ATLANTA — Vietnam War veterans are making trips back to the country where they fought to help to help heal psychological wounds still lingering four decades later.
Channel 2’s Consumer Advisor Clark Howard recently made the trip to Saigon, Vietnam, with his brother who fought in the war.
It’s been 45 years since his brother, Gary, went to Vietnam at 22 years old. His job was to help set up a communications network for his Navy advisory group on a base in the southern part of the country. He acted as an advisor to a Vietnamese Navy river gunboat squadron.
His memories of Vietnam have faded over time, but he was reluctant to return.
“I had a standard Jeep, and the road was not nearly this good a road,” said Gary as he drove along familiar roads in Vietnam. “The thing that’s so hard for me to believe is how much more rich and industrial it looks today than it did 40 years ago.”
It wasn’t the Vietnam Gary remembered. Now, the country has signs of economic development everywhere.
“It’s just a great place to see, and see that we may have quit the war and may have thought we lost, but Ho Chi Minh is spinning in his grave because of all the commercialism,” said Gary.
One thing that has not changed in Vietnam is the river, something that floods back memories for Gary. Clark and Gary visited the village where Gary was stationed during the war.
“Everything that was here when I was here is gone,” said Gary.
After the trip, Gary said he thinks soldiers should come back if they get the chance.
“I think it would be comforting to see how normal the country seems and how people are going about the business of living. There’s no sense that there was ever a problem here,” he said.
WSBTV
