“The runway that you just landed on was the world’s busiest in the late 1960s because many of the American soldiers and much of the war materiel came through here,” our guide reminded us while we were waiting for our luggage in the Saigon airport. Soon we were taken to our hotel, the Caravelle. This was where, the guide pointed out, “the American mission everyday at 5 P.M. gave a progress report on the war.” For visitors of a certain generation from the United States this type of introductory comments about Vietnam is common. The Vietnam War is the part of your memory that demands immediate attention if this is your first visit. Only by addressing it fully can you exorcize its ghost. The Vietnamese seem to have done it. For them, the “American War,” as they call it, is no big deal anymore, what with their much longer “French War,” not to mention the prior “Chinese War.” As the guide put it, “we were at war with China for a thousand years!” The “Saigon Saigon Bar” of the Caravelle, where we were having this conversation, looked nothing like the bustling venue for the American military’s daily press briefings which it had once been >>> FULL TEXT 123456 next › last » 
