What day is it?
What country am I in?
I’m still messed up after flying 30 hours back from the Far East.
We spent almost 2 weeks in Singapore, Vietnam and an Indonesian beach resort called Bintan.
Vietnam was the highlight of the trip. We visited Ho Chi Minh City-or Saigon.
It is flourishing, with construction cranes everywhere, crazy traffic and terrific restaraunts and shopping.
Vietnam reminds me of Hong Kong, only without the pollution and high rises. It’s on the up, and while a communist state, it has embraced capitalism with both arms. Everybody is out to make a buck and get ahead.
My favourite thing was how they’ve turned the Vietnam War-or as they call it the American War- into a tourist attraction.
There is the War Remnants museum with captured U.S tanks and pictures of victims of Agent Orange.
You can buy U.S. military dog tags at the market.
And outside of town, you can check out the tunnel system the Viet Cong used to thwart the American invaders. Their ingenuity was amazing, and given what they were willing to do, they deserved to win the war.
I was left wondering, as I looked at how some fighters lived underground for years and had to scramble thru tiny, dark tunnels, refashionning abandonned U.S Jeep tires into shoes and unexploded bombs into landmines, if I would be able to make those same sacrifices for my country.
It’s sobering to realilze alot of the VietCong fighters were female.
I know I would make a lousy warrier.
The highlight of the trip to the tunnels was a chance to fire war-vintage weapons. I tried the AK 47.
My ears are still ringing and my shoulder still hurts from the recoil.
Judging from what I saw in Vietnam, I can only hope the pen is mightier than the sword…or the AK47.
Mary Ellen Beninger
