“Were you in Vietnam recently?” he asked me, pointing at my cap with the Vietnam flag just above the brim. He was a broad faced guy, Nordic looking and very tan, maybe in his 50’s, extremely healthy – the picture of fitness you’d expect from a park ranger. He was sitting behind the desk at the visitor’s center. I nodded and said, yeah, we’d been there earlier this year and had a great time.
“I was there in 2001 on a bike trip – actually it was part of a bike around the world trip,” he told me, as though it was no big deal to ride your bike around the world. We talked about the shocking traffic in the cities and he admitted that they didn’t ride in Hanoi or Saigon, they mostly used the trains. But he also said he’d been there twice before on two tours of duty with the US Army during the Vietnam War.
“I was against the war from the beginning, you know, but I got shipped over twice. We were in Hue, you know, the Citadel there?” I nodded. “You know that big flag they have over the citadel? It was our job to take it down. We fought really hard to do that. Twice. My unit lost 600 – no, 800 guys fighting there to take down that big flag. So when I was there as a traveler, it was really hard for me to see that. That big red Vietnamese flag still flying…”
I told him about My Son, the temple ruins we’d visited outside of Hoi An. I have no memories of the war, really, not personal ones, but My Son broke my heart a little. The VC holed up there and the US bombed the daylights out of it, ruining the Angkor period temple complex. The US lost the war, communism stuck, and the temple was destroyed for nothing. It’s not the same, I get it. I can not compare my experience with the veteran ranger’s. But it was the first time during our travels in Vietnam that the war felt very real to me.
“The army…you know all those rules from the north, they try to keep those people in the south down and in Saigon, it’s still crazy – guys whizzing by will try to steal your watch right off your arm. The government couldn’t stop the craziness,” the ranger said. I told him about how we’d been there in the lead up to Tet and we watched the young and thriving Vietnamese people buy huge flat screen TVs and all kinds of consumer electronics, strap them on the back of their scooters, and ride off home.
I asked the ranger if he’d told people that he’d fought in the war. He shook his head and looked past me, quiet for a minute. “No, no, I didn’t. And everyone we met, they weren’t alive during the war anyway, they’re all too young to remember.” I told the ranger about the kid I’d met in the cafe who told me he was studying IT. They’re all going to eat our jobs, I said, though maybe they’ll eat my tech job and not the park ranger’s. “IT, really?” he asked, and shook his head again.
I’d go back tomorrow, I told the ranger, if I could, and he brightened up. We talked a little bit about his corner of the park where there was once a homestead, a scrappy Austrian family carved a farm out of land that the forest wanted to reclaim every single minute. It’s a beautiful place, green and covered in moss, but it must have been a very lonely life and such hard work with dark winters and a constant battle to be dry. In the photos the cows look huge, but probably, the people were not very tall.
What’s your name? I asked the ranger, and he reached his big brown hand across the counter to shake mine. “You should head up here, to the edge of the lake – there’s one section of paved road and if you look up the slope you can often see bears up there,” he said, pointing at the map.
We had to move along – our weekend goal was to visit with friends, not to see the park. I felt okay about shorting our time in the park because I knew I’d be back, but not about shorting our time with our friends. We didn’t make it to spot for bears.
Photos: My Son Temple near Hoi An (upper) and Maple Glade Trail in Quinalt (lower) There are pictures from our trip to the coast here.
I could almost touch the ranger’s melancholy. You made it so palpable through your descriptions.
Good post.I enjoyed reading it. Vietnam is one of those places that someday, I will get to.
Great story. You describe so well the complexity of emotions. He sounds like a man who is lonely, but also has his beautiful place in his heart green and covered in moss.
Quinalt. I was there.
What a wonderfully told story. You really brought back my own feelings of sadness and mixed emotions from our own trip to Vietnam back in 2001. We visited Hoi An and My Son about a week before Sept 11th. We were traveling through hill towns in Northern Vietnam when the World Trade Center was hit and didn’t hear the news until almost a day later.
Like every American, I have strong memories of the moment we finally figured out what happened from the odd financial reporting on CNNfn (CNN news isn’t allowed in Vietnam) and of course that news colored everything we experienced for the remainder of our trip. We were amazed and touched at the way our hosts in guest houses and restaurants went out of their way to express their sorrow about what had happened and ask about our families. Many of them had experienced the very worst of our country during the war, and yet they were ready to offer us comfort had we needed it.
As far apart as our countries might have been during the Vietnam war, and despite all the truly terrible things that happened, at the end of the day, we’re all just people, and it sucks when war or terror touches any of us.
What a poignant story. I agree with Debbie…when it’s all said and done, we are all still just people. Thanks for sharing this.
Wonderful post…There was a fabulous art instillation at the Bellevue Art Museum last fall about Vietnam and the public access channels are airing a film about the artist. If you get a chance to check it out, it’s incredibly moving: “A Tapestry of Memories: The Art of Dinh Q. Le”.
Thanks for sharing this story. Though I know the stories exist, I’m always surprised at what I learn when I meet people. Park rangers have some of the most interesting and authentic stories I’ve heard on the road. I felt like I could hear your ranger’s voice.
On a side note, my dad fought in Vietnam and had his watch stolen just like you noted above. He hasn’t worn a watch since.