European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 09, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse The View from Highway one the Street the associated press or always smiling guide Hung the nickname or. Rip Van Winkle on every returning american who came Down the gangplank to Board his tour bus. After 20 years you come Back to Vietnam because deep Down a part of Vietnam would not go out of you he said. The pounding of Buddhist Drums and a fusillade of firecrackers to drive away evil spirits of the past orchestrated Tran Quoc Cong s philosophical Welcome to the Central port City of Danang Vietnam. Incoming shouted one of the Viet veterans arrayed Foshe occasion in his camouflaged Boonie hat. Everyone laughed a bit nervously. Two dancers inside a dragon costume executed a comic soft shoe As six pretty school girls in conical hats and Silken Odais the High necked tunics slashed to the hips Over form fitting trousers shyly handed a Rose to each of the 470 passengers male or female. The Welcome accorded the Ocean Pearl one of the few cruise liners to begin calling at Vietnam s ports even exceeded her arrival a few Days before at to Chi Minh City. " the Drums and fireworks brought sailors hurrying onto the deck and peeking out the portholes of the rusting freighter Alexandra Grin the Only other ship tied up at the pier where a Quarter of a Century ago american cargo ships unloaded hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition and armament. A Hammer and sickle had been faintly painted out on her funnel and at her Stern flew the ukrainian Flag along with a flutter of laundry. If these sailors were curious the one legged beggar at the Dock Gate with a red Star medal hanging from his faded Green Battle jacket wore , quizzical expression that seemed to ask who won this War anyway Tim Goodwin from Omaha who As a Young Navy lieutenant Rode Herd on moving those mountains of supplies to the big Marine bases came Back to Vietnam hoping to meet someone on their Side who did the same Job along to Chi Minh Trail. We had All those cranes and trailer trucks and bulldozers. They Only had of carts and bicycles and lugged a lot of stuff on their backs. I always wondered what motivated them Goodwin never did Hook up with his enemy counterpart. He had trouble finding Camp Tien Sha the sprawling Complex of warehouses that now dozed abandoned in the scorching morning Sun and the White elephant the Navy support Headquarters about to be turned into a five Star hotel. Other Danang landmarks of yesterday had found new uses. The Chapel where new York s Cardinal John o Connor celebrated mass As a Navy chaplain now housed vietnamese Navy families All the Way up into the Steeple. The Headquarters of the . 1 St Marine div had become a school for communist party political officers. Air Vietnam s Fleet of soviet built planes accounted for much of the traffic at Danang s huge Airport whose runways were the world s busiest when . Bombers roared North to Hanoi. The dark Blue Waters and yellow Gold Sands of China Beach looked As inviting As when helicopters delivered wave after wave of marines from the Boondocks for or rest and recreation. Best curlers in Asia Cormac Leonard a Blond and bronzed surfer from Sydney Australia told a couple of american returnees who were Busy Hunting for initials in the Pavilion built from the Stone flooring of Marine pooches. Sometimes a tourist recognizes his old Home Cong said. Farmers use these slabs to build Sheds and at the North end of the curving Beach dump trucks passengers aboard the cruise ship Ocean Pearl peer out at to Chi Minh City during their tour of Vietnam. Were hauling away Sand to be made into Fine Crystal in Japan. Vietnam is so poor it must sell off All its natural resources lamented a Vendor Selling ice Cream from a purple painted russian jeep. He once had been a Driver interpreter for an american colonel in a better he added that Marble from Marble Mountain was being shipped to Italy and that snakes tigers and rhinos were often trapped in the Jungles and smuggled into China. Early the next morning a minibus marked Dulich Hoa Binh Tours of peace climbed 2,000 feet Over the Hai Van pass to the old Imperial capital at Hue. The 75-mile route offered some of Vietnam s most fascinating scenery dark misty mountains rimmed by Pristine deserted beaches along the Gulf of Tonkin better known As Yankee station to . Carrier pilots. A frail Forest of eucalyptus Trees donated by Australia hugged the Walls of the pass defoliated by Aerial spraying. Each Village along infamous Highway one renamed the Street without Joy by French foreign legionnaires seemed to have its own War warped identity a Colony of lepers ostracized by both sides out of ancient fears a Catholic fishing Fleet that had defected from the communist North when Vietnam was divided in 1954 and underwent rectification when the South fell in 1975, a place called Nam of where the streets were covered with a blizzard of fuchsia coloured paper drying in the Sun. The Village makes fireworks with Gunpowder salvaged from old shells explained guide Cong. They Are Busy preparing for tet the lunar new around a Sharp Bend bordered by Rice paddies loomed the Village without pity on the Street without Joy a Hamlet called a Thuong. Day or night you always came under fire passing through Here said William Stubbs of Jacksonville fla., who As a foreign service officer was vice Consul in Hue from 1964 to 1966. Every few Miles there was a military cemetery with a Victory Monument and a Stark inscription that sometimes after 20 years you come Back to Vietnam because deep Down a part of Vietnam would not go out of Iran Quoc Cong tour guide carried Victory s Price tag from this sector 874 heroes went into the a Shau Valley 321 came the question was often asked where Are the Arvn army of the Republic of Vietnam buried some 250,000 died fighting on the american Side but the answer was the same in every Village not Here then silence. In Hue Bill Stubbs found that his old House on Dong a Street was now the residence of a province official. It had been repainted Bright yellow from off White and the roof was garlanded with bougainvillea but he could t locate the grave of his cat Blackie in the Back Yard. The nearby american cultural Center where he had his office was now a Trade Union Headquarters. He pronounced it in pretty Good shape considering it had been burned twice and ransacked in Buddhist riots.". Interpreter Cong at age 14 began learning English at the Center during Stubbs tenure. He remembered Christmas 1965, when a tank painted White went by our school with a Marine Santa Claus tossing toys and Candy to us but his strongest childhood memory is of helicopters like butterflies everywhere Over the the Flag with the yellow Victory Star on a blood red Field flew again Over the Citadel the Shell pocked old Capitol where it had flown defiantly for 25 Days during fierce Street fighting during the 1968 tet invasion. The tour group lunched at a new luxury hotel near the Bridge Over the perfume River built by the Seabee. Dragon boats with buggy eyed open Jawed monsters painted on their prows awaited sightseers but nowhere to be seen were Hue s legendary love boats samoans crewed by obliging Young ladies known to the grunts As whores with Well versed local guides led the Way through the chinese style Pavilion on a Lily choke Pond that was the Tomb of emperor to due who they gushed had 104 wives and no they knew nothing however about the nearby Salt Flats containing the mass Graves of the 2,800 teachers priests South vietnamese officials nurses and doctors including a German surgeon and his staff who during the tet offensive were shot in the Back of the head clubbed to death or buried alive in the War s worst sprung a minor leak when the Ocean Pearl drawing a Muddy red Wake proceeded up the Cam River to Haiphong the first port North of the 17th parallel that once divided the country. Passengers were not allowed ashore except in regimented tour groups. There has been a coup attempt in Saigon explained Bruno Vialard the ship s agent after excitedly demonstrating with the bureaucrats controlling the Dock Gate. Some dissidents were caught handing out anti government literature. They have been tried and Vietnam sentenced to life in prison but the officials Here Are very finally a shuttle bus was arranged to the Central Market area where throngs of shoppers gathered around the rows of color to sets on display. No one seemed to be buying perhaps because some of the pictures of a Tennis match in Progress were upside Down. A Farmer must sell three calves to Purchase a color to said to Tien Ca who presided Over a sidewalk Barber chair and spoke in the slow cadences he acquired from listening to bbl news in special English. A More relaxed attitude prevailed in Hanoi the capital 60 bumpy Miles and three hours farther Inland. With its Parks and lakes and ochre coloured Villas the City exuded the Charm of a French colonial town. Traffic was mostly a whisper of bicycles and pedicab along tree shaded boulevards. The serenity impressed the returning americans none of whom had been North before. In a column of twos almost in step they joined the crowds filing past the embalmed body of to Chi Minh in his Glass domed mausoleum. For two months each year he is sent to Moscow to be re freshened a schoolgirl guide told them. Vemon o Meally a Pilot from Atlantic Highlands n.j., who was shot Down and rescued Over Laos in 1969, regretted that his tour bus just hurried past the Hanoi Hilton and they would t let us take pictures. We heard it was being renovated As a five Star hotel but evidently it was still a prison. I could see barbed wire on top of those yellow Walls and a guard up in a Turret. I thought How close i came to being in tourists were encouraged to photograph the horrific collage of weaponry outside the War museum an artistic scrap pile of French guns and armoured vehicles taken at Dien Bien Phu american tanks and air plane fragments including the switch Blade wings and fuselage of a downed f-111, All triumphantly topped by a soviet Mig 21 fighter. Or. Paul Burns who came to Vietnam in 1965 with a medical team to treat the civilian population and now has an ear nose and Throat practice in Austin Texas did a double take when he recognized two of his patients in a photo in the museum s rogues gallery Walt Rostow Lyndon Johnson s policy adviser and George Christian his press Secretary were shown conferring with the president. I can t wait to Tell them Burns said. For its final Vietnam Call the Ocean Pearl anchored amid the Scenic wonders of along Bay 3,000 jagged Limestone islands rising out of a Jade Green sea in. Fairy tale columns and towers and fantastic animal shapes. A fishing Fleet from a Village near the Border with China Drew. Alongside to barter shrimp and crab with the philippine Crew for dungarees sneakers and cigarettes. One boat carried a sail made from the same Model Parachute that delivered Vern o Meally into the branches of a tree in the Jungles of Laos. Late that afternoon the cruise staff played Host to a cocktail party on deck for All returning veterans. The notice in the ship s program unexpectedly Drew nearly a dozen French passengers who had served in Vietnam and also were returning for the first time. They included a paratrooper who had made several jumps into the Jungles South of Dien Bien Phu a nurse who was a prisoner of the japanese for five years an Engineer who worked on some of the same roads that George Gray from san Diego redesigned a decade later and a naval officer who like Goodwin specialized in logistics. For a couple of hours with Bill Stubbs As interpreter they swapped reminiscences. The Sun was just sinking behind a Tower of thunderhead Over the Gulf of Tonkin when Guy Harris the ship s pianist softly played a poignantly appropriate Farewell song i still believe the haunting Ballad from the musical miss Saigon. They were leaving Vietnam these survivors of the two Indochina wars but As Cong said there was still a part of Vietnam that would not leave them. Clockwise from top a boat Community near Hue where vietnamese live going ashore to sell their catch French equipment captured at Dien Bien Phu is in Hanoi s War museum a Mother and child smile for the photographer. A cart loaded with bicycles moves slowly Down a quiet Street in Danang. 16 Thi Stasand stems to Doy Thi stars and stapes 17
