V is for Vietnam

I visited Vietnam in 1999 while sailing on Semester at Sea.  I had mixed feelings about seeing the country my father fought a war in. The night before our arrival in the port of Ho Chi Minh City, I attended a discussion group on the ship.  Participants included students, professors and several of the affectionately named Seasoned Salts. The Seasoned Salts were passengers, generally older, retired folks, who were traveling as voyagers, not students.

In the group, we heard from sisters of brothers who were drafted into the “conflict”, professors tasked with the daunting job of deciding who would go to war based on the letter grade they would assign their students, wives of husbands who never made it back, or if they did, were never the same.

I thought about my father. I thought about war.  I looked at things in a way I never had before, my eyes open with the revelations I was hearing. It was the most intense, unique discussion I have ever been a part of, and I learned more then I ever had or would have from any text book or class I might have taken.  I finally understood the importance of the journey I was making, both literally and figuratively, in that crowded room on the ship.

The next day, after docking in Ho Chi Minh, I stepped foot on the land so many Americans had before me, only I was doing it during a time of peace. I was nervous about how we would be received. The proximity of the war was suddenly real being in the place it all happened, and I feared Americans would be hated.  It was less than 25 years since the end of the conflict, and I felt responsible simply for being American.  Of course I was. 

The proximity became even more apparent as I roamed the streets filled with beggars and gum sellers, some with a missing arm or leg, clearly from the war, or from the land mines years later. Some were just children. I had wept at the discussion, and I held back tears as I took in everyone around me on the streets.

I was treated kindly, not yelled at or told to go home. It was unexpected.  Why was I so welcomed in a land that saw so much hate at the hands of my country?  I don’t know the answer. I imagine in order to move forward you must forgive, or at least forget the trespasses of those around you.  I felt only peace during my time in Vietnam.  The people I met had found a place of peace and found a way to spread it.