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| USAID Health Finance and Governance staff outing at Việt Phủ Thành Chương in 2018. — Photo courtesy of Ted Hammett |
Theodore M. Hammett*
For my fourth annual trip to Việt Nam since 2023, my wife Nancy and I arrived in Hà Nội on February 26, which would have been my mother’s 104th birthday. She was an activist against the War in Việt Nam when I went to serve there in 1968 as a “reluctant” Marine officer. (Hammett, Entwined with Vietnam: A Reluctant Marine’s Tour and Return. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2022)
On the morning of March 12, I was heading to Hà Nội’s Nội Bài Airport with my driver and friend Mr Tuấn for a flight to HCM
City (Sài Gòn); it was exactly 58 years after the grim morning my father and Nancy took me to the Philadelphia airport for my departure to the War.
We had what Airbnb accuratelly billed a – “very cozy studio” – just off Lane 31, Xuân Diệu Road, Tây Hồ – our old neighbourhood – midway between the houses we lived in during our two stints in Hà Nội. The first of these is being torn apart in the inevitable Hà Nội renovation, and the other has had a garish gold gate affixed to its front. Don’s Bistro, our favourite hangout, is long gone, its building replaced by a sumptuous lakeside residence.
On my every arrival in Hà Nội, I remember John Converse’s lament in Robert Stone’s novel Dog Soldiers: “If I could just get back over to Nam, I’d probably be all right. You can hole up forever over there.” Unfortunately, not… (Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978, p.127.)
A few days after arrival, as I was enjoying a cà phê nâu đá (iced coffee with condensed milk) in a Highlands Coffee on Xuân Diệu, I saw the first reports of Trump’s war in Iran. Highlands Coffee – Việt Nam’s Starbucks, a thriving chain established by a returning Việt Kiều (Overseas Vietnamese) – stands as a symbol of the senselessness of our American War in Việt Nam. And now we are making all the same mistakes – déjà vu all over again. Yes, yes, the still unlearned lessons of Việt Nam. They have become almost a cliché or a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The senselessness of the War, and by analogy that of almost all of our subsequent wars, struck me again and again during this trip to Việt Nam. My friend and college roommate Steve Saltonstall, a confronter of the then US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara outside Harvard’s Quincy House in November 1966, informed me of the death of Country Joe McDonald, whose 1967 ballad – I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag – invigorated many a music festival and antiwar rally:
“And it’s one, two, three, four,
“What are we fighting for?
“Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,
“We’re off to Vietnam,
“Five, six, seven,
“Open up the pearly gates,
“You don’t have to reason why,
“Whoopee! We’re all gonna die. (For full lyrics, see https://genius.com/Country-joe-and-the-fish-the-fish-cheer-i-feel-like-im-fixin-to-die-rag-lyrics).”
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| Ted Hammett with his then girlfriend Nancy right after his return from Việt Nam in April 1969. They have now been married for 56 years. — Photo courtesy of Ted Hammett |
I drank a bia Hà Nội at Thủy Tạ beside Hoàn Kiếm (Returned Sword) Lake while reading Philip and William Taubman’s new book McNamara at War (Philip and William Taubman, McNamara at War: A New History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2025) as the usual crowds of Hanoians and tourists circled the iconic heart of the city on a beautiful early spring afternoon. The book, which might well have been subtitled – “A Slow-Motion Greek Tragedy” – increased somewhat my empathy for McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson, although this by no means exonerated them. Both repeatedly voiced tortured versions of “there’s no way for us to win this war but also no way for us to get out of it.”
The falsity of such an unsolvable equation does not make its proponents any less tragic.
I stayed at the Rex Hotel in HCM City, site of the infamous “5 o’clock follies” – the daily briefings at which Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) officers lied about the progress and prospects of the war. I drank a Sài Gòn Đỏ (Saigon Red beer) at the Rex’s rooftop bar and continued my reading of McNamara at War as a Vietnamese band played songs of the 60s – I Saw Her Standing There, Santana’s, Oye Como Va, La Bamba, and even Trump’s favourite YMCA – and the ever rising skyline of HCM City flashed and glittered all around me.
I sat by the pool at La Residence in Huế, in sight of the Citadel, focus of one of the bloodiest battles of the war. I thought of Mr Vinh, of whose passing I had just learned. He was an ARVN veteran who had worked as a translator for US Army units, spent several years in a re-education camp after the war and then returned to live in Huế and became a guide for DMZ Tours. Over the years, Mr Vinh took me and my family members and friends on many informative and moving tours of the Quảng Trị battlefields, including Khe Sanh. We became friends. With the assistance of Ms Moon of La Residence, I offered my condolences to Mr Vinh’s family and we visited his grave.
I also visited the place where W.D. – “Bill Ehrhart” – poet and memoirist of the war, was wounded. Bill Ehrhart was wounded by an NVA rocket-propelled grenade while just inside the second-floor window on the right during the Battle of Huế. It is a renovated building that is now part of the three-star Duy Tân Hotel.
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| Ted Hammett (left) in Việt Nam in 1968 with the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, who had asked to meet Marine officers whose fathers had been Marine officers. — Photo courtesy of Ted Hammett |
When Bill revisited Huế in 2011, he wrote that Việt Nam was “not a war but a country”.
I found some relics of the Quảng Trị airfield just across Route 1 from the site of the 3rd Marine Division’s field hospital where I served in 1968–1969. I saw a group of kids playing football nearby, just as I had seen when I visited the Huế Citadel in 1997 on my first trip back to Việt Nam since the War. Again, I took a photo of the kids who were enjoying a peaceful life in their country.
And finally, I gathered with dear friends and colleagues for a “farewell, for now” party at Standing Bar overlooking Trúc Bạch Lake, where Lieutenant Commander John McCain’s parachute came down in 1967 and he was taken prisoner of war. Later, Senator McCain became a champion of US–Việt Nam reconciliation.
I often wondered if the Vietnamese people had forgiven the US for the war. I usually thought so, given how well American visitors are treated by the Vietnamese. This reminded me of Hồ Chí Minh’s saying that the Vietnamese were fighting the American government, not the American people.
But a friend challenged me on the matter of forgiveness, insisting that the pain and suffering of the war would never be forgotten by the Vietnamese but that the government and people have decided it is best to wish for peace with everyone. Out of politeness and a realisation that harbouring hate and resentment helps no one, the people try to avoid speaking about the War and its incredibly heavy cost or America’s responsibility for Việt Nam’s suffering.
The Bookworm, Hà Nội’s English-language bookstore, no longer has a separate section on the American War. Books on the War are simply interfiled with general non-fiction. Another important factor is that three-quarters of Việt Nam’s population were born since the war ended in 1975 and so have no direct recollection of it. All this makes sense but I realise that these changes do not quite equal forgiveness.
Reconciliation between the US and Việt Nam has been slow and arduous but has achieved some important results. Project Renew, which I visited on this trip, has removed much unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Quảng Trị, often called – “the most bombed place on earth” – and similar organisations are beginning to work in several other heavily bombed provinces. Still, much UXO remains and so community education and support for people disabled by accidents involving bombs and mines continue to be important.
Agent Orange mitigation has been completed at Đà Nẵng Airbase and is proceeding in Biên Hòa and the A Shau Valley. The work of locating the remains of hundreds of thousands of missing Vietnamese soldiers from both sides has only just begun. The US has assisted in this effort by identifying and turning over to the Vietnamese Government American military documents about battle sites and other possible locations of remains. Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth visited Việt Nam in November 2025 and voiced support for the various war legacy projects, but US funding cuts have severely imperilled continued progress.
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| ÁO DÀI AFFAIR: USAID health initiative Health Finance Governance staff at Việt Phủ Thành Chương with office ladies in traditional áo dài in 2018. — Photo courtesy of Ted Hammett |
Reconciliation within Việt Nam also remains a work in progress. However, the Government has allowed Việt Kiều to return to live and establish businesses such as Highlands Coffee.
A revised governmental account of the war emerges in the new Military Museum. The building is massive and its exhibits are celebratory.
Filled with large school groups, the museum presents what could almost be termed a sanitised version of Việt Nam’s victory, justifiably called glorious. After all, this small, poor country defeated the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world in a remarkable replay of the David and Goliath story.
The museum’s retelling focuses not on the details and costs of specific battles (for example, virtually nothing is shown of the battles of Huế or Khe Sanh) but rather on broad themes and periods of victory, seemingly achieved almost automatically by the Vietnamese people.
The heavy losses of US and puppet forces are emphasised but NVA, Việt Cộng and civilian casualties are barely mentioned. The 58,000 American deaths, which would result in a much larger number if one totalled the estimates of losses in battles and campaigns from government accounts and memoirs, are repeatedly emphasised while neither the estimated three million Vietnamese dead nor the hundreds of thousands still missing are ever mentioned.
Việt Phủ Thành Chương, a self-styled art palace and collection of spiritual and cultural buildings assembled by artist Thành Chương in a verdant setting on the outskirts of Hà Nội, has become one of my favourite places in Việt Nam. Its website terms it the Residence of the Soul of Việt Nam.
Indeed, it is a place of natural and artistic beauty and thus a very peaceful and soulful place.
And for ageing visitors like me, Việt Phủ generously offers canes to help with the many steps without railings and many places to sit down, rest and take in the peace, quiet and beauty.
I have deep emotions about the war, shame and regret for what my country did and also for my failure to resist the war. But during this visit, I was, at some level, taken in by the new sanitised and almost pain-free presentation of the war. Việt Phủ Thành Chương seems to reflect the peaceful soul of Việt Nam, or at least an important, perhaps aspirational, part of it.
This is very alluring. I found myself thinking about moving to Việt Nam. But it is impossible, of course. I have many powerful reasons to stay where I am – my family, my Vietnamese-style three-generation home, friends, church community, our summer place in Maine, etc., etc. I also realise that John Converse of Dog Soldiers was wrong – there is no way to escape and nowhere to hide, even if one wanted to. I am inextricably entwined with my home, family and native country. Nevertheless, I also remain entwined with Việt Nam and I intend to return every year for as long as I can. — VNS
*Theodore M. Hammett was a supply officer in Việt Nam in 1968–1969 and authored Entwined with Vietnam. This piece originally appeared on Substack at: oldfartted.substack.com and has been edited by Việt Nam News for space in print with author’s approval.
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