2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Twelve.

Dancing with the kids at Ms. Hien’s day care center

April 27, Friday, Da Nang: Today was somewhat routine. First we met with Mr. Huynh Duc Tran, Chair of the Da Nang Union of Friendship Oranizations (DUFO) and Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen, Chief of International Cooperation Division of DUFO. She is responsible for coordinating international activities on UXOs and AO. The factoids we gathered included an 11 to 13.5% growth rate in Da Nang for each of the last five years. They want sustained development while paying attention to the environment (in the US, we call that having our cake and eating it, too). The city is very young, with very little left from the bad old days–or good ones, either. Da Nang was largely destroyed during the last phases of the war. Foreign investments run to $3.7 billion US, with the US being one of the major players.  There are 200 NGO’s operating in the Da Nang area. There were more than 1.7 million tourists in 2011. And so forth.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Eleven.

Da Nang Airport is an Agent Orange hotspot and after 40 years still nothing grows.

April 26, Da Nang: Another full but very interesting day. First, we were met by well-known chemist Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Tam at the Da Nang airport hotspot where we learned much new about the best-studied hotspot. Briefly, during the war, the Da Nang airport had more air traffic than any other airport in the world as we unleashed our vast technological power on untamed jungles, rice paddies, and rice farmers. Part of that frenetic fratricide was Operation Ranch Hand, the Air Force program to turn paradise into a parking lot spraying dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange over more than 1/8 of the land mass of South Vietnam, and significant fractions of southern Laos and eastern Cambodia. In the process of storing, transferring, and loading the herbicide, and washing down the planes, they (of course) spilled it everywhere.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Ten.

A Luoi Valley: A So is a know Agent Orange hotspot

April 25, Wednesday: A Luoi. This valley was a major battleground throughout much of the American War. Battles named Ashua Valley, Hill 888, and perhaps others I forget were fought there. The valley angles from northwest to southeast and was a natural route from the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam aimed at Da Nang. It was sprayed heavily with defoliants throughout the war, and was bombed mercilessly. There were three Special Forces bases, A So (hence Ashua) was in the southern portion, and two others were located further north in the valley. The western side of the valley has high, forbidding mountains, either in or on the border with Laos.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Nine.

April 24, Tuesday: Off we went down Highway 9 through cobwebs of the mind looking for familiar landmarks, but everything thank god has changed. Even the best known and easiest-to-recognize pile of rocks, the Rockpile, doesn’t look the same. Back in 69 it was barren, presumably from herbicide sprays to make sure there was no cover for sappers brave enough to try to attack the tiny Marine communications outpost on the tippytop.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Eight.

April 23, Monday: We drove from Hue to Dong Ha where we had a formal meeting with local officials of the  Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO). We learned that 15.4 million tons of munitions were used during the war, and that maybe 10% did not explode, becoming unexploded ordnance (UXO). In Quang Tri Province 83% of the land is contaminated with UXO, while over the average in southern Vietnam is 20% contamination. Since the war, there have been more than 100,000 casualties throughout the country with 7,075 from this province alone, or about 1.12% of the population with 2,635 of these killed. Of course, those casualties are concentrated in certain areas so that some poor villages have been absolutely ravaged by injuries and deaths, driving them further into poverty.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Seven.

April 22, Sunday: Our excellent tour guide, Truc, started off the day by leading the hardy on a walking tour of the Imperial City of Hue.  It seems really ancient, but was only started in 1802 when the when the emperors, Nguyen brothers, moved it here from Hanoi after having gained power with the support and arms from the French. It remained the capital until 1945 when the Emperor Bao Dai abdicated to the Viet Minh, and Hanoi became the capital again.  The French briefly installed him as the “head of state” of the colony of Indochina,

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Six.

Dinh Trinh Anh Tu is 19.

April 21, Saturday: In the morning we met with the Thua Thien-Hue Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange. Their director is retired Doctor Nguyen Cuong, who I had met previously when I was in town in 2010.  He had been an NLF (Viet Cong) doctor during the war, so I am sure he has interesting stories to tell. But both times I met him he was all business: a survey in 1999 in Thua Thien-Hue Province identified about 15,000 AO victims, 5,000 in sparsely-populated A Luoi Valley alone. A follow up survey in 2008 with the 15,000 found that about 2,000 had already died. Further studies are planned to refine the numbers but have been postponed due to lack of funds and the complications of working with numerous agencies. Currently, the VAVA chapter provides free medical checkups for AO victims (as opposed to actual care), engages in poverty reduction via micro grants and micro loans, builds compassion houses for the most needy, provides free corrective surgery, and other such programs and coordinates government support for about 600 victims, or 4.6% of the total number who may need help.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Five.

Suel Jones

April 20, Friday: We flew from Hanoi late morning and arrived at Chu Lai (former US base converted into the Hue airport) under a blazing hot sun, drove to our hotel inside the walls of Hue, and moved into a splendid little motel just across the street from the walls of the Forbidden City.  We were met there by Don Blackburn, another member of the VFP Chapter 160 who lives in Nha Trang and teaches at the school that Michael Cull runs there. Don used to live in this same hotel when he lived in Hue, and Suel Jones and Chuck Palazzo were also well known by several of the staff, who were very happy to see old friends.

In the afternoon, we had a formal meeting with Ms. Chung Thi Mai the vice chair of the local Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO) for Thua Thien-Hue Province, and her staff person, Vo Dinh Anh Tuan, the deputy chief of office. They related that VUFO Hue Province has formal association with

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Four.

April 19: Thursday:  On what will probably be our busiest day of the tour, we had SEVEN appointments:  Started with a visit to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in the National Center.  We went through a security and sign language lessons in comportment by stern young soldiers dressed in white uniforms: take off your hat, no talking, no sunglasses, line up, wait here, go there.

2012 VFP Tour BlogLog. Three.

Before meeting with VUFO

April 18, Wednesday:  On our first full day, we first met with Mr. Nguyen Van Kein, Vice President of The Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO), and Mr. Bui Van Nghi of the Vietnam-U.S. Friendship Society.  These types of meetings are very formal, set in nice rooms (air conditioned, thankfully), with comfortable chairs arranged with two at one end for the principles, and the rest facing each other across the room, bottled water set on tables between each pair of chairs.  Introductions are made and niceties delivered all-round, before business is undertaken.  In this case, VUFO is in charge of maintaining relations with all of the NGOs working in Vietnam, and the VFP chapter is working towards getting NGO status here so they can be more effective in their work with remediating unexploded ordnance (UXOs) and Agent Orange left over from our little adventure in the 60s and 70s.  The USFS is our official host on the tour, with Mr. Nghi having made most of the difficult arrangements.