The issue initially came up while I was standing in line at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and memorial site in Hanoi during my first Sunday in Vietnam. An Australian man was quite shocked to meet an American visiting the country considering the history of American involvement here. He asked me if anyone had given me a hard time or treated me poorly.
"No," I answered, the issue had not come up and it never did, in an uncomfortable way, the entire time I was there. Quite the opposite. When people introduced themselves to me and asked where I was from they were happy to meet me and a few times said things like, "We love America." Young people in their 20s started conversations with me just to practice their English. They had no concerns about a war that ended before they were born. As I moved around the country's various cities I never felt I was being sized up as an American or someone who should be shunned.
Perhaps the biggest thing we have going for us in that regard - with the Vietnamese people - is the fact that the population is young and focused on the future not the complicated past. The other thing we have going for us is the belief among the Vietnamese population that most Americans were against the war in Vietnam so they have no quarrel with the people of our country.
When references to the war were made in my presence, usually by a tour guide, the guide would simply nod toward me as if to say, I hope I have not made you feel uncomfortable by talking about the war in front of you. During my visits to places significant to the war, I never felt the Vietnamese explanation of what happened was tainted by propaganda. They know truth is bad enough. There's no need to make it worse and put their own credibility at risk.
The official Vietnamese explanation of the American War also includes a strand that suggests the American government never understood this country or what its leadership wanted. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence was modeled on the U.S. declaration. Some of the rhetoric used by Vietnamese leaders at the time sounded like early American revolutionary slogans. The U.S. government believed it was fighting worldwide communism and Vietnamese rhetoric about self-determination was seen as purposeful deception.
Once the war began, both sides needed a face saving way out and it took more than ten years to find one. The end however embarrassed the U.S. for decades and has over-shadowed every major military decision we have made since. The appeal of the non-interventionist positions taken by President Trump are rooted in the American experience in Vietnam.
In central Hanoi there is a park dedicated to Vladimir Lenin. It is a design typical of something you might expect to see in the former Soviet Union. Stark. Dark granite. A vast open space with a towering statue of Lenin. But there is no one in the park. There are no Vietnamese, even in what was called "the communist north" spending their weekend afternoons paying tribute. The marble tiles are dusty, dirty and chipped.
Immediately after the war the Vietnamese government tried to model itself after the Soviet system with a fully state run economy. It was generally seen as a disaster and by the 1980s Vietnam began moving toward a more mixed system. Now, it is hard to spend a day here and not feel you are in the middle of a wide open market economy that feels like the wild west. Government buildings, party headquarters, billboards and banners are the only gestures one sees toward a strong central government.
Slide Show: A Vietnamese flag flies over a Hanoi military museum; a Communist Party message board over downtown Sa Pa; Party banners in Hoi An; Ho is everywhere.
But for the most part, those images and symbols seem to be ignored by the average citizen. You do occasionally see soldiers or military vehicles on the street, but they are non-threatening. No weapons. They are just moving about in uniform, guarding a government building, or sitting on a street corner taking in the chaos with everyone else.
In the north, I did come across one other oddity. In both Hanoi and Sa Pa daily broadcasts giving military instructions are made over loud speakers for everyone to hear and presumably act on. It's background noise. Not relevant to daily life. I was the only one who stopped to listen.
It seemed strange to be wandering the streets of Hanoi with the understanding that this very busy capital city was once - and for a long time - considered the seat of enemy power by three successive American administrations over more than ten years. Some say longer. As a reminder, I visited the former Hoa Lo prison, known by American prisoners of war as the Hanoi Hilton.
Some American visitors are offended by the presentation made at the former prison, because it focuses not on the poor conditions under which Americans were held, but how the French used the prison to suppress Vietnamese political prisoners. Seen in cold political terms, the Vietnamese would rather put their differences with America behind them. Focusing on their own history is a convenient way to do that.
About two miles from the Hanoi Hilton is the home used by North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. It's also where his body lies in state in a mausoleum designed and constructed with help from the Soviets. This is the one place Vietnamese nationalism is fully on display. Having led the fight against both the French and the Americans, Ho Chi Minh is like Vietnam's George Washington to the people of the country. The lines to get onto the grounds of the Ho Chi Minh monument are as long, if not longer, than those at Mt. Vernon.
The morning I was there - there were two lines. One for local VIPs and one for foreigners and everyone else. Both lines were over a quarter of a mile long. I did not plan to go inside, but once you are close to the main building you really have no choice, but to get in line and start moving with the crowd. Soldiers in dress uniform guard every step of the way and give orders on when to move, stand still, and always to be quiet and respectful.
Since I hadn't planned on going into the building I hadn't thought about the idea that Ho might actually be inside lying at rest and embalmed 50 years after his death, but as I moved closer it became clear that's exactly what I was going to see.
The decor inside is not Asian. It's Eastern Bloc. Again, the Soviets knew how to put on this particular show and Russian experts still play a role in making sure Ho's body is preserved on an annual basis.
As I rounded the last corner there he was: Ho Chi Minh, just as he always looked all those years ago, lying inside a glass box guarded by four Vietnamese soldiers in dress uniform with bayonets affixed to their rifles. It is of course odd and a bit bizarre. Just how long do they plan to keep him like this? Is it really him? On the other hand you are aware that this small man played a role - that consumed his entire life - in defeating two of the world's great military powers mostly through the determination to never give up.
And what remains on both sides?
Close to 60,000 Americans died in the war before the American government finally decided victory was impossible and that staying in Vietnam was no longer in our national interest. In 1995, the Vietnamese government estimated more than 2 million civilians were killed in the war and that close to 1.5 million soldiers from both the north and south were killed.
America is currently the lone superpower in the world, but it has been much more careful since the end of the Vietnam War about using military force. The second Iraq War is the lone exception to the U.S. policy of refusing to go in unless we know how we are getting out.
Vietnam is still a developing country. Its future is promising, but the defeat of first the French, and then the Americans, did not lead to immediate peace, or long-term prosperity for the citizens of Vietnam. Life here is still a struggle. A country like the United States is in the best position to help change that.
On my flight from Hanoi to Da Nang I met a former U.S. Marine who served in Vietnam. He was making his second trip to the country - post war. His first was in 2006. This time he was meeting up with a friend who had also served and they planned to visit some of the places they had been sent.
We talked about the war and the thought behind it at the time. We agreed it was a tragedy all around and in an ironic summary, this Marine from Texas simply said, "It probably all ended up where it would have ended up anyway [without the U.S. being here]." Then he just looked at me, stopped talking and said nothing more until we got off the plane and wished each other a good luck.
Credits:
© Dean Pagani 2019