From my sweet hotel in Hue, took a 12 1/2-hour bus tour of the demilitarized zone, DMZ in central Vietnam. It was a really heavy day. The tour guide grew up in the first town south of the DMZ and remembered playing ball and spending time with the US soldiers when he was around 10 years old. He told stories about the poverty he experienced with his family when Vietnam was under full communism (now, a free market exists in communist Vietnam.) for a year he had one change of clothing. His family would receive a “coupon” for food: 2 kilos of meat and 7 of rice per month. Things are much improved for him now, but, of course, none of it is due to the war. He guides tours around and through the DMZ and occasionally takes small groups anywhere they desire. Tourism has only been open to Vietnam since around 1990, so things are still rather in the state they were left in 40 years ago. There are crashed planes to see. There are bunkers to go into. There are VC tunnels to explore, complete with maternity rooms and classrooms. Our guide described to the group a recent trip he took to one of the most famous mountain tops north of the DMZ. He went with two returning American veterans who told him stories of the four months they lived in a hole atop that mountain and under intense enemy fire. They requested to spend one last night on that hill together. The guide obliged.
Since 1990 many US veterans have returned.
He told of the 5,000 deaths that have occurrd since the war to Vietnamese due to old, buried munitions or mines. The death rate is slowing, but even last year a small boy stepped on a mine and lost his legs near the DMZ.
I met an older man at lunch who is a veteran and is the CEO of an organization trying to find a way to more efficiently scan for the underground death traps.

There was a lot to see and hear during this tour. It avoided the gory (there’s plenty of it here and doesn’t require searching!).

I found it intreasting that I came for the tunnels at Vinh Moc, but they were hardly the most impressive part of the day. Maybe the crater from a bomb dropped by the US just outside the tunnel entrance was more impressive. Maybe the fighter plane captured by the N Vietnamese and after only six days of trial-and-error training used against the south, including the US troops. Maybe it was the look on our guides face when he smiled after telling us about life during and amidst the war.

On to Hanoi.