Something about war is, well, morbidly fascinating. Thousands of guys get together somewhere and treat each other like so much meat in a butcher shop, and the place is forever etched into the consciousness of humanity: Gettysburg, Waterloo, Thermopylae. That being the case, it's perfectly legitimate to wallow in some war stuff while in Viet Nam. But don't expect too much: it's been 30 years, Nature quickly cleans up her messes, and each generation starts with a blank slate.

   Today, remaining tourist-acessible war stuff is concentrated in 2 areas: Saigon and northwest of town at Cu Chi, and the former De-Militarized Zone (kind of an ironic name) the DMZ, which is near the city of Hue (Hue is one of my favorite places in VN!) in the approximate middle of the country 600 miles north of Saigon.

   I'm not a historian, but I play one on TV. Seriously though, it was all the fault of the French. After WWII ended they were determined to reassert their colonial control over Indochina, which did NOT go over well with the locals. That kicked off the 1st Indochina war (1945-1954), which ended, sort-of, with the debacle of Dien Bien Phu (precursor to the later Khe Sanh siege) and the 1954 Geneva convention which divided the country along the 17th parallel (which became the DMZ) and set the stage for the second Indochina war (1954? - 1975) that we are all familiar with. Being an equal opportunity gadfly, I wish that Ho had picked up a few more tips from Gandhi than from Mao because anything Red was not appreciated in the USA, but the foreign soldiers weren't in my streets so my opinion doesn't count.

   I'm glad that I wasn't here because I would NOT have wanted these people on my butt, as they are clever and tenacious and can be ornery as hell. However, I also have a trememdous amount of respect for the American GIs who came here trying to do the right thing. Here's what's left of a US M-113 APC. In your mind, picture 7 or 8 American kids sitting inside an aluminum box; outside, it's raining AK-47 bullets. You get whacked by 2 RPGs, which fortunately don't break thru but probably bust your eardrums. Finally the APC takes not one but two anti-tank rockets, which rip it open like a can of sardines and splatters everybody inside, adding a few more names to The Wall. The fury was unimaginable, metal melted away like butter. Viet Nam is a lot more fun today than it was back then!

   Viet Nam's international status goes up every time the US kicks somebody else's butt. Like the year the top football team was undefeated except for one surprising upset by some no-name college, it becomes a permanent part of the underdog's cultural myth.