Gooood Morning Vietnam!!!!

If Vietnam had a soundtrack I always thought it would be something like the Rolling Stones or the Doors. Psychedelic. Hard and powerful. And it would be coming from a radio that was slightly out of tune with the constant buzz of static detectible just under the song lyrics. It certainly would not be Nat King Cole belting love songs flawlessly from an iPod shuffle.

I never in my life dreamed that I’d go to Vietnam. I didn’t actually realise that anyone could until about 6 years ago when a client of mine went there on a holiday. Wow! Was it really possible? And for a holiday! She was a Kiwi. Surely not an American...

The concept was just too foreign to me. The Vietnam in my imagination was stuck back in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s and fueled by countless movies and television shows I’ve seen. It was the Vietnam of my Uncles. Uncle Jim who was here with the CIA during the early ’60’s. The build up. Uncle Dale, a Navy man, was here during the late ’60’s. Tet.

That Vietnam was, in fact two Vietnams and a rather unpopular war was raging to keep them from becoming one. Or at least to keep the North from taking over the South. But the North did eventually take over the South one day in April, 1975.

And the Vietnam that I was now looking at from the back seat of a chauffeur driven Mercedes is a unified Communist country...with a healthy (or relatively so in this GFC) capitalistic economy. And Nat King Cole was singing love songs from the iPod shuffle.

My mind raced back to my child hood. To all of those memories that made indelible impressions on me. Walter Cronkite was our constant dinner companion. Telling us how many more US soldiers had lost their lives that day. I don’t know if these memories of childhood dinners are real or recreated with the help of “Platoon” or “Apocalypse Now”. But it doesn’t matter. They’re now part of my neuro synapses. Men with guns, women in conical hats with babies in their arms, trees burning, Agent Orange.

My Dad, the history major, wanted to make sure that I understood. He’s spend hours around the dinner table talking to me about the history of the region and why the US thought it was necessary to protect the south. To keep that domino from falling. It was the ’60’s version of “Weapons of mass destruction.”

My father, a staunch Republican until Clinton’s ’92 election, was becoming disenchanted with war and starting to side with the protestors. Is it a coincidence that I came to Vietnam myself on my father’s birthday? Poignant.

I turned 7 during the “Summer of Love” but remember yearning to be part of the demonstrations. This was big. This was important. I needed to stand up for this.

When those four students fell at Kent State I longed to be there. To mourn, to participate, to help bring an end to the war in that distant, foreign place called Vietnam. I was 8. The irony that I later joined the Ohio (Air) National Guard to pay my way through university was not lost on me.

And now here I am. I’ve come on business. I’ve been hired to do training to help upgrade the sales process for the Sofitel Hotel corporation. The Hanoi Metropole is my first location. A beautiful colonial style building built in 1901.

My Vietnam so far consists of impeccable service, an incredibly comfortable bed, delicious food and a flat screen TV.

I’m here for a few more days and then I plan to see the other Vietnam. The remnants of the one from my childhood memories. What do I hope to accomplish? I’m not sure. Maybe in some infinitesimal way I can bring a bit more peace to this country that’s been ravaged for centuries by war. “The American War” (hard for me to get used calling it that...but then again they certainly wouldn’t refer to it as The Vietnam War now would they?) being only one of many struggles these people have faced.

Maybe I can just bring a bit more peace to my own memories. I’m expecting it to be a bit emotional but very interesting.

I wonder if either of my uncles got a hand rolled chocolate on their freshly turned down bed when they were here? I seriously doubt it.