I  pointed at the scrap and said American war. The drivers nodded gravely. The American war is their living history of foreign invasions of Vietnam. Their fathers, uncles or older brothers  had been Vietnam’s soldiers who won the last battle for Vietnam’s independence. The only Vietnam invaders now were international tourists with pockets full of American and Vietnamese currency.

•  Christmas bombings of Hanoi in retrospect

Floating uneasily  in my memory was the story of U.S. Senator John McCain and “his many years of service to his country”.   That was how Presidential candidate Barack Obama explained it to his Democrat crowd supporters in 2008. I had thought the Hanoi monument of the B52 wreckage in the lake was the McCain airplane. Googling the night before had revealed the B52 wreckage was a relic from a 1972 Hanoi aerial raid which cost the U.S. 32 aircraft. The McCain monument was from a 1967 raid. The drivers pounced quickly. I was far away. It would cost 200, 000 dong to get to Huu Tiep  Lake, the forty four year old resting place  of the downed B52 and return  to the backpackers. I agreed. I am always embarassed to haggle and I had no idea how far away it was.  I climbed onto the back of a young man’s xe-om and drove away clutching with one hand my pocket wallet and cell phone.

We were at the monument in down town Hanoi in about fifteen  minutes.  I was in a few minutes  riding through old Hanoi,  The Hanoi of gentrified century old buildings, graceful leafy boulevards and cafes. The atmosphere and odors of French Paris now  percolated the air. I fear modern urban development will be more destructive to it than the B52s.

The B52 wreckage lay in its lake looking rather ridiculous and pathetic. Men with ivy league  college degrees in Washington had sent it there. I have seen more imposing street graffiti. Only a small rotten remnant of the aircraft could be seen.  I saw one other tourist. The lake seemed too polluted for fish but I saw one hopeful fisherman with his line. The local people went about their business and ignored us. A obelisk on the bank reported in Vietnamese and not so bad English it was the Dien Bien Phu “victory in the air against the U.S. Imperialism strategic air raid”.  I am old enough to remember the 1972 air raids. They are known in the West as the 1972 Christmas Hanoi bombing. The English language media did not claim anything strategic about them.  Merely mad drunk Nixon and his  henchmen desperate to get a signed “peace treaty” before the 1972 American Presidental inauguration. I now asked the driver to take me to the Truc Bach lake, the site of the McCain monument. As we left I asked him the fate of his family in the war. I couldn’t get anything out of him. But I saw his eyes well with tears.

In a few minutes we got to the McCain monument at the lake bank. It shows a carved figure with its arms held up next to U.S. air force symbols. It was a good work of art but again not imposing. The driver pointed to me the rough weeds and rubbish  below it that contrasted with the carefully cut grass of the lake domain.  The lake showed no signs of marine life except for a few dead fish.  A rusty old bicycle was parked on the back of the monument.

We drove to a café overlooking the lake and had salmon and Carlsberg beer. I paid for the lunch of course. The young man ate little but drank the beer with enthusiasm. I reflected one day the western world will look upon the twentieth century aerial bombardment of cities and civilians with the fascinated horror we now look upon the burning of heretics and witches. In Western  public opinion that day is near.

We returned to the back packers hostel. The entire excursion had cost me about twenty dollars. The young man as a special concession did not charge me for  an exercise book and pen. I now found out despite my very careful counting of the zeroes, Hanoian xe-oms and shop keepers had somehow appeared to have tricked me out of about fifty dollars that week. I made up a strategic plan to class by zeroes the order of my dongs in my wallet. The difference between five zeroes and four zeroes after its numeral five is twenty five dollars. In the dark under the influence of Hanoi’s beverages, that is dicey.  If only Richard Nixon had been as careful.    

                                                                                                                                                    Lloyd Gretton