"Okay, all those gripes about U.S. military bands having budgets larger than Peace Corps (true!) is forgotten, Check out the video below on a Vietnamese newspaper web site. As you may know, a US Navy war ship tied up in Da Nang this week, the first port call by a US navy ship since 1975, and all the nerdy types who follow Vietnamese politics are trying to figure out what it means, especially vis a vis China.
"But, as you can see if you click on the video in the text below, this little U.S. Navy band played and some sailor sang in faultless Vietnamese a very popular nationalist song written by Vietnam’s most famous folk song/protest song writer who had the distinction of being imprisoned by both the South VN government and then by the North Vietnamese after 1975. Anyway the vision of this chubby American sailor singing perfect Vietnamese is just beyond belief. It would be like a Chinese sailor entertaining Americans by singing Bruce Springsten or Bob Dylan."
Peggy: Sorry about the DELAY..I can't figure out how to post the video, but scroll down slightly from the masthead of the paper and click on the image there. Fun to watch, especially the crowd.
Would be fun if we could convert this video to film or one-inch wide videotape and send it back via spacetime wormhole to LBJ in 1964. But, thinking about it, he might deduce we won the war. If we hadn't fought that war, would we have gotten to this very same point back in the 70's and without all the death and devastation?
ReplyDeleteOkay Capt. Kirk, go for the wormhole!
ReplyDeleteOr was that "Fringe" with the wormholes?
DeleteAll those shows have a wormhole, Peggy. Comes with the territory. Latest is Netflix show called "Dark" aus Deutschland. SciFi with biblical and Nietzschean references.
DeleteGunboat diplomacy, I guess?
ReplyDeleteJust as an aside, when I read your friend's characterization of the singer as "chubby", I assumed it would be a male sailor. Somehow, I find it less acceptable to characterize a female as "chubby" than a male. I guess it's not a nice thing to say about anyone. But maybe your correspondent is a woman, and it's more acceptable for a woman to say these things about a woman than for a man to say it about a woman. Or maybe my standards are just arbitrary and I just need to let it go. :-)
I'm not sure size of sailor is relevant to the story. Perhaps that's what's bothering you, Jim. She has stage presence and crowd appeal. She also suggests that our Armed Forces might want to look at the physical fitness of our service men and women.
Delete"Chubby girl" and "husky lad" were size designations used in the 1950s/60s for plus-sized children's clothing.
Fatness used to be associated with beauty ("Bobby Shaftoe's fat and fair, pretty Bobby Shaftoe") and power.
Teachers agree that age, height and a certain girth (as well as gravitas of manner) is useful in frightening students and quelling the smart-asses.
That's interesting about "husky lad." I was struck when Bill Clinton used that description about himself while talking to an overweight child. I thought Bill was being sensitive. Guess he got his sensitivity off a clothing rack.
DeleteAll I can think of when I see this is what a waste it all was for us to go there. The North won, but not before the country was polarized. Repression and purges ensued, and now things have calmed down and we import their stuff and go on feel-good missions singing their sings of revolution.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing seems destined to happen in Afghanistan.
The crowd looks young. Many/most of them were probably born long after the war ended. Ditto the visiting U.S. sailors. Is this why it is so easy to go to war (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen); everybody who goes is too young to remember the last ones. We are the people who remember it!
Delete"All I can think of when I see this is what a waste it all was for us to go there." I agree with that. Seems like that is true more often than not. Much as I would like to see justice in situations such as the Rohingya crisis, I don't think the USA wading in as a caped crusader would be a solution. Even if our government was thinking about justice, which they aren't.
DeleteWe remember the Vietnam era very well. We had to plan our wedding around the date that my husband was getting out of basic training. He was in the National Guard and fortunately his unit didn't get deployed.
May I confess something? I gave up on the recent Ken Burns documentary after about three episodes. The first one, spanning 100 years or so leading up the war, was great. After that, it just got a little too "granular"' for me. I couldn't commit to the number of episodes (8? 10?) that would be required to plow through the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm slightly too young to actually have any memories of the war, so for me it's all history. When I was a young tyke, I knew there was a war on, but the politics, the turmoil, etc. all flew over my head.
Those in their forties and fifties tend to feel removed from it, especially if they had no family members of draft age. The war didn't touch large swaths of people.
DeleteSome of my students had VN vets as grandparents, and some are Iraq/Afghanistan vets, and they seemed more interested.
We watched it all. Deja vu for us, though we kept wanting to rewrite parts of it.
Raber joined the Navy a year after we were out of there, after he finished his BA. They did some maneuvers in that part of the world, but no landing.
Oh, my goodness, children. Wasn't that a time! Too bad you missed it. As bad as the war itself was, there were moments when the good old U.S. of A. seemed on the verge of righting itself and doing some good for itself and others.
DeleteOh, well. Didn't happen, and now we'll have to learn Chinese to support the grownups in the room.
I agree. We were in a bad place but the direction seemed good. Then came the triumph of Mammon in the 80's. The empire struck back.
DeleteGenerations come and go, That War is forgotten, but wars go on--at least in the U.S.
DeleteHere's a poem by Polish Nobel Laureate Wistawa Szymborska (From a collection published in 1993: The End and the Beginning)
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won’t pick
themselves up, after all.
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who find all that
a little boring.
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.
Margaret, that's a good poem, hadn't come across it before. Reminds me a bit of Sandberg's "Grass".
DeleteI have many memories of that time. I was young and naive and had a strongly anti-communist Republican mom, and I really did believe that we were trying to help save people from oppression.
DeleteThe oppression was real, especially for religious people and especially for the 8% of Viet Namese who were christian, although Buddhists also suffered. One of my daughters-in-law was born in a refugee camp. Her parents escaped in 1980, boat people who were lucky enough to be picked up by a passing Dutch freighter and taken to Indonesia. They survived. They are Catholic, and Catholics were persecuted even more than Buddhists. Somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people perished. A number of high school and college classmates/friends died in Viet Nam. Eventually I came to see that it was all a huge waste, a huge mistake that cost so many lives, one that we do seem to be repeating in Afghanistan.
Jim, I also did not watch the Ken Burns series, as I really did not want to become immersed in memories of that time. Instead I try to look at the joy our family has found - my son's wonderful wife, her family that made a new life, successful and happy in the US, sending their kids to top private Catholic schools in Silicon Valley, and top universities. But, the pain has never left them, the memories. I asked my son if they watched the Ken Burns series, and he said No. None of the extended family who also escaped and were eventually re-settled in the US watched it either. When my son and his wife got engaged and we were to meet her parents for the first time, he told us never to bring up the war in conversation with them. He said it is too painful for them, even though they were among the "lucky" who escaped and survived and made new lives here.
Anne, I'm so glad that your family gained a wonderful daughter-in-law from those painful circumstances, and that her family found a new life.
DeleteYour mother sounds a lot like mine. I think in the end even she realized the war was a mistake. My two brothers would have been of age for the draft if the war hadn't ended.
A counter-example to Anne's (talking to Vietnamese about the war): We visited in 2002 with the friend (who sent the link) and his Vietnamese wife: Feeling complicit and guilty, I tried to say something apologetic, most waved that away. But one young man said...But we won! implying I guess that whatever the U.S. did, it lost, or not to worry!
DeleteAnne, that is so interesting. By chance have you read The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen? A good part of it is about the experience of Vietnamese trying to acclimate in the US. Some pretty sharp critiques of US culture. Good read.
DeleteNo, Jim, I haven't read the book. I will look for it. I know it was a challenge for my d-i-l's family of course. They came here with no money, no language. They lived with other relatives, crammed into a small apt in one of the worst neighborhoods in SF. The entire extended family had combined funds to buy the escape boat and were settled in the US at about the same time. When I read complaints about Latinos cramming extended family into small houses and apts I wish settled Americans could understand what they are going through just to get a toehold on the American economic ladder. They worked hard, very hard and were able to eventually move into individual family homes in the San Jose area, which has one of the largest Viet Namese communities in the US. They continued to work hard, to save, to open some small businesses (such as a gas station - still going, pizza parlor - not still going, etc) Eventually my d-i-law's dad learned enough English to qualify for a "regular" job with a Silicon Valley start-up, which is now a huge and very well known SV company. He had almost completed university in Viet Nam when the war interrupted things, and I think he may have finished in the US once he knew enough English. They continued to work hard, wife managing their small businesses and husband with a real salary and health insurance etc. They prospered, and besides owning a beautiful home in the foothills overlooking San Jose (gorgeous view) on two acres(unheard of in So Cal) they have a home in Hawaii. They wanted land in San Jose - to grow their native fruits and vegetables! They like to go to their Hawaii home as often as they can because it's "too cold" in California. ;)
DeleteBut, the family is typical of most immigrant groups in the US - they socialize with other Viet Namese almost exclusively. Even though they have prospered here, they would have preferred to stay in Viet Nam. They visit there now, but would not move back under the present regime.
As Catholics, they are a minority, but their entire parish is Viet Namese. Our son's wedding mass was concelebrated by 3 Viet Namese priests - a few hours after the traditional marriage tea ceremony in our d-in-law's parents home. It was quite amazing.
Our d-i-l has a PhD from Cal and was teaching at NYU in the grad school when she and our son got engaged. But our son was working in Calif (where they had met), and she gave up her teaching job in NY for a job in Calif - research, but not with a university. A classic American immigrant success story.
Trump doesn't seem to understand anything about true American values, those that are engraved on the Statue of Liberty. The values that America represented for many waves of immigrants over the centuries. One of his henchmen dismissed those words as not being "original" with the Statue of Liberty. Apparently he doesn't believe in those values either. Trump's own mother was poor and uneducated when she came here, and apparently did not speak English well, but a dialect from the part of Scotland she came from. She worked as a maid initially. Immigrants have always contributed to the US in amazing ways. But I guess for Trump, only immigrants with white skin, like his mother and wife and her parents, are acceptable. None of them would qualify to come to the US under Trump's proposed revisions to the immigration rules, even though they are white!
Chubby and Husky are apt descriptions of the general US population these days. Just look around you about anywhere you go. There are a LOT of "husky" priests and bishops these days, too: a LOT!!!!
ReplyDeleteLol, I'm in no kind of shape to talk about anybody else!
Delete