Viva Vietnam

Wikipedia said Viva meant long live, so I thought that was appropriate to summarize our last days in Vietnam. I think both Jaime, Eli, and I were all wishing that we had more time, more days, and more money to saturate vietnam with. But that wasn't to be so, and we had to wisk our way through the last cities like bandits. From Hoi An, the tailor capital of the world, to Hue, the old capital, we had finally achieved the art of not being duped or overcharged or overwhelmed by the number of people who would willingly take our money. We were finding our pace in Vietnam and were sad that there were some many more sights to see and new memories to remember. There was more to understand about the war, whether you called it the Vientnam war or the American War, regardless of the letters that catagorized it, the feeling of saddness and wasted lives, money and land could not be avoided. Its been said by people much smarter than me that the war in Iraq is not another Vietnam and that two should not be compared because they have different goals, different meanings, and different rules, but its war....just war. And not matter who is fighting, right or wrong, american or other, you have to agree that it just sucks...... Before, during and 37 years after.

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