![]() People ride by on motorbikes in Hanoi, Vietnam. ![]() “The war was in the past.” A taxi driver in Ho Chi Minh City (Ho Chi Minh City!) said “We’re looking forward, not backward.” Many Vietnamese are happy enough to use the name chosen by French colonizers – Saigon – instead of Ho Chi Minh City, named for the leader of the war effort. soldiers wading chest deep through swamps, holding their M16 assault rifles over their heads.ĭuring President Obama’s three-day trip to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City this week, the White House touted that “relations between the United States and Vietnam are at a historic high.” But when I went to Vietnam last summer to report on the country’s efforts to prevent the next big infectious disease, I expected that people would have lasting anger toward Americans – especially the older Vietnamese.įorget about it, said a group of officials from the local forestry department in Dong Nai province (the location of Bien Hoa airbase, a major U.S. The images as well – the evening television news shows, which everyone watched back then, were filled with searing videos of napalm runs, Vietnamese villages on fire and U.S. The names from that era are seared in my memory. I’m a child of the ’60s – walkouts over the Vietnam War were a regular part of my high school curriculum (though why anyone thought that cutting class and hanging out at the 7-Eleven would end the war any quicker is beyond me).
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