about 2:00AM and immediately crashed.

Saigon and Other Places—It’s Pretty Amazing (This Covers Part of the Last Three Days)

It’s Monday, January 16. The last time I was in Saigon, we stayed at the Caravelle Hotel, which is just around the corner from where I am now at the Bong Sen Hotel. The Caravelle, as with everything, looks really different—new, modern and not pockmarked by bullets and, generally, falling apart. The last time I was there, a gun battle broke out in the alley behind the hotel between the VC and the Vietnamese police. The Grand is just down the street, and the Continental is just a few blocks away. The 170th was about six blocks away, but I was not able to get by the location and get some photographs. John Merwin, who was here a few years ago, says it’s now a coffee shop. Go figure. They are getting ready for Tet—the Year of the Dragon—and the decorations are staggering in their beauty and technical complexity. It’s all pretty weird not seeing people running around with all sorts of weapons, gun jeeps, armored vehicles, Dusters at checkpoints and not worrying about someone trying to kill me. Interestingly, needless to say, it is not like Afghanistan. Also, the Vietnamese are so forgiving and loving that I have a whole new concept of the Buddhist way.

At the museum, we were addressed by three former members of the National Liberation Front, also known as the Peoples’ Liberation Armed Forces, whom we called the Viet Cong. Viet Cong is actually a derogatory term which the US and South Vietnamese government coined in 1957 and which loosely translates into "Vietnam traitors.” Their stories were pretty terrible. The two women were arrested for being “betrayers of the Fatherland,” and the man was a school teacher who became an NLF commando. All of them were held in horrible conditions and tortured. In fact, one of the more disturbing photographs I saw at the museum was one of American soldiers water-boarding an NLF soldier. The two women were imprisoned for five years and the man for seven. He had actually been sentenced to death, but his life was “spared” in exchange for the release of a US POW. While I do not condone or belittle the manner in which our soldiers who were prisoners were treated, it seems to me that there is a distinct difference in terms of what they did and what we did.

We were serenaded by seven young Vietnamese, all victims of herbicide poisoning and horribly deformed. The piano player was born with no eyes. It looks like his forehead goes all the way to the bridge of his nose. It was wonderful listening to them and seeing how they have adapted to their disabilities. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.” I now believe that there is a special place in Hell for the people who invented this shit and our government officials who authorized its use, here. These were second- and third-generation victims and for what was done to them and to my brothers and sisters who served, here, for me, there can never be forgiveness. There were many pictures on the walls of the museum, but I found that many of them, like the killing of the students at Kent State, were things already familiar to me. There was a whole wall dedicated to the massacre at My Lai. Seeing them up close in this way was very disturbing and I had to leave the building at this point.

We left Saigon and traveled to Tay Ninh City on the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. On the way, we made a slight detour and stopped at the Michelin Plantation, a place where I was on several operations during the time in late-1968 when I was TDY at the 44th EOD in Cu Chi, the main base camp of the 25th Infantry Division. As soon as we left Highway 22, I knew immediately that we were on the road to the Plantation and I had shivers running up and down my spine. When we got there, the rubber trees were still being tapped and the straight rows were just as I remembered them. I got off the bus and just stood there; and then I broke down. It was my first really emotional reaction to being here and it was overwhelming. The group surrounded me and I talked about what it was like when I was here. You never saw the enemy. They were in spider holes, or in tunnels, and they would suddenly appear and hit the front of the column we were with trying to get to whatever we had been called out on. Then they disappeared. Usually, a solider had stepped on an anti-personnel mine, or an APC had hit a huge mine and we were called out to look for additional devices. We always found more. Often, American soldiers were stepping on Bouncing Betties that the fucking French had left behind when they were there protecting the Michelin riches from the rubber industry.

From the Michelin Plantation, we traveled to Nui Ba Den, the “Black Lady Mountain.” As usual with many things in Vietnam, we misinterpreted the name and referred to it as the “Black Virgin Mountain.” One of the women in the group, Marlene, lost her husband near Nui Ba Den on January 31, 1970, while flying a rescue mission that no one else would take. It was his second tour. We had a wonderful ceremony where she was finally able to let go of the pain she has been carrying in her heart for the past forty-two years. We all cried with her. Thanks to Song, our wonderful tour guide and interpreter, we were able to get within twenty-seven meters of the grid coordinates where the Army said his chopper went down. Marlene spoke to Joe and it was simply one of the most moving events I have ever participated in. I took my chip from The Wall (I explain this in the picture to the right) and laid it on his picture and let him know that the next time I went there, I would find him.

We left the crash site and traveled to the base of Nui Ba Den, where we took an incredible cable-car ride to the Buddhist pagoda located about two-thirds of the way up. On the very top of Nui Ba Den, there was an artillery unit, a signal unit, a Special Forces team and 25th Aviation, Marlene’s husband’s unit, had a gunship platoon. The only way you got there was by chopper. I flew in there for EOD missions twice that I remember, but never knew about the pagoda because we always approached and flew out from the other side. The pagoda, as you can see from the pictures, is spectacular. Again thanks to Song, the monks performed a special service for Marlene and her husband. It was very spiritual and powerfully moving. As we sat outside the temple waiting for the service to start, three monkeys chattered way and dropped leaves on me. It was pretty damn funny. The ride back down was amazing. It was dark and there was sheet lightning blasting away from horizon-to-horizon. I should also mention that there is actually a water-slide from the pagoda to the bottom but, unfortunately, it has been shut down due to some problem. What a trip it would have been to have been able to do that.

We arrived at our hotel in Tay Ninh City and I knew immediately that there web site was a hoax. What a dump. The bathroom in my room was a total Afghanistan flashback, with the shower being right next to the toilet, which would not stop running, and same wall-mounted hot water heaters we had in Afghanistan. The room also had the same rock hard bed and Samsung wall air conditioner—that barely worked—just like Afghanistan. There were geckos everywhere and many of them would race into the many cracks in the walls in the hallway. One of my new friends, Brian, was in the lobby that night doing email when a rat—“the size of a small dog,” as he puts it—walked through the lobby and out the front door as if he was the concierge. Also like Afghanistan. We left the next morning and headed for the next stop, the city of Vinh Long on the Mekong River.

I’m going to end this here so I can get it on the web. I am now in Hoi An, about thirty minutes south of Danang after spending two wonderful days at a B&B—yes, a B&B—on an island in the Mekong River, upstream from Vinh Long. It’s Friday, January 20 at 8:26PM. That’s 5:26AM on the 20th in Oregon.

A Day at the Beach--Same, Same 1968 Sort of

Two days ago, I spent a great day at the beach at Half Moon Bay, California, about an hour west of San Francisco with my friends, John and Tatyana. It was 70, blue skies and lots of sun. Very weird weather for this time of the year in the San Francisco area. John said that, normally, it would be about 40, foggy and raining. Except for a couple of people who walked by, we were the only people on the beach. There were a couple of sea lions who kept popping up in the surf as the tide went out and lots of cormorants who were diving for fish. A good start, I would say, for this return to Vietnam.

Forty-three years ago, I came into San Francisco by train with a fellow EOD teammate from the unit we had been at in Utah. We had both volunteered after the great Dugway Proving Grounds nerve gas fuck up on March 13, 1968, when we accidentally dropped a ton of Sarin on a sheep ranch that turned out to be owned by the family of U.S. Senator, Orin Hatch, although he wasn’t a senator, then. Four members of our nine-man EOD team volunteered for Vietnam after that event, idiotically believing we had a better chance of protecting ourselves from the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese than we did from the nerve gas and other lethal chemical and biological agents that were tested and stored in massive quantities at Dugway.

Anyway. When I went to Vietnam, we got into San Francisco three days before reporting into the Oakland Army Base. An old high school friend, who had been a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, picked us up and we spent the next three days seriously partying and staying drunk the entire time. There are two events on those three days that still stick out in my mind. Steve—my high school bud, took us to the amusement park at Santa Cruz. At that time they had the largest wooden roller coaster in the world. It was a truly scary ride and I actually puked coming down a really steep part of the ride. On the way back to Steve’s house that night, the brakes went out on his VW Bug and we went sailing through a four-way intersection eventually ending up on the lawn of an office building. We were pretty well toasted and when the cops show up, we were sure we were on our way to jail. But the cop was cool and when he found out that Steve had just gotten back from Vietnam and that Tom and I were on our way, he let us go after the car was towed.

The next day, Steve took us to the beach. I can’t swear that it was Half Moon Bay, but I’m pretty sure it was. Whatever beach it was, what a difference forty-three years makes. Back then I was thinking about getting out alive; now I’m marveling at the fact that I did and wondering how I’ll feel this time when we touch down at what used to be Ton Son Nhut Air Force Base, the same place I landed on September 4, 1968.

I’m going to cut this post short. The reason is that I am sitting in my lovely room at the Bong Sen Hotel in Saigon. I learned, today, from our translator and guide, Song, that the three downtown districts are actually still called Saigon, while the greater metro area is what is referred to officially as Ho Chi Minh City. Song was an officer in the South Vietnam Army and spent almost three years in a re-education camp after the fall of the South Vietnamese government. His English—and his compassion for those of us on this return trip—is remarkable. My fellow travelers are a wonderful group and, as we landed in Vietnam, one of the men became very emotional as the City and surrounding area came into view as the plane began to descend into Ton Son Nhut. To be fair, it is actually now called Tan Son Nhat and I’m guessing it always has been but that we, in ever-imperious manner, misspelled and mispronounced it when we were here before.

The plane ride truly sucked and made my trips back and forth to Afghanistan pale in comparison. The ride from San Francisco to Manila was 16½ hours and we had to stop in Guam to refuel due to ungodly headwinds. Then we had a six-hour layover in Manila and landed in Saigon 3½ after that. I told the flight attendants they should be offering free ass massages. The part of the Manila airport where we were held prisoner truly sucked as bad as the flight—no restaurants, only food stands with really questionable things to eat; you couldn’t use the water in the bathrooms for reasons unexplained; and the chairs (I’m being generous calling them that) were metal and made the first plane ride ass problem worse. I’ll be seeing the hotel masseuse tomorrow.

I was not able to take pictures coming in because the chip in my camera was full, but I’m sure some of my fellow travelers will provide me with all I need. I just cleared my chip, so I’ll be clicking away starting with dinner tonight. It was weird landing at Tan Son Nhat and not seeing F-4s, F-105s and choppers of all varieties landing and taking off. It just looks like any other major airport. I want to get this up, so I’m posting now and will do more, later. It’s now Monday at 7:07AM, 4:07PM Sunday. Just woke up and getting ready for breakfast and then leaving for the War Museum. Dinner last night was incredible; traditional Vietnamese food. The hotel is great and the massage did help my shoulder a little. The masseuse did try to talk me into a "happy ending," but I demurred and I think she was pissed. Oh, well.

Getting Ready to Go

I am preparing to return to Vietnam after leaving there almost forty-two years ago, on March 27, 1970. I am going with a group called “Soldier’s Heart,” and it is a healing trip as much as a sight-seeing vacation. We will visit places that have significance for me and the other veterans, wives and one widow in the group and I will get to return to most of the places where I was based during my eighteen months “in-country” as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Operator. We won’t be able to go into places like the A Shau and An Lao Valleys, because they are still very remote and much of these places are still littered with anti-personnel mines and bomblets that U.S. forces placed or dropped over a period of more than twenty years. Then there’s all the stuff the French, South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong planted.

In getting ready for my trip, I have been reading a lot about the war and the history of Vietnam. It is quite shocking to read how we assumed that, unlike every other country that attempted to subjugate the Vietnamese over some 3,000 years, we could succeed where so many others had failed miserably. In that regard, I am most interested in seeing how the Vietnamese have managed to move forward in the thirty-six years since the armies we fought marched into what was then Saigon, and unified their country. I was amused to note that the hotels we will stay in—they all have very professional web sites—are modern in every way and could be located in any Western or European country. These are not of the “Motel 6” variety and appear to be fancy enough that they are probably not the kind of places I would choose to stay if I were traveling there on my own. I recently said to a friend, after seeing the hotel web sites, that we had fought the war in Vietnam, apparently, to turn them into—us.

I am excited to make this trip, something which I thought I would never be able to do and I can only thank my good friend, Greg Walker, and the people at Soldier’s Heart for making it possible. Greg put me in touch with them through his work as a counselor working with special operations wounded warriors and they offered me a scholarship, I guess because of the work I have done for the past thirty-four years for my fellow veterans and active-duty personnel. But for their largess, there is no way I could ever afford this trip and I will always be grateful. I have never expected anything in return for my work assisting veterans and their survivors with the byzantine system that is the Department of Veterans Affairs, but I guess that if something were to be proffered in exchange for the thousands of hours of my life that I have devoted to this work there could be no greater gift than this trip.

In the beginning, once I made the decision to go, I thought that I might have trepidations about going back to this place that played such a significant part in the history of my life. This has turned out not to be the case, despite having been exposed to more chaotic and violent events than I can count, or even remember—literally. When I was doing research for my book (still in the editing stage), I recovered an “unusual” incident report of a mission that I was on with my CO, Andy Breland. It was an “unusual” incident because it involved a combat assault and going in to a remote area to destroy artillery rounds loaded with Improved Conventional Munitions (ICMs)—little high explosive bomblets that were deployed when the round blew apart after being fired. They were classified and could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. The helicopter carrying the load of projectiles had been shot down and the ordnance had been spread over a large area in the jungle southeast of LZ Sally, a 101st base in Northern I Corps.

To make a long story short, this incident took place as the war was raging all around us. We took fire going in, while we were on the ground with an infantry platoon and as we were taking off after we completed our mission. Members of our security detail were killed and wounded protecting us as we did our job. When I got done reading the report of this event, I realized that I had no memory of any of this. I called Andy and read the report to him. His response was that he did not remember it, either, despite the fact that he had written the report. Unlike many of my fellow Vietnam veterans, my war-related trauma mostly involves what I was doing, not what I saw or participated in, despite the fact that I’m guessing that my teammates and I were in close contact with hundreds of dead bodies that were shot and blown to pieces after battles on small, relatively insignificant places no one ever heard of, save for the people who were there—on both sides—and who were lucky enough to survive.

Being an EOD operator had its own significant trauma, which I did not realize at the time. It never really dawned on me, even after I was blown up by a bad mortar round—and managed to survive—during an ammo dump cleanup after the Post-Tet Offensive of 1969. Even after that event, I went right back to work, never consciously considering the inherent dangers of my job. A part of that is the knowledge that I survived, relatively unscathed, while others in my field did not. Then there were the American soldiers who died on operations that we were involved in. In both cases, I still wonder: “Why them and not me?” One of my counselors in a VA program I was in said, when I brought this up, that some of us died so others could live.

I have given that a lot of thought and I think it actually makes sense, to the extent that anything about Vietnam will ever make sense, at least to many of us who were there. I think it’s a matter of mathematics and maybe my son, a freaking math genius, can figure out some way to formulate this theory. In conflict, much as everything in life, I believe that everything happens for a reason. Nothing “just happens.” So, somewhere, some place, somehow, it was determined that men and women would die in Vietnam, others of us would survive and some of us “survivors” would carry wounds, some physical, some psychic, forever. For me, the wound is that of surviving. I’m glad I did, needless to say, but it’s a conundrum, just the same. I have accepted the fact that others, as my counselor opined, died so that I could live. I just can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that I shouldn’t have and why me, in particular?

I’m hoping that making this journey will help me leave as much of my feelings about this where they began, or, at least, “close enough for government work.” We were going to a couple of places that were really important to me, but the Tet holiday has made it impossible to get either plane or train tickets from Danang to Qui Nhon. We could have driven, but it would be at least eight hours each way from Danang, plus time to see the Qui Nhon area and go up to An Khe (rent a car) and back to Qui Nhon. Since I was the only person whom these places had any significant meaning for, I told the folks in charge I wasn’t making this trip to spend the better part of two entire days crammed into a car. That said, I think that being north up the road in Hoi An, also on the South China Sea, will be close enough. I will get to see many of the other places that have significance for me, however, so I am hopeful that this will be a rewarding and healing adventure.

See you in Vietnam. I will have my Skype up most of the time in the hotel. It’s fifteen hours later there.