Going to Viet Nam or more common “sent to Vietnam” was an ominous phrase for my generation. For us (young in the 60s)Vietnam was a war, not a nation, not a people. We started out the idealistic sacrificing, young people- loving generation of Kennedy’s rhetoric (not necessarily actions or policy) and ended as the nightmare children who tried to blow up recruiting centers and screamed obscenities at our parents, those blind and fearful adults. It lingers. Friend W. an experienced Asia traveler says, “I’ve never gone to Viet Nam-too guilty.” But, the younger gen of backpackers swarm Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, wealthy tourists go and crawl into the tunnels’ used to defeat the clumsy giant Americans.

So I am trying to catch-up in consciousness and with my memory and me. It is my trip to me as much as my trip to Vietnam. I’m going with M. who was there during the war in Quaker service. I once lived with other young people who returned from the war as volunteers in service. Their scars, their knowledge went deep too. I am in the role of “traveling companion” to a Quaker woman on mission. M. shapes the itinerary and journey. I am slowing finding my journey inside of hers. I am grateful for her entrée past the barricades of tourism. I am a willing follower at this point.

I am reading of course. It’s what I do to understand. First I read Lady Borton’s book Beyond Sorrow, meeting the culture on its own terms, opening to the traditions of village life that served Vietnamese people for thousands of year. Then I read a book by a recent American traveler, immersing herself in the urban, today, entrepreneurial world of young Vietnamese. She even, unwisely, has an affair with a young Vietnamese mechanic…all the stupid and endearing behavior of youth, but she is perceptive, observant. I appreciated her story opening today’s Vietnam in the cities. It reminded me that there the ‘new generation” of youg and ambitious Vietnamese, less interested, like all youth , in the past and looking to the future with excitement.

Leaving on Tuesday with excitment of my own!