Ad Links Buy a link » William F. Powers CHAPEL HILL - Recently, as young girls in prim school uniforms passed me on a Hanoi street, one of them shouted cheerfully, "Hi; see you later!" Recognizing a visiting American, she had decided to practice her English.
Americans were not always greeted in such a friendly fashion in Vietnam. Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Many of us have engraved in our memories the photograph of a helicopter on a Saigon rooftop hurriedly evacuating people as North Vietnamese troops moved into the city. After 10 years of savage warfare that included 58,000 American service deaths, the conflict had ended and the country unified under Communist control. We had lost.
Paradoxically, although three decades ago our side lost the military war in Vietnam, today it is winning the cultural war hands down. American movies, music, TV shows and clothing styles are all pervasive. China and Russia, ideologically and geographically closer to Vietnam than capitalist America, have made little impact in terms of language and the arts. The Vietnamese dream of visiting Los Angeles and New York, not Beijing and Moscow.
The admission of Vietnam to the World Trade Organization in January has accelerated the pace of development. Investors from all over the world are pouring billions of dollars into real estate, housing, factories and infrastructure. For example, Saigon's international airport is being tripled in size to accommodate a rapidly increasing influx of tourists. What was once a country devastated by savage conflict now boasts that it is the most peaceful and stable country in Asia.
While poverty remains evident in both urban and rural areas, improvements in people's lives have been dramatic. A sense of hope is palpable. One sign of progress is that while a decade ago bicycles were the most common form of transportation, today millions of men and women own motorbikes. The roar of thousands of these vehicles filling the streets from curb to curb characterizes every city.
As yet there are few private cars in Vietnam, but they're coming, and with them an increase in the already high levels of air pollution. As in the United States, the price of "progress" is high.
As I walked along the street in Da Nang a teenage girl playfully touched my bare arm and ran away laughing. Perhaps her mother had similarly approached a Marine 40 years earlier. For it was in Da Nang in March 1965 that the first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam. Eventually, in the futile effort to stop the advance of the Communists, their numbers would grow to half a million.
Despite impressive progress, there are reminders that not everyone in Vietnam has been healed, that not all the damage we did to these people has been restored. In the seaside city of Hoi An is a sparsely equipped orphanage. The government provides only $10 a month to support each of the 63 boys and girls housed there. Some of the children lie in cribs, their thin bodies pitifully deformed.
No reconstruction project can eradicate the continuing genetic legacy of Agent Orange, the defoliant that U.S. forces used in a vain effort to stem the influx of Communist troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Some have compared our presence in Iraq today with that now long ago venture in Vietnam. What will Iraq be like three decades hence? Will Americans be welcomed warmly as they are in Vietnam? Will there be lingering resentment and unhealed wounds?
In the sprawling Saigon Central Market, a young girl spotted a plain yellow pencil in my shirt pocket. She reached for it and asked if I would give it to her, "for school." Startled by her forwardness and still not believing how friendly the Vietnamese were to Americans, I said "No," and hurried on.
Almost immediately I regretted my action, but it was too late. She had been swallowed up in the crowd. I had missed a golden opportunity to help in the process of forging links of friendship between our two countries. That girl would have shown that pencil to all her friends and relatives. She would have said proudly, "A nice American man gave this pencil to me."
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