An Yankee in Vietnam

It is impossible as an American to travel through Vietnam and not have an identity crisis. You find yourself thinking that we had no business getting involved here in the first place. You find yourself sympathetic to the terrorized civilians of Vietnam, while at the same time empathizing with the terrified young American soldiers, many of whom fought a war they didn’t believe in. You find yourself embarrassed, and you found yourself confused. My confusion was even deeper, as I grew up in a Communist country and vividly remember how much hope my grandfather had in an American military intervention that never come true.

There are plenty of things even the greatest on Earth has done in the past that I am not proud of. Slave ownership and abuse. Internment camps during WWII. And, of course, the Vietnam War.

It's hard not to get emotional here. Half the time I found myself sick about the horror we caused. Specifically, the use of Agent Orange, which not only killed or maimed half a million people but has gone on to disfigure unknown generations, and poison food and water sources. The other half of the time I felt an indignation at the biased and propagandized views being fed to tourists. War is a two-sided hell, but the atrocities of the Viet Cong against the South and yes, against Americans, were completely absent from the discussion. But as they say, history is written by the victors.

Nobody had anything bad to say about my being an American. I felt welcomed and safe. They did not forget… just that they are moving past it and realizing that I am not the one responsible for the bombs that fell in their country all those years ago. I did not meet one person in Vietnam who narrowed their eyes at me upon learning that I was American.

The wounds of the Vietnam War (or American War, how the call it there) are still very fresh despite the decades that have passed. I hope as time begins to heal them we can all learn from a more balanced, two sided story of a war gone horribly wrong; and that we can move forward into the future and learn from the mistakes that were made.