Return to Viet Nam

My friend Ken served as a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam circa 1966. He is one of the founders of an organization called Viet Nam Helicopter Pilots Association, which is non-political and is a social and educational gathering point for pilots from that era.

Recently, he returned to Viet Nam for the first time and I asked him to share some of his experiences. For the non-aviation minded among us, a Huey is a helicopter.

Ken writes:

One of the most interesting places we visited was General Giap's offices from 1972-1975 as he waged war aginst the S. Vietnamese gov't. He called it a "liberation of the people" and "unification of Vietnam", not a war. He was and still is considered to be a masterful war tactician and strategist, so it was intersting to see his offices just as they were when he was liberating the south.

The maps of his advancing army and the strategies they employed was just like what we would have done against a real army vs what we were forced to do battling Giap's guerilla tactics. I always respected (not admired) Giap's approach, but I never liked it - too much oppression of the people he was liberating and too much almost casual loss of life without any notion of death and the toll it was taking on the population.

We visited the museum at Khe Sanh, where one of the most famous seiges took place in 1968. The director of the musem was happy to see us there and he was very pleased that we were open to his questions. I sketched a Huey for him and showed him how it was supposed to be painted - his example was painted with "US Air Force" in large white letters along with a USAF star and bar insignia. It had been painted with those incorrect markings and other incorrect markings by someone on the museum staff.

The Huey had been captured from a So. Vietnamese Air Force unit, so it should have had VNAF painted on it with the proper S VN flag, and all lettering should have been in black, etc. He vowed to get that corrected soon. Interestingly, we saw Hueys in museums in Saigon and Hanoi painted like the one at Khe Sanh, and all of the museum staff and directors welcomed us similarly and all vowed to correct the paint jobs. I have emailed photos of VNAF Hueys to all of them to verify what I told them and all have replied in what can be described as cheerful terms.


caption for above photo:
Truc, our former VC anti-aircraft gunner in front of his gun at the Hanoi war museum doing an interview for VOV - Voice of Vietnam. He and Jack and I were all on that radio show as well as a separate VOV TV show that should be on YouTube soon, if not by now.

Ken continues:

Our side trip for 4 days to Angkor Wat was worth the time and effort. The Cambodian countryside is cleaner (less road side trash) and the construction hasn't crept up to the very edge of the road like it has in too much of VN. As a result, one can see from the bus all of the beautiful rice paddies, the water buffalo and the fish nets and shrimp operations. The weather was nicer there, too, so the crystal clear blue skies without any smog really are impressive. Saigon and Hanoi are terrible with smog and smaze and felt downright unhealthy most of the time we were there.

Ken is also a diver, who has shared with me his expertise when I have had to write an article where I was over my head (no pun intended) with diving!

I took time to go scuba diving at Nha Trang and enjoyed all 3 dives very much. The instructor I dove with was fun and a good diver. The dive shop there is pretty unique - it's a full service bar and restaurant with sidewalk cafe so one cann go diving, return to the shop on their small bus and have a drink on the sidewalk for the post dive chatter. Cool!! Check it out: http://www.divevietnam.com/main.shtml

Here's something to watch for in the world press:

Read all you want about the Mekong River and watch it on TV, but you will never get the full impact of how large and powerful and influential the Mekong is over SE Asia until you cross it a dozen times in different places and at least two countries. There is some talk of a dam on the Mekong and I will give money to the effort to stop it. It would be immediately ruinous to tens of millions of people and millions of acres of land.

If you want to read about the entire trip, you can check this blog for more of Jack's (his fellow traveler's) journal of the trip.


caption for above photo: The cyclo driver and the rig he rode me around on in Saigon one afternoon. EXCITING!!!