Vietnam rising

by Benjamin Taylor, articles.boston.com

July 3rd 2005

Fifty-eight thousand Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. Estimates vary on the number of Vietnamese who were killed, but a reasonable case can be made that fatalities totaled more than 3 million, including nearly 2 million civilians - 10 percent of the population.

The US bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia and Laos, over which the North Vietnamese moved men, materials, and supplies to the South, along with President Richard Nixon’s 1970 decision to allow American and South Vietnamese troops to go into Cambodia and Laos, widened the war, and an estimated 500,000 Cambodians died as a result. When Pol Pot rose to power in 1975, he led a monstrous genocide that killed nearly two million, or a quarter of Cambodia’s population. Yet finding anyone in either Vietnam or Cambodia today to outwardly express anger toward Americans is not easy. The people we met - farmers, merchants in the markets, shopkeepers, students, parents, and grandparents - have moved on.

History has proven that the domino theory - if South Vietnam were to fall to the Communists, the rest of Asia would fall too - was wrong. South Korea and Japan have become Vietnam’s two most important allies in the region. What peddler of dominoes in the ’60s would ever have predicted that? We were told that houses in the old quarter in Hanoi can sell for more than $1 million. Construction cranes dot the skylines of Hue, the ancient capital, and Da Nang, a major air base for the US military during the war. Resort condos are rising around China Beach, where American military personnel enjoyed R&R. Vietnam and China, the 800-pound economic gorilla in the region, maintain friendly relations. But several Vietnamese said they still keep their left high with China because of the historic bad blood between the two nations.

Saigon, no longer what Graham Greene called a city of bicycles, is now a city of 9 million souls and 5 million motorbikes. During rush hour, between 1 million and 2 million motorbikes clog the streets and sidewalks. Walking the streets in Saigon requires a strong constitution, learning a set of rules that might not work anywhere else, and a leap of faith.

In a busy intersection where there are no lights and no police, every biker seems to believe that there is no need to stop. When crossing the street, a pedestrian has to wait for the slightest opening, step forthrightly out into the traffic, walk slowly, never run, but never stop in the middle of the street unless absolutely necessary. Somehow the bikers avoid hitting the pedestrians, and we witnessed remarkably few accidents given how choked the streets were with traffic.

The Cu Chi tunnels northwest of Saigon, once a haven for Viet Cong fighters, are now a tourist destination, although a few had to be enlarged so that Westerners could fit in them. The US forces used German shepherds to sniff out the tunnels’ air holes that were hidden in termite mounds scattered all over the jungle floor. The Viet Cong used hot pepper spray and clothing taken from dead American soldiers to throw the dogs off the scent.

We had lunch with three Viet Cong veterans, and after hearing about the horrendous conditions they had to endure in the tunnels, we asked them whether they or their fellow veterans suffered post-traumatic stress that affected so many American Vietnam veterans. Yes, they said, they and their colleagues still have bad dreams. But in terms of sustaining the will to fight, they said they were aware that the war was unpopular in the United States, and that ultimately the Americans would leave.

When I told this story to an old college friend of mine who had been very active in the anti-war movement, I suggested that the pro-war political forces in the United States were correct when they said the anti-war movement provided aid and comfort to the enemy. His response was that they were right, but the protesters were also right to do everything they could to end the war.

It is impossible to go to Vietnam today and not think that the forces that played themselves out so tragically there in the ’60s and ’70s are repeating themselves today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly Iran unless President Obama can find the courage to resist what he called the drums of war being beaten by many Republicans. We are finally leaving Iraq, and beginning to draw down US forces in Afghanistan after 10 years of fighting, at a cost of about $3 trillion and many thousands of American, Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani casualties.

The American war was not the last war Vietnam would fight. In 1978, the Vietnamese went into Cambodia and drove the genocidal regime of Pol Pot from power. A border skirmish with the Chinese erupted in 1979. The Vietnamese did Cambodia and the world a favor by removing Pol Pot, but then they stayed too long, finally leaving Cambodia in 1992.

The after-effects of decades of war are still being felt. Each year, more than 1,000 people die and more than 2,000 are injured from land mines still in the ground or unexploded bombs and shells. Birth defects from dioxin are still a problem in regions where Agent Orange was heavily used. And yet, two decades of peace in Vietnam have helped the economy grow.

Given the history, many older US citizens, understandably might have qualms about traveling there. Once there, however, the resiliency of the human spirit is very much on display, and that alone is reason to go. Expiation is probably too much to expect. But traveling to Vietnam provides firsthand evidence that, given a chance and time, human beings have a remarkable ability to bounce back, and to forgive too.

Original Page: http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-15/opinion/31341187_1_vietnam-war-south-vietnam-domino-theory