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Log of S/V High Drama
No.23 Vietnam
2004
Chào
--ông, bà, cô!
That’s
“Hello--: Mr, Mrs, or Miss” in Vietnamese.
Please
join us while we leave High Drama and travel inland
to Vietnam. This Log is a companion to the previous Log 22 in which
we provided our tour of Laos and Cambodia.
As
we sailed through the South Pacific we developed an interest in
the Marine Corps and Naval battles in the area in World War ll.
We were reminded of the sacrifices of our parents’ generation
as we sailed in Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and as we sailed up the
Coral Sea off Australia to Papua New Guinea. In this Log we travel
to Vietnam, where members of our generation fought and died.
Introduction
Upon
hearing the suggestion that we should consider traveling in Southeast
Asia while High Drama was moored in Thailand we recalled
how much of our personal and national psyche had been consumed by
Viet Nam in the 1960s and early 1970s. (Who would have ever expected
that it would become an issue in the 2004 Presidential election,
especially where a slacker calls one who served disloyal?) Experiencing
a deep feeling of bitterness our immediate reaction was that there
was no way we would go there as tourists. Jeff had served on active
duty in the Marine Corps during that era (1970-1972) but the timing
of “Vietnamization” of the war by the Nixon Administration
and consequent withdrawal of the Marines resulted in a tour of duty
in Okinawa in 1972 rather than Vietnam. However, after thinking
about it for several months, we concluded that we must visit Laos,
Cambodia, and especially Vietnam, in large part for reconciliation.
David Lamb in his excellent
book Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns (2001), observed that
although we refer to the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese refer to it
as the American War. Moreover, Lamb makes the (now) obvious point
that our name for the war was a misnomer because two other countries
received the impact of our war efforts. We bombed Laos and Cambodia
for five years (1964-1969) before our Presidents had the courtesy
to tell the American people.
We felt that we had a
good handle on the impact of the war in Southeast Asia and upon
our country by virtue of our own experience during and since that
era. Many of our friends served on active duty in Vietnam. Some
did not return. More recently we have read books and stories by
Tim O’Brien and others who still battle the memories of their
experience. However, we failed to stay current about what happened
in Southeast Asia after the departure of U.S. forces in 1973.
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