Mom Goes to Nam.

I remember having some apprehension after my initial exclamation “Of course!” when my mother asked me if she could join me for a few weeks in Vietnam. The last time we shared every meal, moment and sleep for longer than a few hours was when I was about 8 weeks old.

Her interest was mostly driven by how much Vietnam influenced her life path. Her husband was drafted in 1969 during his junior year of college and instead of going to Vietnam, he decided to take his only other legal option, a longer (safer) path – enlist in the Air Force, finish college and law school, and ultimately enlist for five years. My mother and my first flight was aboard an Air Force plane to Istanbul, I was six weeks old and we would stay for two years.

And here we were a few decades later landing together in Ho Chi Minh. We hired a tour guide, Khai, to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels where 16,000 Vietnamese lived underground in a 250 kilometer network of tunnels located at the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Khai greeted us in the morning with a brief history on Vietnam…

“Vietnam is very strong country. One thousand years of Chinese occupancy, one hundred year of French occupancy, twenty year of America occupancy and we won. Now we are free. Vietnam War against Americans very devastating. Many, many American’s die. Very sad. 58,128 American men die. 58,128 American wives and girlfriends with no husband or boyfriend. 58,128 families with no son. 58,128 children with no father. And Vietnam sad too. 3 million civilian Vietnamese killed, 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers killed, ½ million South Vietnamese soldiers killed.”

More than ten percent of their population killed? I can’t believe these people even let us off the plane, let alone welcome us with huge smiles? Khai assures us later on in the day that many Vietnamese welcome the Americans – the American dollar combined with 65% of the population being under 30 helps. But he does push my mother a little…

“Does America not learn from Vietnam War? Why America not leave Iraq? Have they forgotten American soldier deaths? Vietnamese civilian deaths? Why memory so short?”

I found it unduly flattering that he thought our fearless leader even had a memory, I guess Bush does have some good PR folks out there still.