After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 15

by Glenn N. Holliman

Grass by Carl Sandburg

“Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work.

I am grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg, and pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?  Where are we now?

I am the grass.  Let me work.”

My war time is long since over.  The grass has grown back in Vietnam.  But still the damage lingers in Southeast Asia and in the memories and wounds of aged service persons living. Unexploded weapons still pocket the fields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  Agent Orange, sprayed liberally over bush and forest, haunts the bodies of older Vietnamese and Americans.

Below, the tarmac of the Lai Khe,  Vietnam  US Army1st Infantry Division air field is still visible in the foreground.  On the edge of the field stand two  new schools, replacements for the Cobra, Huey and Chinook helicopters that once hovered and landed on these grounds.

Right, one of the few remaining concrete bunkers left intact.  My first night in Lai Khe, I was sent to guard the perimeter and spent the night (and numerous more) in a bunker like this.  During that February 12, 1969 night, the earth shook to the north as a massive B-52 raid saturated a suspected North Vietnamese placement.

Our group visited the Chu Chi Tunnels north of Ho Chi Minh City.  I discovered studying the map above that this complex was located 12 or so air miles from Lai Khe.  Now I realized where all those income missiles originated almost 50 years ago.

Below, my daughter, Grace, demonstrates how a thin person such as herself could hide in the  tunnels.

Meanwhile Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) continues to grow and prosper.  I have left ghosts behind, as well as my youth.  My thanks to cousins Jim and Karen Holliman for making the travel possible, and my daughter for sharing the nostalgic adventure with me.

The young soldier below center, skinny, all my black hair, working with some orphans in Ben Cat April 1969.

Below, the old man, now 50 years on, at 3 score and ten.  Filled with memories and more than filled with the grace of life.  Here a new generation of children, untarnished by warfare, smile with the exuberance of youth.  May they forever be spared the pain of their grandparents.  This picture was made outside of the Presidential Palace in Ho Chi Minh City.

And in our bit of whimsy, my grand children's chicken, that traveled with us from Virginia to Asia and back, bids her own farewell to a Vietnamese replica of that fowl and beautiful species!

For additional reading on this tragic American and Southeast Asian war, read the former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's mea culpa and his conflicted emotions about championing the conflict in the middle 1960s.

May we as a nation learn from our mistakes!