Photo Essay : Haunted Vietnam

More than 16 years after the last American troops left Vietnam, signs of the U.S. presence still seem to be everywhere. At the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, passengers arriving on the 80-minute flight from Bangkok, Thailand, are greeted by the sounds of a Michael Jackson song on the loudspeaker.

Outside the terminal are Buicks from the 1960s and even older Renault taxis to take passengers on the 15-minute ride to what was once downtown Saigon. Streets are badly potholed in the heart of the city. Children in tattered and soiled clothes sell cigarettes and gum in front of cafes. Old men sit in the doorways smoking tobacco rolled in newspapers. People wash their clothes and their hair in the gutters. Life goes on in this impoverished country now looking to the United States as an economic savior.

In shop after tiny shop, vendors’ glass showcases display American dog tags selling one or two for $1; a Purple Heart medal goes for $20. Engraved Zippo lighters inscribed with sayings such as “Sure to go to heaven ‘cause I’ve spent my time in hell” sell for $4 to $5. U.S. dollars only please. Mastercard and Visa aren’t acceptable because of U.S. restrictions on trading with the enemy. Old ammo boxes are standard equipment for inner-tube repairmen who set up shop on every other street corner. Some of the old American jeeps have been converted into pickup trucks by their new owners. And the new Apocalypse Now bar is a raging success with tourists.

Hanoi is noticeably poorer than the former Saigon. Pickpockets and thieves are even more prevalent. Some children sleep in the parks and on sidewalks during the heat of the day. The signs of Western culture, so prevalent in the capital of the old south, are few in the north. People there generally speak little English and have had little if any exposure to capitalism.

The countryside around the capital is made up mostly of rice paddies worked by water buffalo, and quiet villages are pockmarked by craters. Many of them have been filled with water and used as fish ponds, like the one in Ngoc Ha village outside Hanoi where the remains of a U.S. Air Force B-52 stick up from the algae-covered waters.

The Ha Bac Rehabilitation Camp, one of several centers set up to care for war veterans, is now the home for Nguyen Thi Thieng, 66, whose right side is twisted as the result of injuries from a bomb blast. Because her arm and leg were never properly set, they are mangled and deformed. She was the sole survivor of a 1965 bombing that left five other members of her family dead.

Nguyen Van Trung, 38, lost both of his legs to a U.S. rocket while attacking U.S. troops in Tam Ky. He talks of his loss: “This is the rule of war. I don’t feel sad because I had to win freedom and independence for my country. Before I was injured I was a student at the polytechnical college in Hanoi, studying to be an engineer. . . . I believe American people are good, but I want them to understand our sacrifice.”